With the exception of the Tribune, the collection in the Pitti Palace

exceeds that of the gallery. There are here pictures from every school;

and by going often, and selecting beforehand the master whose works I

wished to see, I have spent many a morning with delight. Once or twice I

have gone merely to refresh my eyes with a marine view—a sunset by

Salvator Rosa; it is a picture all calm, all softness, all glowing

beauty; and, during the misty and darker days of this _unsouthern_

winter, I have gone—as I would in England—to warm my heart and

imagination by the golden hues of a sunnier and purer atmosphere.

The gallery of the Belle Arti is rich in paintings of the olden times,

when the soul worked more than the hand; when the artist sought, in the

first place, to conceive the sublime, and the glorious endeavour bore

him aloft among the angels and saints, whose blissful ecstasies he was

enabled to represent. Why did not some among these great artists portray

the other passions that ennoble our nature? We have portraits of great

men, worthy of them, it is true; but the ideal of the warrior who would

die for his country—nay, I may say, of the lover who loves unto the

death—the representation of such men and women as Milton and Shakspeare

have embodied in verse, is not to be found in the works of these

painters; or only found, because among their groups of worshippers at

some miracle, we see the power of great actions sit upon the brow, and

add majesty to the gesture of some among them. When they portrayed

earthly love, they betook themselves to mythology, and depicted passion,

without the touch of tender fear which must ever mingle with, and

chasten the affection we feel one for another. As far as I remember,

there is no picture such as would idealise Ferruccio Ferruccini or

Bayard—nor can I recollect the representation of mutual and tender love

in any picture by a great artist, with one exception—that called the

Three Ages of Man, by Titian—the original of which is in the Bridgwater

collection; and there is a fine copy in Palazzo Manfrin, at Venice. The

expression of the lover’s face seems to say, “I love a creature who is

mortal, and for whose safety I fear; yet in her life I live—without her

I die;” and she catches the light of tenderness from his eyes, and the

two souls seem fused in one commingling glance; but there is nothing to

shock the most bashful mind—love is evidently hallowed by that enduring

affection which is proof against adversity, and looks beyond the grave.

One of the most interesting paintings in the world has been lately

discovered at Florence; the portrait of Dante, by his friend Giotto.

Vasari mentions that Giotto was employed to paint the walls of the

chapel of the Palace of the Podesta at Florence, and that he introduced

into his picture a portrait of his contemporary and dear friend, Dante

Alighieri, in addition to other renowned citizens of the time. This

palace has been turned to the unworthy use of a public prison, and the

desecrated chapel was whitewashed, and divided into cells. These have

now been demolished, and the whitewash is in process of being removed.

Almost at the first the portrait of Dante was discovered: he makes one

in a solemn procession, and holds a flower in his hand. Before it

vanishes all the preconceived notions of the crabbed severity of his

physiognomy, which have originated in portraits taken later in his life.

We see here the lover of Beatrice. His lip is proud—for proud, every

contemporary asserts that he was—and he himself confesses it in the

_Purgatorio_; but there is sensibility, gentleness and love; the

countenance breathes the spirit of the Vita Nuova.[24]

I often visit the various churches of Florence. The old paintings to be

found in them attract me; but you must not imagine that the interior of

these Florentine cathedrals and churches is to be compared to our Gothic

edifices. The space within a large building of this sort often defies

the talent of the architect: the Greek temples had but small interior

shrines. Their rows of columns may be said to bear resemblance to the

trunks of trees; while the capital, and architrave, and roof, does not

imitate the shadowy boughs, though their purpose is the same. Gothic

architecture, on the contrary, resembles the overarching branches, and

imparts the same solemn tranquillity as the aspect of a venerable avenue

or darksome glade. The Italian architects seem not to have known well

what to do with the vast space enclosed by the majestic walls of their

edifices. They afforded glorious room for the painter; but where not

adorned by him, they are bare, presenting no image of beauty, and

inspiring no solemn feeling. The pictures and sculpture we find are,

however, sources of ever new delight; it is here that we may study the

infancy and progress of the art—here also, alas! we may perceive its

degeneracy—till, last and worst of all, we see raising to the walls, on

which inimitable frescoes are fading away, daubs that——I am not fond of

ill-natured criticism, so will say no more.

Let us turn, rather, to the gates of the Batistero, worthy of Paradise.

Here we view all that man can achieve of beautiful in sculpture, when

his conceptions rise to the height of grace, majesty, and simplicity.

Look at these, and a certain feeling of exalted delight will enter at

your eyes and penetrate your heart, which is the praise to which a

painter or a sculptor aspires. Nor forget when you visit the church of

Santa Croce, to look at some fast-fading frescoes, on the loggie of a

palace, on the right hand of the piazza. The perfect taste exhibited in

the ease and dignity of attitude and gesture of the figures will well

reward you for careful examination.

LETTER XIV.

The Carbonari.

Of late years there has been a spirit in Italy tending towards

improvement; this, perhaps, is less outwardly developed in Florence than

elsewhere, yet here also it exists. Politically and materially

considered, Tuscany is looked upon as the best governed and happiest

Italian state, but in some respects this very circumstance has kept back

its inhabitants. The foreign power that rules Lombardy exciting

undisguised hatred, and the misrule of the Popes being beyond all

question quite intolerable—the people of those states are in avowed

opposition to government, while in Tuscany there is little to complain

of, beyond the torpedo influence of a system of things that

undeviatingly tends towards the deterioration.

The reign of Leopold I. was the golden age of Florence. He was grandduke

at a time when a good sovereign was the dearest wish of a people, and

the notion of governing themselves was not looked upon even as

desirable. The French came next, and the tendency of their government

was always to destroy the nationality of any people subdued by them. But

this had a certain good effect in Italy. The curse of that country is

its divisions,—while the other nations of Europe, in the middle ages,

became divided into feudal tenures, and possessed by nobles, who, unable

to maintain their independence, at last became mere courtiers of an

absolute monarch,—Italy was divided into municipal republics, or small

states,—the mutual rivalry and quarrels of which were the fatal causes

that France and Spain disputed alternately, making Italy their field of

battle, and Italian met Italian in opposing fight; and Pisa was willing

to abase Florence; and Bologna gloried in the misfortunes of

Ferrara:—the union of the whole of northern Italy under the French was

the first circumstance that checked a spirit so inimical to all

prosperity,—all improvement.

When the French were driven from Italy the peninsula became politically

Austrian. The Austrian cabinet directed all the councils, and guided

every act of the various states. If Ferdinand contrived to maintain a

more beneficent internal government, it was only because the Tuscans

shewed no inclination to join in the revolutionary movement. But while

Austria substantially ruled the whole, it was well aware of the benefit

to be derived from disunion, and it stirred up the spirit of discord by

a curious contrivance;—a tub was thrown to the whale;—the government

ordered the institute of Milan to occupy itself in the reform of the

National Dictionary, and hence arose a fierce battle between the Della

Crusca Academy and the authors of the “Proposta” on the score of

language. Did the Italians speak Tuscan, or Italian? such was the mighty

question that engrossed the learned of Italy; it was never started among

two or three men without exciting the most violent party feeling, and

for many years it set Tuscan against Lombard. Monti, by no means a pure

political character, is accused of undertaking this war to please the

Austrians, with his eyes open to the end in view. His son-in-law,

Perticari, who shewed himself very earnest in the discussion, was too

much honoured and loved, his memory is too entirely reverenced, for him

to be open to the same accusation. For seven years the battle raged,

exciting a virulence of party and municipal feeling, quite inexplicable

out of Italy. It ended at last, as the question of big-endians and

small-endians terminated in Liliput, by every one breaking his egg at

whichever end he pleased;—the Lombards came to the conclusion that the

Tuscans might like their language best if they chose—and they must

choose, for it is not only the purest and the most idiomatic, but it is

the only language at once spoken and written, except, indeed, the Roman;

but that is very inferior in strength and vivacity.

Other influences were at work in Italy to turn the Italians from such

puerile contests. The sect of the Carbonari had spread throughout the

peninsula, and the hope of throwing off a foreign yoke and achieving

more liberal institutions animated every Italian heart.

Colletta, in speaking of the Carbonari, considers this sect to be

derived from the Freemasons of Germany—transported into their country by

the Neapolitan exiles of 1799, on their return. I have heard Italians

well versed in the secrets of Carbonarism deny this. They say that the

deeply religious and mystic spirit of the sect at its commencement,

proves its Neapolitan origin, and that it was founded by men,

Neapolitans themselves, who knew how to adapt their doctrines and their

rites to the temperament of a people, at once superstitious and lovers

of the marvellous.

The hopes of political liberty which all nations entertained when the

armies of the allies quailed before those of republican France, found an

echo in Naples; while Ferdinand and his queen, who before the French

Revolution had shown an inclination to imitate Joseph and Leopold of

Austria, in reforming the laws of their kingdom, taking sudden fright,

indulged in such acts of arbitrary power as incited rather than

repressed the desire for change. Many Neapolitans, therefore, welcomed

the French with enthusiasm, and rejoiced in the flight of their

sovereign. The liberators, as they delighted to call themselves, soon,

however, showed the cloven foot, and appeared in their true light, of

invaders and spoilers. The hearts of all real lovers of their country

were alienated from them; and if Ferdinand, on his return, during

Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt, when the French were driven from Italy,

had shewn himself moderate and forgiving, he had acquired the affection

of all his subjects. But both he and his queen seemed to be driven mad

by hatred and terror of the new doctrine of a people’s _right_ to be

well governed. Executions—the most barbarous imprisonments—persecutions

that, blinded by fury, rather attacked a friend than forgave an enemy,

followed their restoration. All the constitutionalists or republicans

fled—some to France, Germany, or Switzerland, some to the wild and

pathless mountains of the Abruzzi and the Calabrias.

When the French returned, the situation of the exiles was not mended;

and many among them continued to dwell in unknown and savage retreats,

among the inaccessible mountains and solitary valleys of those regions.

They lived without any bond to unite them together, yet not so isolated

but that they frequently met, and communicated to each other their hopes

and projects. More than the Bourbon who had persecuted them, they hated

the usurpation of the stranger. The most earnest desire of their hearts

was to drive the French from their country, while some among them,

looking beyond that time, revolved the means of strengthening their

party, so that a republic might be instituted; or, at any rate, if

Ferdinand returned, that he should be forced to concede just and free

institutions to his people.

Among the refugees of Calabria, who were not to be subdued by

persecution and adversity, was a young man of high courage, strong

understanding, and gifted with wonderful powers of persuasion. Capo

Bianco had first appeared as the bold leader of the militia of his

native place (in Calabria), and had won the love, respect, and blind

obedience of his followers. He possessed all the qualities belonging to

the head and founder of a sect. I am told that he was handsome in

person, and courteous in manners, but of a stern and inflexible

disposition; severe towards delinquents, gentle and kind to the

inoffensive, and to his friends. He added enthusiasm to these qualities,

or he would never have erected himself into the founder of a sect. He

abhorred the name of king—not because he had been persecuted by his

sovereign, but because the power of royalty was detestable in his

eyes—so that not one among his followers ever dared name before him

Napoleon or Ferdinand; Austrian or French. He would consent only to

republican institutions for his country; he desired the same government

to prevail all over Italy, and argued warmly in favour of Italian union

and independence. Such was Capo Bianco, as he is represented by the

friends who survived him: he was the founder of the most celebrated sect

of modern times, and died on the scaffold, a martyr to the cause he

advocated.

Capo Bianco had taken shelter in a spot, to which he gave the strength

of a rocky fortress, among the most rugged fastnesses of the hither

Calabria; he there defied the power of his enemies. Nor did he remain

shut up: he frequently called together and appeared among his faithful

adherents; and, communicating his bold projects, and warming them by his

persuasive eloquence, he induced them to believe that the hour was come

when they might unite with the population of their country, to throw off

the detested yoke of the French usurpation.

The Carbonari, who have survived a time now almost forgotten, relate

how, in the silence of a dark night, Capo Bianco assembled his most

attached friends near a poor hut, situated in the depth of a thick

forest, and there laid the first stone of the edifice of his sect. He

explained its principles and its spirit, and caused them to swear a

fearful secrecy on the cross. From this focus the new association

spread, guarded by tremendous oaths, and by menaces of a dreadful

vengeance to be taken upon traitors; by all the precaution, resolution

and terror, that its originator could devise. He gave his adherents the

name of Carbonari, because the society was founded in a district

principally inhabited by charcoal burners; and men who followed that

trade were among the first, appertaining to the lower classes, who were

initiated into the secrets of the sect. They, descending from the

mountains for the purposes of traffic, carried with them and propagated,

wherever they went, the tenets of their founder.

Capo Bianco understood the disposition of his countrymen, and gave a

religious and mystic colouring to his society. Striking rites were

established; the initiation was terrible; the lessons taught often

apparently abstruse; the end was single—to overturn monarchy in all its

forms, and erect republics on the ruin of thrones. To attain this among

a people pious to superstition, it was necessary to mingle mystic tenets

with political opinions; in short, to erect and disseminate a _political

religion_; and thus, not long ago, Carbonarism was professed, and found

proselytes among the mountains of Corsica and Sardinia. The laws of the

Carbonari were, they declared, founded on the equality of the gospel,

and on the traditions of Freemasonry. The initiated swore to take

terrible vengeance for the Lamb, sacrificed by the Wolves. The religion

of Christ was the lamb; kings were typified in the wolves. They said

that Jesus, who was the Word of God, had been the first who proclaimed

upon earth the abolition of ancient servitude, and taught brotherhood

and equality among men. He was therefore crucified by the wolves of his

age, and died an illustrious victim of tyranny. The Carbonari swore to

vindicate the death of Christ, and to exterminate the race of wolves,

that is of kings, who inherited the guilt and infamy of the assassins of

the Son of God. To strike the vulgar eye, fearful representations were

made in their ceremonies, apt to excite the imaginations of a southern

people of a highly religious temperament, and the proselytes pronounced

tremendous oaths upon the cross and the dagger. The initiation was

accompanied by various circumstances calculated to test the moral and

physical courage of the novices; and the slightest sign of shrinking,

caused them to be irrevocably rejected.

The Carbonari had, like the Freemasons, distinctive grades in their

society; they recognised each other by mysterious signs, and called

themselves by a secret name—that of “Buoni Cugini,” or good cousins.

They took an oath to succour, at their need, every other Carbonaro, and

to defend the honour of their women. They swore, if ever they themselves

became traitors, to consent that their bodies should be torn to pieces,

burnt, and the ashes cast to the winds; that their name should be

cursed, and become a warning to all the Carbonari scattered over the

face of the earth.

Carbonarism took deep root and spread rapidly. At one time, Murat was

induced to look upon it as a means for civilising the wild Calabrians,

and to regard it with favour. But the sect hated the French too much for

this to continue. Ferdinand, meanwhile, in his retreat at Naples, spared

no endeavour to disturb the government of the invader, and, if possible,

to drive him from the kingdom. Banditti were enrolled; a crusade

preached by the churchmen among the ignorant peasantry; and a civil war

ensued, at the horrors of which the heart sickens. He heard of the

growing power of the Carbonari, and had recourse to them.

Already, indeed, led by Capo Bianco, the Carbonari had assembled in arms

in the neighbourhood of Catanzaro; they scoured the country, attacked

the towns, drove out the partisans of the French, and, raising a cry

that the reign of Joachim had come to an end, they hoisted the

tri-coloured flag of the sect, and set up wherever they could republican

institutions. Become strong in the places of which they had possessed

themselves, they sent letters and emissaries to every _vendita_,

inciting the sectaries to raise the standard of liberty and come to

their aid. Capo Bianco was the soul of all, and inflamed their zeal by

his eloquence. “My Italian brothers,” he cried, “you are the slaves of

the French. You have changed masters, but not your state. Your new

rulers,—prouder, more insolent, and more rapacious than those of

old,—give you no repose, and you lavish without advantage your

possessions, your own and your children’s lives! Will you remain

slaves—the scorn and mock of the stranger, who heaps wrongs upon you—the

victims of the insolence and rapine of a lawless soldiery?” It were long

to recount all the arguments of the chief. He concluded by telling them

that if they joined his forces, they would command victory, and Italy,

liberated, would acquire greater splendour and power than she had ever

before enjoyed. “The destiny of our unfortunate country,” he concluded,

“is in your hands; and posterity will either bless or curse you for your

deeds.”

While this was going on at one place, Ferdinand had given it in charge

to Prince Moliterno, who was at the head of the royal forces in

Calabria, to treat with other leaders of the sect, and invite them to

espouse his cause. The Prince had ever professed republican principles;

and even then, while heading an army in the name of Ferdinand, liberty

and the union and independence of Italy were the watchwords he adopted.

He endeavoured to persuade the chiefs of the sect that, by using their

influence to drive out Murat, they would acquire such power as would

force Ferdinand on his restoration to give his people a constitution,

as, indeed, he had passed his royal word to do. Many of the Carbonari,

although at that time the society was the mark of persecution of the

French Government, shrunk from alliance with a sovereign, whom they knew

to be in his heart a despot; while others among them gave ear to his

promises, and joined the royalists. Both parties, royalists and

Carbonari, while they thought it necessary to unite to drive out the

French, fostered the secret hope that the victory once gained over the

stranger, they could easily get rid of their confederate. Capo Bianco,

however, never yielded, nor gave ear to the emissaries of the King. “You

mistake,” he said to those of his partisans who took the other course;

“and whether the royalists are victorious or defeated, you sharpen the

sword that will destroy you; and build the scaffold on which I and my

partisans will inevitably perish.”

Calabria was convulsed by these various parties; every portion of it was

in arms; and its rivers ran red with blood. Then, as is usually the case

in countries which are the prey of civil war, the evil was increased by

the crimes of ferocious and lawless men, who collected in bands and

ravaged the country, intent only on booty, and ever ready to destroy.

For two years Calabria could be said to belong neither to the French,

nor to Ferdinand, nor to the Carbonari: each had the upper hand by

turns, and were, therefore, unable to clear the country of the brigands

that infested it. This state of things could not continue, and the

French Government resolved by extraordinary and terrible measures to

root out the banditti, and to include the widespread and powerful sect

of the Carbonari in the destruction. The atrocious and sanguinary

methods by which General Manhes succeeded in extirpating the brigands is

matter of history. Colletta recounts it in his usual graphic and

vigorous manner. In his pages[25] you will find related also how Capo

Bianco was deceived, betrayed, and executed, to the shame of the French

General, Iannelli, who laid the snare by which he was entrapped. He died

with heroic firmness; intrepid and calm, he willingly gave his life for

the country and cause which he devotedly loved. Colletta, though no

friend to the Carbonari, and accused of being a partisan of the French,

yet reprobates the conduct of Murat towards the sect. “The violence and

severity exercised towards the brigands,” he says, “ought not to have

been turned against the Carbonari, for the bandits were guilty of

crimes—the sect demanded laws; the brigands were the refuse of

society—the Carbonari were honourable and honest men. Carbonarism

degenerated afterwards—but was then innocent; it had been invited and

approved by Government, and its rites and tenets were civilised and

beneficent. Many friends of Joachim begged him to disarm Carbonarism by

mild and judicious measures; but anger, which was powerful in him,

prevailed, and kept him firm in his evil counsels.”

During and after the fall of Murat and the return of the Bourbon

dynasty, Carbonarism, which had never been destroyed, spread; and while

the restored king assumed at once despotic power, the sect, finding

every promise of freedom for Italy broken, were the more zealous to

acquire partisans, and to labour for the union and independence of their

unfortunate country.

Do not think that I advocate any secret society: the principle is had.

The crown of every virtuous act and feeling is, not to fear the light of

day. But it must be remembered with what fearful odds the Italians have

to contend; they have not only openly against them the whole fabric of

their various governments, backed by an overpowering foreign army; but a

secret society is spread throughout the country, the friend of existing

institutions;—the confessional is an engine of mighty power, diffused

through every portion of every city, the most populous; entering every

hut, the most retired; acting on the fears of the timid and the

credulity of the superstitious; pandering to the bad passions of the

wicked and awakening the scruples of the pious. Every priest bids his

penitents confess, not only their participation in any act or thought

inimical to the church or to the government—not only to denounce father,

husband, or child, who might trust to them the secret of their lives—but

to reveal every little circumstance that may tend to discover the lovers

of liberty. Can it be wondered that men who wished to regenerate their

country in the face of so penetrating, so almost omnipotent a power,

should cloak themselves in impenetrable secrecy, and strive to check the

influence by counter-terrors,—equally awful?

Fearful deeds were the result of the laws of the society; the

individuals that composed it, knowing themselves to be supported by

numerous companions, and sheltered from detection by the secrecy that

veiled their name, lost their moral sense. The act, commanded by a power

to which they had sworn obedience, ceased to be a crime, and

assassination was no longer looked on as a murder, but as an execution;

numbers of Carbonari, suspected or really guilty of treason to their

oaths, were assassinated all over Italy, especially during the latter

days of the society; and volumes might be filled with the history of

these tragedies. If any man to whom the lot fell to execute the sentence

of the rest, shrunk from his task, he was considered a traitor, and

condemned to death.[26] Such was Carbonarism, at the time when it shook

kings on their thrones, and made the sovereigns of Italy tremble.

Calabria and the Abruzzi swarmed with sectarians; the society was

rapidly propagated throughout the kingdom of Naples, whence it spread to

Romagna, Piedmont, and Lombardy; _Vendite_[27] were even established in

fair and tranquil Tuscany. Every _Vendita_ was a permanent

conspiracy,—every Carbonaro an enemy to the reigning authority;—yet even

sovereigns were their accomplices, since they had made use of the

society to overthrow the dominion of the French in Italy.

The early Carbonari were men who were actuated by deep-rooted love of

their country, and detestation of the vice, ignorance, and slavery into

which Italy had fallen; they entertained the belief that means terrible

and unflinching could alone regenerate a people sunk in superstition and

slavery. The triumph of the Carbonari was the proclamation of the

constitutional government at Naples. But even then the sect was no

longer the same. It had transgressed against the great and permanent

moral laws by which society ought to be governed; it had been guilty of

crimes—now it sunk into feebleness. Its results fell miserably short of

its proud promise; for its work had been undertaken by men who were not

sufficiently prepared,—who did not look to the future;—who were often

swayed by violent and capricious passions, and whose principles were

rooted in scepticism. The pure patriotism of its originators became

tainted by the personal ambition of their followers. At the very height

of its success it was ignominiously vanquished. Unable, from whatever

cause, to resist the Austrian invasion of Naples, in 1820–21, the

constitution they had erected was overthrown, despotism reestablished,

and the chiefs of the Carbonari either fled, or died on the

scaffold;—the name became the mark for persecution.

Still the spirit of the sect is not conquered; all the outbreaks in the

Peninsula may be traced to its influence; and the different governments

of Italy have vainly had recourse to every means for its extermination.

They were unsparing in bribes to traitors; they suborned spies; they

sowed dissension in its councils, and became possessed of all its

secrets. On this account, not long ago, the society was reformed, and

became merged in other secret associations, among which that named _La

Giovane Italia_, is principal. The heads of this sect are, for the most

part, exiled beyond the Alps; but, even in banishment, they maintain

their influence, and machinate risings: above all, they sedulously keep

awake the spirit of national union. These new societies can never be as

powerful as the Carbonari were—they are but a shadow of that mighty

influence; but, if they have less power, they have committed no crimes;

and work by spreading knowledge and civilisation, instead of striking

terror.

It is to be regretted, that the patriots of Italy have recourse to

darkness and secrecy to carry on the regeneration of their country: for

falsehood is the offspring of mystery, and integrity is destroyed by a

system that hides itself from the light of day. The Italians must do

away with oaths that cannot bind the traitor; and the dagger, which

makes a murderer of him whose intent is virtuous. They must sacrifice

the formula of union, and be content with disseminating its spirit.

Could they teach inflexible truth, could they inspire military courage,

did veneration for just and equal laws spring from their lessons, Italy

were nearer the goal it pants to attain.

Meanwhile a certain good has arisen from a sect which, however founded

in love for their country, has been polluted by many crimes. Carbonarism

cannot be denied the praise of having co-operated to destroy the

anti-social municipal prejudices, and the narrow spirit of local

attachment, which was long a serious obstacle to the union of a country,

divided as Italy is into many states, and subject to the stranger. The

Carbonari first taught the Italians to consider themselves as forming a

nation. It is to be hoped they will never forget the lesson. When the

Roman considers himself, in his heart, the countryman of the

Milanese—when the Tuscan looks upon Naples as also his country—then the

power of the Austrian will receive a blow, which it has hitherto warded

off, from which it will never recover.

LETTER XV.

Tuscany.

FEBRUARY, 1843.

Nothing is more difficult than for a foreigner to give a correct account

of the state of a country—its laws, manners, and customs;—the first

often so different in their operation from what outwardly appears; the

latter, never fully understood, Proteus-like, assume a thousand

contradictory appearances, and elude investigation. A stranger can only

glance at the surface of things—often deceptive—and put down the results

of conversations, which, after all, if carefully examined, by no means

convey the whole truth, even if they are free from some bias, however

imperceptible, either in speaker or hearer, the result of which is a

false impression—a false view.

An English person, accustomed to the gigantic fortunes and well-ordered

luxury,—to the squalid penury, hard labour and famine,—which mark the

opposite orders of society in his own country, is struck by the

appearance of ease and equality that reigns in Tuscany, and especially

at Florence. There is poverty of course—but penury cannot be said to

exist; there is work—but there is also rest: nay, there is no lack of

enjoyment for the poor—while the nobility, for the most part, scarcely

rise above the middling orders; bankers and foreigners being those who

make most figure in society, and that, except on particular and

infrequent occasions, on no magnificent scale.

Many reasons may be assigned for this equality. During the flourishing

days of the republic of Florence, a blow was given to the nobility of

the city and surrounding country, from which it never recovered. Those

nobles who still preserved their titles and fortunes, were obliged to

conceal all pride in the former, in order to preserve the influence

naturally resulting from the latter. The Medici were merchants; and when

an Austrian prince succeeded to the extinct family, no change was

operated. On the contrary, it was, I believe, one of them, Leopold I.,

who abolished the law of primogeniture in Tuscany. It is true, that the

usual result of the prohibition against entails in subdividing estates,

is frequently eluded. A father possesses absolute power over his

property, with the exception of a tenth or twelfth, which is called the

_quota legitima_, which must descend to his children, and be divided

among them in equal portions. The same law appertains even to the

mother’s dowry—which becomes her husband’s property. A man may,

therefore, accumulate and leave the whole of his possessions to his

eldest son, with the exception of the above-named _quota_; and, when

this has been done for some generations, large fortunes are preserved.

But it seldom is: and as a man has absolute propriety in his estates, a

spendthrift can alienate the whole for ever. The nobles of Tuscany being

for the most part without pride of order, have readily yielded to the

spirit of their country, which absorbs them in the democracy. At the

same time, the feeling of accumulation being extinct, no barrier exists

to prevent the dissipation of property: in the hands of a young heir,

extravagance and play (the bane of Italy), soon bring to an end the

fortunes of an ancient name. Thus, I am assured, many of the noblest

families in Tuscany are reduced to poverty: the capital of the country

has fallen into the hands of bankers, the majority of whom are of Jewish

origin. A number of illustrious names, consecrated in the pages of

history, have almost disappeared. They only mark the walls of palaces,

empty of the impoverished descendants of their former possessors.

This absence of accumulated riches, of course, checks the arts of

luxury, mechanical improvements, and all progress in the framework of

society; it multiplies the numbers of those who are just raised above

poverty; while the benignant nature of the climate, and the abstemious

habits of the Italians, prevent the poor from suffering want. The

country is, for the most part, divided into small farms (_podere_),

cultivated by the family of the countryman (_contadino_) who holds

them—he giving his labour, the crops, and tools—the owner the land,

dwellings, and substantial repairs; the profits are divided, and the

rent, for the most part, paid in kind—a circumstance which aids the

farmer, and limits the fortune of the owner. The country people labour

hard—very hard, and live poorly, but they do not suffer want; and if

there are no farmers so rich as with us, there is no absolute

agricultural distress.

In Florence itself the common people are well to do. They are, perhaps,

the least agreeable people to deal with in Italy; self-opinionated,

independent, and lazy, they can often scarcely be brought to work at

all; and, when they do, it is in their own way and at their own time.

They love their ease, and they enjoy it: they are full of humour and

intelligence, though their conceit too often acts as a drawback on the

latter. I speak especially of the Florentines, as they are represented

to me; for conceit is not a usual fault among the Italians.

As I have said, an English person, accustomed to heart-piercing accounts

of suffering, hard labour, and starvation among our poor, gladly hails a

sort of golden age in this happy country. We must look on the state of

society from a wholly different point of view—we must think of the

hunger of the mind; of the nobler aspirations of the soul, held in check

and blighted—of the tendency of man to improve, here held down—of the

peculiar and surpassing gifts of genius appertaining to this people, who

are crushed and trod under foot by the jealousy of government—to

understand, with how dead and intolerable a weight King Log hangs round

the necks of those among them, who regret the generous passions and

civic virtues of bygone times. The Florentine reads of Filippo Strozzi,

of Ferruccio Ferruccini, of Michael Angelo. He remembers the pure and

sacred spirit that Savanarola lighted up among the free and religious

citizens; he thinks of the slavery that followed, when genius and valour

left the land indignant, and

“For deeds of violence

Done in broad day; and more than half redeemed

By many a great and generous sacrifice of self to others,”

what has come? The poet speaks of—

“the unpledged bowl,

The stab of the stiletto.”[28]

But those days, too, are gone; there has come such life as the flocks

lead on the mountain sides—such life as the idle, graceful fallow-deer

may spend, from spring-tide to rainy autumn, under the noble trees of

some abundant park; but where is the soul of man? In the hands of those

who teach him to fast and tell his beads—to bend the neck to the yoke—to

obey the church, not God.

Nor is this all; especially among the rich; far—far from it; for men,

unless tamed by labour, can never lead the innocent lives of the beasts

of the field: if darker crimes are unfrequent, yet vice flourishes, rank

and unchecked: the sense of honour is destroyed; the nobler affections

are crushed; mental culture is looked on with jealousy, and dies

blighted. In the young may be found gleams of inextinguishable genius—a

yearning for better things, which terrifies the parents, who see in such

the seeds of discontent and ruin: they prefer for their sons the safer

course of intrigue, play, idleness—the war of the passions, rather than

the aspirations of virtue.

_To do nothing_ has been long the motto of the Tuscan government; had it

been strictly observed, still much might be said against it. Leopold I.

was a good sovereign, a clever and liberal man; Ferdinand, who succeeded

to him, suffered many vicissitudes of fortune during the period of the

empire of Napoleon; but he was not, like his namesake of Naples, driven

by adversity to cruelty and arbitrary violence. When he was restored to

his throne, still it was his wish to keep his people happy and

contented. It is his praise, that if authority sheathed its sword and

veiled its terrors, nor even used the wholesome restraint of the law to

punish crime, it acted simply as a torpedo on the energies of the land,

nor used any concealed weapons. Ferdinand constantly and resolutely

refused to institute a _secret police_ in Tuscany. It was a story I

remember, told at the time, during the revolutionary period of 1821,

that the Austrian minister at Florence presented a list of sixty

Carbonari to the Grand Duke, and begged that they might be arrested. “I

do not know whether these men are Carbonari,” said Ferdinand; “but I am

sure, if I imprison them, I shall make them such,” and rejected the

list. His successor, Leopold II., has not had the wisdom to pursue the

same course. The bane of Italy is the absence of truth, of honour, of

straightforwardness; the vices opposite to these nobler virtues have now

the additional culture which must ensue from the circulation of a system

of _secret police_, of spies, of traitors.

Yet still the government is mild. In 31–32, the throne of Leopold II.

was shaken by several conspiracies; and the revolutionary spirit of

Romagna, which tended to unite all Italy in one bond, had numerous

proselytes in Tuscany. But for a traitor, it is supposed, that on one

occasion the person of the Grand Duke would have fallen into the hands

of the conspirators: at the eleventh hour the leader took fright, and

discovered all. On this, and on other occasions, the arrests were not

numerous; the sentences (to us to whom treason and the gallows are quick

following cause and effect,) mild; and these even, after a few months,

softened. Leopold wishes his people to be quiet and happy—he hates

violence: to pay a traitor to betray, and so to crush a conspiracy

noiselessly, appears to him wise and judicious policy. In all respects

he is averse to strong measures. For many years no capital punishment

has been inflicted in Tuscany; a fact, which of itself demands our

admiration, and must be replete with good effects.

“All this is true,” said an Italian to me; “and yet I, who wish my

countrymen to cultivate manly habits of thought and action, regard our

state as almost worse than any other. Tyranny is, with us, a serpent hid

among flowers; and I, for one, sympathise with the sentiment of a

Florentine poet—_odio il tiranno che col sonno uccide_. There are other

evils besides those which press upon the _material_ part of our nature,

and the new generation in Tuscany feels wrongs of another description.

The better spirits of our country pine for the intellectual food of

which they are deprived. Thus they tend towards a new and better order

of things, the more difficult to realise, because a timid and absurd

policy endeavours to throw every obstacle in the way to its attainment.”

LETTER XVI.

Italian Literature.—Manzoni.—Niccolini.—Colletta.—Amari.

Italian literature claims, at present, a very high rank in Europe. If

the writers are less numerous, yet in genius they equal, and in moral

taste they surpass, France and England. In these countries everybody

reads, and there is a great demand for books of amusement. M. de Custine

remarks, that the French write now for “_les concierges et les

forçats_,” the ignorant and depraved; we write for the frivolous. The

uneducated and idle in Italy do not read at all; and an Italian author

writes for readers whom he respects, or wishes to instruct: I speak of

the lighter literature. In the higher walks we are lamentably deficient,

while France boasts of admirable historians. The Italians possess modern

histories to compete with France.

There has been a great revolution in Italian poetry of late years; and

it has, to a great extent, returned to the nature and character that

marked its outset. When poetry first assumed a form in the Peninsula,

Europe was still, if not in a barbarous state, at least in the very

infancy of civilisation; and Italy alone, among European nations, taught

arts, science, and letters. The character of the youth of modern

European civilisation, with all its defects and all its charms, is

indelibly impressed on the literature of that age. The poetry of the

first great Italian poets sprang from the complicated feelings which a

new æra awoke in them. When you read their best productions, you feel

that they are animated by the energy proper to the young; and even when

they appear to guide themselves by ancient rules, the true soul of

poetry, the youth of the spirit, breaks its way through every obstacle.

The first Italian poets never obeyed, but on the contrary resisted,

Aristotelian rules. Dante, the greatest of all—Petrarch and Ariosto,

abandoned themselves to the genuine impulse of their minds, and were

great;—great, because free. The history of Italian poetry confirms the

truth, that the poet follows the real and the sublimest scope of art

when he keeps in mind the character of his country and of his age. The

highest Italian poetry is truly national.

The poets who followed were, with few exceptions, imitators; they bowed

to the rules of Aristotle, and produced no great works. Since the fall

of the republic of Florence, poetry and eloquence, which ought to have

waited on the changes and advancement of civilisation, and to have

harmonised with the thoughts and manners of the country, failed to do

so. Italian painting left no path untried so to arrive at perfection,

and sought originality by a thousand different roads; while poets were

afraid of novelty. This is not strange. The creations of genius and the

inventions of the imagination are derived from, and depend on, the moral

culture of the intellect, and this culture was shackled. After the

sixteenth century Italy never enjoyed political liberty, and the

intellect of the country was unable to develope itself with freedom. On

this account the Italians ceased to contemplate man and nature in an

original manner: they were imitators of the ancients, and in the sequel,

imitators of imitators, their literature even became influenced by that

of the French. No attempt was made to enlarge its limits or to renovate

its spirit; for such an attempt, from political reasons, would have been

dangerous. Governments who are not strengthened by public opinion,

always shackle the free exercise of the intellectual faculties. Writers

both in prose and verse, thus grew to aim at grace of diction and beauty

of imagery, unsustained by daring and original thought, or even by

variety of invention, which is more nearly allied to the enjoyment of

freedom than is usually supposed. Yet, notwithstanding these obstacles,

Italian poetry of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth

centuries, possesses high merit; and such, so to speak, is its exterior

beauty, that, had it greater intrinsic power, it would surpass every

other in the world.

Towards the end of the eighteenth century the dawn of a reform in every

branch of human knowledge may be perceived. Every one felt the need of

having recourse to the real source of inspiration, the hopes and fears

which form the national spirit of the age; among others Alfieri rose.

There can be no doubt that he was the writer who best knew how to echo

the passions and hopes of his contemporaries. I pass over the names of

the great writers who, on every subject, shed lustre over Italy at that

time, and come at once to the authors of the present day, who sprung up

at the close of the wars of the French empire, and may be said to be the

offspring of a bitter contest that arose at that time among the literary

men of Italy: and even among these, I shall confine myself to the two

who possess the highest and most durable influence, Manzoni and

Niccolini; men who, in common with other Italian writers of the present

day, reject letters as a tribute to frivolity, or means to fortune;

consecrating them to the advancement of the great interests of their

fellow-creatures, desiring to make them, as Lord Bacon expresses

himself, “a rich storehouse for the glory of the creator, and the relief

of man’s estate.”

I have mentioned in another letter how, under Monti’s auspices, a great

war of words began in Italy: about the same period another battle raged

between what was called the classic and romantic schools. It began in

1818, when Berchet, a poet of merit, descended suddenly into the arena,

throwing, by way of challenge, a translation of the Leonora of Burgher,

accompanied by an essay, discarding the old models and planting a new

banner, beneath the shadow of which the flower of the Italian youth

eagerly crowded to contend—displaying the more enthusiasm, because under

this literary discussion was hid the hope of regenerating the political

opinions of Italy. The classists were not slow in meeting the attack;

and when they found their authority, which had been respected for

centuries, was in danger of being overthrown, they hurried to the

rescue. Monti fought with them. Angry epithets, ridicule, abuse, were

bandied about by both parties in the ardour of fight. Book succeeded to

book; pamphlets and articles poured furiously down, each breathing the

ire of an earlier and more uncivilised age. The Romanticists wished to

banish the mythology—to make poetry patriotic—that is, founded on

national faith, chronicles, and sympathies. They added example to

precept; Berchet published a volume of odes which met with eminent

success; the subjects were Italian, and breathed great force of passion

and feeling. Grossi, the rival, or rather, as he calls himself, the

pupil of Manzoni, commenced with “Ildegonda,” a tale in verse, founded

on a Milanese story, which was received with immense applause. Manzoni

published his “Carmagnola;” Pellico his “Francesca da Rimini” and

“Eufemio da Messina.” Pellico, afterwards so sadly celebrated for his

misfortunes, was at this time tutor to the sons of Count Porro. He

projected founding a periodical work which should serve as a common link

between the writers of every state in Italy. Porro and Gonfalonieri

seconded him, and hence arose a periodical publication named “Il

Conciliatore” (the Conciliator). Gioga, Romagnosi, Manzoni, Grossi,

Berchet, and Montani contributed to its success, without mentioning the

political contributions of Gonfalonieri, Porro, Pecchio, Arrivabene, and

many others, who were then secretly conspiring against the government,

and preparing the ill-starred revolution of 1820–21. The first number of

the “Conciliatore” was published Thursday, 3rd September, 1818—it came

to an end in 1820. From its birth the Austrian government had decreed

its extinction; but its short life was yet glorious, since it excited

the public mind to free discussion, and gave an impetus to letters.

Manzoni rose into notice as the poet of this party. His sacred hymns and

his tragedy of “Carmagnola” appeared at the time when the literary war

raged hottest. His poems were received with enthusiasm. “Carmagnola” and

“Adelchi” were hailed as national and romantic dramas; their fame spread

into Germany and France. Goëthe speaks of them as making “a serious and

profound impression, such as great pictures of human nature must always

create.” “Let the poet,” he says, “continue to disdain the feeble and

vulgar portions of human passion, and attempt only such high arguments

as excite deep and generous emotions.”

To us these tragedies appear, though eminently beautiful as poems, to be

failures as dramas. It is not enough that passions and events are

developed, we desire character also: they have not succeeded even on the

Italian stage, on which several of Alfieri’s have kept their place. In

the “Carmagnola” the audience are at a loss on whom to expend their

sympathy. A vague and uncertain tone keeps us in suspense—not that

suspense arising from the mingled blame and admiration excited by the

hero, which is the true foundation of dramatic interest, but caused by a

sense that the writer has no determined object. The “Adelchi” is, in

parts, more interesting; but even in that we find no real hero. Our

sympathy is most excited by Ermengarda; but she is entirely episodical.

These tragedies, however, breathe a spirit that renders them dear to

every Italian. They have for their subject national events, which are

treated in a powerful and original manner. Alfieri makes his Lombard

princesses express themselves like Grecian heroines: Manzoni imbues

himself with the spirit of the times; and his personages speak and feel

in his dramas, as his creative imagination taught him that they did

during life. More particularly this is found in the “Adelchi,” where the

veil is for the first time lifted from the intrigues of the Popes, who

contrived the overthrow of the Longo Bardi, and the successful invasion

of Charlemagne, not in the interests of Christianity, but in that of

their own temporal power; and the vain struggle of the falling Lombards,

with the insolence of the invader and the hypocrisy of the priest, is

finely drawn. It is his odes, however, that give high rank to Manzoni as

a poet. In these, his diction is exquisitely finished, and his

conceptions rise to the sublime. No reader can fail of being carried

away by the pathos and fire of the chorus in Carmagnola, describing the

horrors of the wars of invasion in Italy, which became civil contests,

as the various states adhered to one or other of the foreign powers, who

poured down from the Alps for their destruction. The “Cinque Maggio” is,

out of his own country, the most popular of Manzoni’s odes, but this

chorus and the sacred hymns obtain the greatest meed of praise in Italy.

The “Promessi Sposi” followed. This, to a certain degree, is an

imitation of the romances of Walter Scott: it rises above in grandeur of

description and in unity and nobility of purpose, though in

inexhaustible fecundity of character, the Scotch writer surpasses the

Italian. The historian Ripamonti suggested his subjects. The account of

the Innominato is to be found in his pages, as well as that of the

errors of a high-born nun—of a sedition, a famine, a pestilence—of the

character and life of Federigo Borromeo; but these, though suggested by

history, are treated with a poetic fire, an originality of idea, and a

vitality, which belongs entirely to Manzoni himself. His tale is

sustained by a moral, or rather religious scope. He desires in his

romance to prove that society, both civil and political, is diseased,

and that Catholicism must be the remedy. Manzoni is a devout Catholic.

He paints, with peculiar fervour, the merits and uses of a pious clergy;

and personifying it under the names of Father Cristofero and Cardinal

Borromeo, he shows the beneficial influence it may obtain over the

people and the nobility, of whom Renzo and Lucia, the Innominato and Don

Rodrigo, are the representatives. It is not the vulgar notion of

bringing forward the Pope, with his army of priests and monks, as the

regenerators of society, at which he aims; it is the Christian spirit of

resignation and self-denial that he wishes to revive, and render the

master-feeling of the world. Manzoni is eminently pious and

resigned—this is the internal spirit; in form he adheres to ancient

Catholicism, which he regards as the final tendency of humanity.

Manzoni was born at Milan in 1784. I have heard that his father was a

man totally without instruction; while his mother, the daughter of the

Marchese Beccaria, author of the well-known work, “Dei delitti e delle

Pene,” was an accomplished and active-minded woman. Manzoni spent many

of his early years on the Lake of Como, at the very spot where he places

the scene of his romance. In his youth the Latin poets occupied his

attention; he read Virgil and Tibullus with delight—while in Italian he

studied the works of the _cinquecentiste_: so that I have heard that his

early unpublished verses are conceived in the spirit of those writers.

But he soon broke away from such fetters. He read and admired Dante,

with the deep-felt enthusiasm a poet naturally experiences for that

sublime writer. At the beginning of the present century Manzoni visited

France, and lived for some years with his mother in Paris. In 1808 he

returned to Milan, and soon after, chiefly induced by the instigations

of his relations, he married a Protestant lady, the daughter of Blondel,

a banker of Geneva. They visited Rome, where the lady became a convert

to Catholicism; and, as I am told, converted also her husband, who

heretofore had been sceptical or careless on religious subjects—but who,

from that hour, became an ardent and devout Catholic. He passes the

greater portion of the year at his villa, five miles from Milan; he sees

little society, being by disposition excessively shy. In 1831 he had the

misfortune to lose his wife, whom he fondly loved and entirely trusted.

I never had the happiness of seeing him: he is, I am told, of middle

stature, of gentle aspect, resembling the portraits of Petrarch—and

suffers somewhat from nervousness. He is profoundly versed in history,

political economy, and agriculture; and it is said is now occupied on a

history of Italian literature and a philosophical work. In his tastes

with regard to poetry not Italian, he admires Schiller and Shakspeare;

but, unlike almost every other foreigner, the scepticism of Lord Byron

renders his poetry distasteful to him. His soul is filled with love of

the beautiful, the elevated, and the pure. These qualities shine forth

particularly in his odes, which, since Petrarch, are the most perfect

lyrics in the language; and among them, the “Inni Sacri” are

distinguished for the exquisite finish and poetic fire that adorns the

fervent piety which they breathe.

It would be vain to attempt to say even a few words of the swarm of

romance writers that have tried to follow in his steps, and who all

deserve the same praise of writing to instruct and elevate, and not, as

is too usual with writers of fiction, to amuse, and even corrupt. Out of

Italy, Azeglio ranks highest. Like all Italian writers of the day, he is

animated by a patriotic feeling. The desire of destroying the prejudices

that separate state from state, made him, who is a Piedmontese, choose

for his heroes Neapolitans and Florentines. In his first novel, “Ettore

Fieramosca,” he impresses on his readers the loveliness of the feminine

character, depicting the purest struggles between passion and duty. In

“Niccoli de’ Lapi,” a burning love of country, joined to a piety at war

with the grosser superstitions of Rome, adorns his venerable hero. The

Tuscans generally do not like his style, and prefer that of Grossi.

Tommaso Grossi is the intimate friend of Manzoni, to whom he dedicated

his popular romance of “Marco Visconti,” calling him by the endearing

name of “Master.” He commenced his literary career by the publication of

two beautiful tales in verse, “Ildegonda,” and the “Fuggitiva;” in this

species of composition there is no one to compare with him, and

“Ildegonda,” in the estimation of his countrymen, is quite inimitable. A

Florentine, Guerrazzi, has published two romances, “L’Assedio di

Firenze,” and “La Battaglia di Benevento,” popular in his own country,

from the ardent, the almost frantic love of liberty which inspires their

author. This is a spirit that ever finds a clear echo in hearts

palpitating with the sense of wrong, and with the aspiration to

independence. He is eloquent and passionate in his style, and has happy

touches of situation and character which show him to be a man of

genius—but he is diffuse, exaggerated, and sometimes incoherent.

A greater man than these, and in the eyes of his countrymen, equal to

Manzoni, is the Florentine, Gian. Battista Niccolini. This poet, it is

true, is not as celebrated as the author of the “Promessi Sposi” on this

side of the Alps, but in Italy he has attained an equal, and indeed, in

some respects, a higher reputation. Niccolini is a tragic and lyric

poet, and a great prose writer. He commenced his career, as a dramatist,

by tragedies on Greek and mythological subjects. His mind full of the

verses of Dante, Tasso, and Ariosto, he reproduced on the stage, garbed

in simple and sublime poetry, the theatre of the Greeks. His

“Polixena”—his “Ino e Temisto,” and his “Œdipus,” might be said to be

written on the model set by Alfieri, and equally liberal in sentiment.

They were acted, and the beauty of the verses insured their success.

Niccolini soon, however, became aware that his works did not meet the

wants of modern society, and that he ought no longer to remain in the

ways trodden by his masters; but that the time had arrived when to cease

imitating the ancients. He resolved to seek the reputation of an

original poet, and to create a new theatre. The “Foscarini,” a national

subject, in which he paints, in the liveliest and blackest colours, the

dark tyranny of the Venetian aristocracy, had a success on the stage

previously unexampled in Italy. The enthusiasm spread among every rank

of society; country people, farmers and labourers from the environs of

Florence, were seen mingled with the lower class of citizens, besieging

the avenues of the theatre for hours before the opening of the doors.

Animated by this success, Niccolini composed the “Sicilian Vespers,”

which is, in fact, a protest in favour of Italy.[29] This drama was

received with transports of enthusiasm. The French Secretary of

Legation, M. de la Noue, had the folly to complain to the Tuscan

government of certain expressions levelled against the French nation.

The Austrian Minister laughed at his application, and saw through the

artifice. “_Vous ne voyez pas_,” he said, “_que si l’addresse est à

vous, le contenu est pour moi_.” An interesting and sad incident

occurred on the first representation of this play. The mother of

Niccolini, an aged woman, insisted on being present—the immense success

and triumph of her son were too much for her—she was carried dying out

of the theatre, and only survived two days.

The style of Niccolini’s tragedies is looked upon by his countrymen as a

perfect model for the romantic drama. It is elevated and yet natural.

The poet rises to the height of his argument; his versification is

harmonious yet severe—his imagery rich and choice; his tone is majestic,

and through all there glows an ineffable love of his art. Niccolini is

celebrated also as a lyric poet; but as far as I have read, he falls

very short of Manzoni. As a prose writer he has as yet only published

his speeches delivered in the Accademia delle belle Arti. They justify

his reputation for research, and may be pointed out as models of style

and eloquence; he proves himself in them to be an original thinker, and

capable of understanding and judging the age in which he lives.

Niccolini joins to his intellectual greatness a character that makes him

the darling of his native city. Devoid of vanity, of pure and exemplary

life, he passes his days at Florence, surrounded by friends who respect

and love him. He is at present busily occupied by an arduous work, the

“History of the House of Swabia.”

Italy, from the earliest times, has been renowned for its historians.

From Dino Compagni and Villani until Botta, Colletta, and Amari, the

Italians appear to inherit the art of narrating events, and describing

men and countries, as well as of deducing philosophical conclusions from

the experience of past ages.

Colletta’s “History of the Kingdom of Naples, from the year 1734 till

the year 1825,” is a remarkable work, as not being the production of an

author who spent his life among books, but of a man who bore a

distinguished part in the political and military affairs of his time,

and who was somewhat advanced in years when, exiled from his country, he

dedicated himself to the study of his native language and the

composition of his history.

The first publications of Colletta consisted of a “Narrative of the

Revolution of Naples in 1820,” and the “History of the Death of Murat.”

The vigour of his style, the truth that reigned in his narrative, and

the warmth of enthusiasm that animated his pen, attracted attention, and

received applause. To a certain degree an adherent of the French rule in

Naples, though fully aware of its faults and its injustice, he, in the

account of the death of Murat, undertook, with just indignation, to

defend the illustrious partizans of the fallen sovereign, whom the

minister, Medici, falsely accused of having ensnared and betrayed him;

throwing the blame where it was due, on the rashness of the victim and

the baseness of his enemies. This narration is incorporated in his

history, and forms one of its most striking passages. It seems to me one

of the finest pieces of writing in the world—full of a mournful dignity,

that renders its pathos touching, and gives grandeur to its scorn.

A few pages are prefixed to his history, written, I believe, by his

friend Count Gino Capponi, which gives an account of his life. While yet

a mere boy, he was imprisoned by Ferdinand on a slight suspicion of

liberalism, and with difficulty escaped with his life. He, though his

name is omitted by French writers, accompanied the soldiers of Murat in

their attack upon Capri, and by his gallantry and sagacity mainly

contributed to its success. Many important posts, both civil and

military, were entrusted to him by Murat, and, on his return, by

Ferdinand, and he acquitted himself in all with reputation. He acted at

once a prudent, firm, and patriotic part, during the Neapolitan

revolution. But though Ferdinand employed, frequently consulted, and

often followed his advice, this did not save him after the Austrian

invasion. He was first imprisoned at Brünn, in Moravia, at the foot of

the Castle of Spielburg, of infamous renown; afterwards, as his health

failed, he was allowed to transfer himself to Tuscany. During his

severer imprisonment and milder exile, ever ambitious of a noble fame,

he meditated his future work. First, he applied himself to the study of

his native tongue, forming his style on that of Tacitus; and then, armed

with the strength of pictorial and vigorous language, he dedicated

himself to the compilation of his history.

An eye witness of many of the events which he narrates, and frequently a

prominent actor in them, he strives to be impartial both to friends and

enemies. He has not, however, escaped the blame of undue bias. He

expresses his opinions at times with too much passion, displaying

excessive severity against his rivals or opponents in his military

career. This, however, is not much; and, with very slight drawbacks, he

may be esteemed worthy of the reader’s confidence. He knew the men whose

character he draws, and these individual portraits give value to the

work they contribute to adorn. Among them may be named, in especial,

that of the infamous Canosa, and the youthful hero, Emanuel de Deo. Even

more admirable are his striking descriptions, after the manner of

Tacitus. If you shrink from undertaking the whole work, read the

accounts of the earthquake in Calabria in 1783—of the executions of

1799—of the death of the unfortunate Murat—of the tragical fate of the

Vardarelli—and the character of the reign of Ferdinand, at the

conclusion. It will be difficult to find finer passages in any history.

He came to Florence in 1823, and died on 11th November, 1831. The

interval was spent in composing his work, and rendered happy by his

intimate friendship with two Italians, esteemed as the cleverest men of

their time, Count Gino Capponi and Valeriani, translator of Tacitus.

These friends assisted him with their counsels and criticisms—some

Italians go so far as to consider Gino Capponi the writer of the

history. But others, who associated with Colletta and his friends at

Florence, have assured me that this supposition is entirely erroneous.

Quite lately, another historical work has appeared, the production of a

young Sicilian, Michele Amari, who promises, from his talents, his

industry, and the admirable spirit of his book, to add another

illustrious name to Italy.

The Sicilian Vespers was a tremendous event, which astonished and

confounded the nations, and even in Italy was ill understood by

contemporary historians. It was supposed to be the result of a

conspiracy formed by Giovanni da Procida, under the auspices of Don

Pedro, King of Arragon, who reaped the fruits. Amari, on consulting the

archives of Sicily, found reason at first to suspect the truth of, and

afterwards entirely to reject, this explanation of an event, which, in

this light, could only be regarded as a cruel massacre—but which, from

the documents he adduces, he proves to have resulted, not from a

treacherous conspiracy, but from the sudden impulse of a people

maltreated and insulted to desperation; whose only defence was the

knife, whose only safety rested in utterly rooting out their oppressors.

Fired with generous sympathy for a people who, against a fearful odds,

resolved to liberate themselves from a barbarous foreign oppression,

Amari relates the events of the war that followed the massacre with

glowing eloquence. The history of the siege of Messina may take place

beside the noble resistance of Numantia and Saragossa, with the more

cheering result that it was successful. This portion of his work, and

the subsequent chapters that describe the last war and death of Don

Pedro of Arragon, are admirably written. You will scarcely find in any

historian a more animated and graphic narration than that which tells

how Don Pedro, deserted by all, hated by all, proudly and sternly, and

at last successfully, stood his ground against his numerous and

triumphant foes.

It is the work of a young man, and of a Sicilian, who had to learn and

form the language in which he writes. The style wants elegance; the

construction of the history is imperfect, and, at times, rambling; but

it has the first and best merit of a work of genius—it is written from

the heart. The enthusiasm of the author carries the reader along with

him; you forget the imperfections in the justness of his reflections,

and the sincerity of his convictions; you excuse the absence of

methodical order as you are carried away by the interest which he throws

over the facts he narrates.[30]

LETTER XVII.

Voyage to Rome.

MARCH 20.

I left England, as you know, with very vague ideas of whither I should

go. I did not dare entertain a hope that I should visit Rome. But,

“Thought by thought, and step by step led on,”

We have reached what Dr. Johnson says is the aim of every man’s desire.

My companions dreaded a long _veturino_ journey, whose leisure is a

false lure, since you always arrive too late, and set out too early, to

see anything in the towns where you stop. I consented to go by sea, and

Heaven rewarded the act of self-sacrifice.

We left Florence at twelve at night, in one of the most uncomfortable

_veturino_ carriages I ever had the ill fortune to enter. The moon was

near its full, and its bright snow-like glare almost blinded my friends,

who rode outside, and prevented them from sleeping. The morning dawned

golden and still; and, although it was March, we anticipated a calm

voyage. So it proved. We embarked on board the “Castor,” a small, but

well-built and quick steamer, and dropped down towards Elba. The view

from the sea near Leghorn is not sufficiently praised. The Ligurian Alps

“Towards the North appeared,

Thro’ mist, a heaven: sustaining bulwark, reared

Between the east and west.”

The sun went down beneath the sea, and the full moon rose at the same

moment from behind the promontory of Piombino—hazy at first,—but as she

rose higher, assuming her place as radiant Queen of Night. We passed

between the island of Elba, whose dark and distinct outline rose out of

the calm water, and the shadowy form of distant Corsica; as we

proceeded, other and other islands appeared studding the tranquil deep,

and varying its sublime monotony. It was very difficult to consent to

shut one’s eyes on so very fair a scene.

At sunrise we were on deck again, and the steamer, with that sort of

pride which a boat always seems to exhibit when it reaches its bourne,

entered the harbour of Civita Vecchia. We were detained for _pratique_

till eight o’clock, when the Governor got up, and for three hours we had

full leisure to contemplate the growth of the morning on the sea, and to

feel tired of conjectures about the towers and buildings on shore. As

soon as we landed, and had breakfasted, and were refreshed, we set off

in a separate diligence for the Eternal City.

The road for some miles bordered the sea. The shore is varied by little

bays, inlets, and promontories—every five miles is a watch-tower,—the

Maremma is spread around, deadly in its influence on man, but in

appearance, a wild, verdant, varied pasture land, with here and there a

grove of trees, and broken into hill and dale: the waves sparkled on our

right; the land stretched out pleasant to the eye on the left; mountains

showed themselves on the horizon. No one can look on this country as

merely so much earth—every clod is a sacred relic—every stone is an

object of curiosity—every name we hear satisfies some desire or awakens

some cherished association. And thus, in a sort of trance of delight, we

were whirled along, till the old walls appeared. We entered by the

Janiculum, and skirted the Place of St. Peter’s; then the pleasant spell

was snapped, as we had to turn our thoughts to custom-houses, hotels,

and all the worry of arrival.

Evening advanced; but what ailed the Romans? they were all looking up at

the sky—it was an epidemic—in crowds or singly, not an eye looked

straightforward; all were looking at the heavens;—at a turn in the

street we looked too, and saw in the south a long trail of glowing

light; we were the more surprised, as we had perceived nothing of the

sort the previous night at sea. It was a comet, of course;—does it shine

in your more northern hemisphere? here, it loses itself among the stars

of Orion, while the nucleus is below the visible horizon;—it is bright,

yet the stars shine through its web-like texture, which, composed of

thin beams, is stretched out, and you may see delicate sea-weeds—or

aquatic plants in a stream, through a large space of the heavens.

LETTER XVIII.

Raffaelle at Rome.

APRIL 5.

The multitude of pictures and statues at Rome is such, that it is quite

impossible to give the most cursory account of the Galleries. I have

been more struck even than I expected, by what I have seen; the limits

of man’s power appear enlarged to the uttermost verge of all that the

imagination can conceive of beautiful and great.

The admirable proportion of the temple-like chambers in which the finest

relics of ancient statuary are placed—the snatches of views that you

catch, from open windows, of the papal gardens and the country around

the city, renders a visit to the Vatican a step out of everyday life

into a world adorned by the works of the highest genius of all countries

and all times. It is a great pity that they are not arranged in a manner

to instruct the spectator as to the age and schools to which they

belong—the collection at the Vatican greatly needs to be regulated by

enlightened criticism—but here, everything is done from paltry motives:

a man, who in some way can command patronage, writes a catalogue of all

the statues, and changes their numbers and places, to make it necessary

that you should buy his book; so that those who go with the elaborate

and learned works of German critics in their hands, find every reference

a mistake, and get hopelessly embroiled.

It is said that all the works of ancient Grecian sculpture bear the

character of divine repose; and that those statues which are in

attitudes of action, are the works of Greeks, indeed, but executed when

Greece was a province, at the command of Roman masters. Among such, is

the Apollo Belvidere, which is not adorned by the faultless perfection

of Athenian art—yet who can criticise? As I entered the compartment in

which he stands, a divine presence seemed to fill the chamber. The

godlike archer is stepping forward; his gesture and look breathe the

eagerness and gladness of victory. In some sort, this statue is the

ideal of a youthful hero—but he is not human—there is no trace of the

chivalrous feeling, that even in triumph honours the fallen. He is above

fear and above pity.

From room to room the eye is so fed by sights of beauty, “that the sense

aches at them;” truly the limbs unwillingly fail. From the halls of the

statues you go through long galleries filled with funereal urns, ancient

maps, and old tapestry worked from Raffaelle’s cartoons, into rooms

where the paintings are. It is managed so, that when you have passed

through all, you quit the rooms by the loggie of Raffaelle, and the

Swiss on guard does not permit you to return;—there is no great harm in

this—as it would be nearly impossible to walk the whole way back again.

Visitors ought, nevertheless, to be allowed to enter by this door at

choice, that they may at once reach the pictures without the extra

labour of traversing the extensive galleries that lead to them. Of the

oil paintings we see here, the San Geronimo by Domenichino is perhaps

the finest. Of the Transfiguration I have before spoken: as a

composition, it is esteemed the grandest picture in the world; but I

turn from it to others (to the Madonna di Foligno, for instance) of an

earlier date, in which there is a more heavenly grace; an expression of

celestial and pure beauty, an emanation of the immortal soul, superior

to any perfection of colouring or grouping.

But it is among the frescos of Raffaelle that I have lingered longest

with the greatest delight. These were the first works of this matchless

painter, when called to Rome. He had been soliciting leave to be

associated with Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo in painting the

halls of the Palazzo Vecchio, at Florence, when Pope Julius II. called

him to Rome, and gave him in charge to adorn the walls of the Vatican.

At this time Michael Angelo was, I will not say, his rival; but, as he

painted the Sistine Chapel while Raffaelle was engaged upon the Vatican,

a passion of generous emulation rose in the heart of the latter that

spurred him on to work with indefatigable ardour. As Lanzi tells us, the

subjects chosen for these halls elevated his imagination. They were not

scenes from old mythology, “but the mysteries of the noblest science—the

most august circumstances pertaining to religion, and military deeds

whose result established peace and faith in the world.” None better than

Raffaelle could achieve this work; for of all men he had firmest hold of

“that golden chain which is let down from Heaven, and with a divine

enthusiasm ravishes our souls, made to the image of God, and stirs us up

to comprehend the innate and incorruptible beauty to which we were once

created.”[31]

He began by the figures of Theology, Philosophy, Poetry, and

Jurisprudence, on the arched roof of one of the rooms. The figures of

Theology and Poetry, particularly the latter, are in the highest style

of mystic art. The picture named the Dispute of the Sacrament—if that be

the name of a picture which is, after all, nameless—covers one of the

walls. There is an assemblage of all the doctors of the church, and

among them Raffaelle boldly placed Dante, with his laurel crown, and,

still more boldly, Savanarola, who ten years before had been publicly

burned at Florence as a heretic.[32] Above these groups, heaven opens,

and the Trinity and the Angels are congregated. By the lovers of the

mystic school, this picture is preferred to every other; yet I was more

struck by that which represents the Vision driving Heliodorus from the

Temple. The story, as told in the Apocrypha,[33] is fitted to excite the

imagination. Through the relation of Simon, Seleucus sent Heliodorus,

his treasurer, to seize on the wealth of the Temple, laid up by Onias,

the High Priest, for the relief of widows and fatherless children. When

Heliodorus entered the Temple to execute the king’s command, “there was

no small agony throughout the whole city. Then, whoso looked the high

priest in the face, it would have wounded his heart; for his

countenance, and the changing of his colour, declared the inward agony

of his mind.” The whole city flocked, transported by indignation and

grief. “And all, holding up their hands to heaven, made supplication.”

Heliodorus, nevertheless, persisted; but when he presented himself at

the treasury, “the Lord of Spirits, and the Prince of all power, caused

a great apparition, so that all that presumed to come in with him were

astonished at the power of God, and fainted, and were sore afraid.”

It is deemed the triumph of art to adorn the real with something grander

than meets the ordinary gaze; but to paint the superhuman, and convey to

the eyes the image of that which surpasses the might of visible objects,

and can scarcely be conceived by the strongest effort of the

imagination, is that which Raffaelle only could achieve. In this fresco

the vision of a “horse with a terrible rider” fills the beholder with

awe—the one shakes terror from his looks, while the horse may be seen to

neigh and breathe destruction around. The figures of the two youths,

“notable in strength, and excellent in beauty,” who are driving the

spoiler with scourges from the Temple, are divine in swiftness and

might. Celestial indignation animates their gestures, and motion was

never painted so real, so impetuous, so uncontrollable.

This was among the latter works of Raffaelle. Whether it be, as M. Rio

argues, that falling from that high devotional state of mind which

inspired his younger works, he could no longer rise to ideal perfection,

or that the remains of antique art at Rome, and the simple and majestic

pencil of Michael Angelo, in the Sistine Chapel, giving larger scope to

his ideas of composition, he began a new style, and the powers of man

being limited, the attaining something new, however excellent,

occasioned him to lose a portion of that which he before possessed;

there can be no doubt that his manner entirely changed. I am not always

disposed to regret this alteration. It has been the cause of a variety

in excellence; for if we miss in his latter pictures the portraiture of

innocence, and divine love, represented in the Madonnas and saints of

his first style, we have something else, which no one but Raffaelle

could give. To understand me, let me ask you to call to mind the Madonna

di Foligno in the Vatican, and the Descent from the Cross in the Palazzo

Borghese. The first beams, with an adorable and beatified sweetness, all

purity and love. In the second, do you remember, besides the many other

pity-striking figures, the St. John? He is holding one end of the cloth

which enfolds his dead master’s body. The expression of agony proper to

the beloved disciple, struggles with the exertion of strength

necessitated by the act on which he is employed; the resolution to

perform the rites due to the dead, is mingled with yearning veneration

for the corpse of him whom he passionately adored. These pictures are

the triumph of Christian art. Then recollect the frescos of the history

of Psyche in the Farnesina, and the youthful and nymph-like loveliness

of the Galatea—these are specimens of his last style—and form your own

opinion as to his improvement or otherwise. Whichever way you incline,

there is one conclusion to which you must necessarily come, that

Raffaelle in both styles, the Christian and the Pagan, is superior to

every other painter—“high actions and high passions best describing.”

Day after day, often accompanied by our accomplished friend, whose taste

and knowledge are invaluable, we visit the galleries of Rome. In one

small chamber of the Barberini palace are three gems of art; and in

these, expression appeared triumphant over skill, to the disadvantage of

Raffaelle. A portrait of the Fornarina is contrasted with that of

Beatrice Cenci, by Guido. In vain I was told to compare the exquisite

finish, the faultless painting of cheek and lip, of the

disagreeable-looking beauty, with the comparatively imperfect touches of

Guido’s pencil. The innocent, tearful face of the young and lovely girl,

whose look expresses the self-pity which must have swelled in her heart,

as she thought, how she, from very horror of crime, was become a

murderess, put to shame the dark eyes and pencilled brows of her, whose

passion was devoid of tenderness. It is gratifying to see the work of an

English painter in a Roman church. The picture by Mr. Severn in the

Cathedral of San Paolo fuori delle Mura, is a beautiful composition, and

shews to great advantage. It is the first work of a Protestant artist

admitted into a Roman church. The high esteem in which Mr. Severn was

held in Rome ensured him this distinction.

I have visited with great pleasure the studios of modern statuaries.

They are mostly now employed in portraying or idealizing a Capuan

peasant-woman, la Grazia, whose beauty is of an expressive, mobile, and

grand cast. The best representation of her is as Hagar in the desert.

The angel of the day of judgment, by Tenerani, is very fine; and Mr.

Gibson’s studio contains statues admirably executed in that classic

taste which he so successfully cultivates.

LETTER XIX.

Ruins of Rome.—The Holy Week.—Music and Illuminations.

TRINITÀ DE’ MONTI, APRIL.

“What are the pleasures that I enjoy at Rome?” you ask. They are so

many, that my mind is brimful of a sort of glowing satisfaction, mingled

with tearful associations. Besides all that Rome itself affords of

delightful to the eye and imagination, I revisit it as the bourne of a

pious pilgrimage. The treasures of my youth lie buried here.

The sky is bright—the air impregnated with the soft odours of spring—we

take our books and wile away the morning among the ruins of the Baths of

Caracalla, or the Coliseum. From the shattered walls of the former, the

view over the city and the Campagna is very beautiful. The Palatine is

near at hand, and majestic ruins guide the eye to where the golden

palace spreads its vast extent. These ruins, chiefly piles of

brick—remnants of massive walls or lofty archways—may not be beautiful

in themselves; but overgrown with parasites and flowering shrubs, they

are grouped in so picturesque a manner among broken ground and dark

gigantic trees—the many towers of the city gathering near—the distant

hills on the clear horizon, with clouds just resting in scattered

clusters on the tops, and the sky above, deeply blue—that the whole

scene is delightful to _feel_, as well as look at.

There is one view from the Coliseum that I am never tired of

contemplating. Ascending to the second range of arches, and looking from

the verge towards the tomb of Cestius—in the foreground is the Temple of

Venus, the Palatine Mount, and the ruins of the Forum—the country,

varied by woods and hills and ruins, is spread beyond—the tomb of

Cestius, gleaming at a distance, is a resting place for the eye—and

various trees seem placed expressly to give the scene the air of a

landscape sitting for its picture—all grace and smiles and radiance.

The Forum used to be, long, long ago, before I ever saw it, a broken

space of ground, with an avenue through the Campo Vacino leading to the

Coliseum, with triumphal arches and tall columns half-buried in the

soil. Now the excavations are considerable. I have heard painters lament

that the picturesque beauty has been spoilt; but as its appearance, such

as time and neglect had left it, is changed, it is as well to complete

the task of excavation. Much has been done since I was here last, and

workmen are in constant employ. I wish you could see the chief among

them. Imagine an Indian file of fifty old men in the last stage of

decrepitude, grey-headed, bent-shouldered, and feeble-legged, each

rolling a small wheelbarrow, creeping along so slow, and yet that

extreme slowness appearing an exertion for them.

From the Forum we ascended the hill of the Capitol, and, with some

trouble, got the custode, and mounted the tower of the Campidoglio. We

looked round, and fancied how, from this height, the patricians and

consuls of Old Rome watched the advance of marauding parties that wound

out from the ravines of the hills, or whose spears and helmets glittered

above the brow of the Janicular hill; and the cry of the Sabines, or

fiercer and more terrible, of the Gauls, made the populace gather in the

Forum below, and give their names to be inscribed as soldiers for

instant fight. The Tiber glitters in the distance, and Soracte rising

from out the plain,

“Heaves like a long-swept wave, about to break,

And on the curl hangs pausing.”[34]

I never look at the ridge of Sant’ Oreste, (as it is now called,) but

these lines, which so admirably paint it, come into my mind.

I scarcely know what view of Rome to prefer. That from the ruined Baths

of Caracalla, or from the verge of the Coliseum, or the panorama of the

Capitol, or from the porch of the Lateran, which commands a different

landscape.—You see nothing of the city, for your back is turned on it;

you are on a height, the Campagna at your feet, spanned by a number of

ruined aqueducts, whose grandeur and extent impress the mind, more than

any other object, with a sense of Roman greatness. From the Lateran down

to the Coliseum, nearly a mile, and in the adjoining space, was the most

magnificent quarter of the old city. Now it is occupied by _Poderi_,

divided by high walls, with here and there a ruin—a toppling wall or

broken arch. When Pope Gregory VII. called in Robert Guiscard to drive

Henry III. from his capital, the Saracens of Sicily, under the command

of the Norman, sacked Rome, and this portion of the city was burned and

levelled with the soil. So utter was the desolation, that the survivors

found it more convenient to build nearly a new town at a distance, than

to attempt to restore their homes among the smoking ruins of palaces,

temples, and baths, which lay a black heap, till they crumbled away—and

trees and flowers sprung up, and the peasantry came with the plough, and

sowed seed and reaped corn.

We spent half a day rambling over the Palatine—the Contadino, our guide,

told us that every July and August, the mal’ aria reigned, and his

sunken cheeks spoke of his having been a victim. He asked us if we had

the mal’ aria in England.—“Che bel paese,” he said with a sigh on

hearing our negative.

Often, as at Venice, we leave our home without any definite object, and

wander about the deserted part of Rome—that which once was the centre of

its magnificence. Thus we viewed the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli,

built by Michael Angelo, with materials, columns and marbles, remnants

of the Baths of Diocletian; it is one of the most striking and majestic

of the Roman churches. Thus we found ourselves at the foot of the

Capitol, and an inscription led us to visit the Mamertine prisons, a

spot held sacred since St. Peter and other Christian martyrs were

confined there. It is indubitably the oldest relic of the ancient

republic, and the monument of its cruel and arrogant disdain for human

life and suffering, impresses one painfully. How much of that has there

ever been all over the world—and now! I used to pride myself on English

humanity; but the boast is quenched in shame, since I read, last winter,

the accounts of the cruelties practised in the Affghan war. We were

injured, and, therefore, we revenge; such also was the tenet of old

Rome.

The galleries of the Capitol often entice us. Here are some of the

finest statues in the world. The Amazon, in whom a severe and martial

expression is allied to feminine grace, and a something womanly softens

the countenance in spite of sternness. The Venus of the Capitol is the

only Queen of Beauty that can at all compete with the Goddess of the

Tribune. The Cupid and Psyche is less tender and innocent than the

Florentine group, but there is a passionate love in the caress that

makes the marble appear tremulous with emotion.

APRIL 20.

Holy Week is over. The ceremonies of the Church strike me as less

majestic than when I was last here; perhaps this is to be attributed to

the chief part being filled by another actor. Pius VII. was a venerable

and dignified old man. Pope Gregory, shutting his eyes as he is carried

round St. Peter’s, because the motion of the chair makes him sea-sick,

by no means excites respect. If I ever revisit Rome during the Holy

Week, I shall not seek for tickets for the ceremonies; it will be quite

enough to enter the Cathedral for half an hour while they were going on.

But a thousand times over I would go to listen to the Miserere in the

Sistine Chapel; that spot made sacred by the most sublime works of

Michael Angelo. I do not allude to the Last Judgment—which I do not

admire—but to the paintings on the roof, which have that simple grandeur

that Michael Angelo alone could confer on a single figure, making it

complete in itself—enthroned in majesty—reigning over the souls of men.

The music, not only of the Miserere, but of the Lamentations, is solemn,

pathetic, religious—the soul is rapt—carried away into another state of

being. Strange that grief, and laments, and the humble petition of

repentance, should fill us with delight—a delight that awakens these

very emotions in the heart—and calls tears into the eyes, and yet which

is dearer than any pleasure. It is one of the mysteries of our nature,

that the feelings which most torture and subdue, yet, if

idealized—elevated by the imagination—married harmoniously to sound or

colour—turn those pains to happiness; inspiring adoration; and a

tremulous but ardent aspiration for immortality. Such seems the sentient

link between our heavenly and terrestrial nature; and thus, in Paradise,

as Dante tells,—glory beatifies the sight, and seraphic harmony wraps

the saints in bliss.

Another sight of this week, is the washing of the feet of the pilgrims.

The ladies of Rome belong to a sisterhood who perform this service on

Good Friday for the female pilgrims. The hospital of the Pelegrini was

crowded; we could hardly make our way. In my life I never saw so much

female beauty as among the sisterhood—their faces so perfect in contour;

so lovely in expression; so noble, and so soft, that the recollection

will haunt my memory for ever.

I went to mass at the Church of the Jesuits—as usual glittering with

ornaments, precious stones, wax-lights, and all manner of finery. The

music was in the same style—well suited for the Opera-house; it would

there have enchanted; but it wanted that solemn, religious descant,

which awed the spirit in the Sistine Chapel.

The illumination of St. Peter’s terminated the sights of the week—that

and the fire-works of the Castel Sant’ Angelo.—There is more of creation

in the first of these sights than in any other in the world. It is but a

dim, and scant, and human imitation of the third verse of the first

chapter of Genesis; but it _is_ an imitation of the most sublime act of

divine power; and though bearing but a very weak resemblance to what we

imagine of the moment when, on a word, light disclosed the glories of

creation, yet, there is darkness, and radiance sudden and dazzling

bursts forth, and—it is very fine.

It is curious to see all these solemnities—many of them doubtless of

Pagan origin—dear to the people, and therefore preserved and

christianised by the Popes—and to reflect, that such, for many, many

centuries, was the chief link fostered by religion between man and the

Divinity. We have obliterated all this among ourselves. No doubt the

impulse of piety in the heart is a truer and purer oblation; but

Catholics reason that these are aids and supports to enable weak

humanity—a creature half matter, half soul—to sustain itself in its

pious ecstacies. Besides, God created in us not only the sense of, but

also in some degree the power of creating the beautiful; and is it not

well to dedicate to divine worship the glorious gifts which were

bestowed for the purpose of raising the soul from earth and linking it

to Heaven?

LETTER XX.

The Pontifical States.

MAY 3.

“Wherever the Catholic religion is established, I have uniformly

observed indolence, with its concomitants, dirt and beggary, to prevail;

and the more Catholic is the place, the more they abound.”[35] These are

the words of a clever writer, well acquainted with Rome, _àpropos_ of

Rome. It must be added, that wherever the Catholic religion prevails,

great works of charity subsist. During the time of Catholicism,

charitable institutions, as is well known, abounded all over England—in

some few obscure corners such still survive, where the old may find a

peaceful refuge—not in crowded receptacles, where they are looked on as

useless burthens on a heavily-taxed parish—but in decent almshouses,

bordering grassy enclosures, near gardens that supply their table;

peaceful nooks, where the aged may converse with nature, and find the

way to the grave soothed by that calm so dear to declining years.[36]

Jesus Christ so forcibly recommended the poor to all who professed his

religion, that, in common with all other Christians, every good Catholic

considers works of charity to be his paramount duty. One of the most

enlightened, Pascal, gave a touching proof of this, when, on his

death-bed, he only admitted his pains to be soothed by careful nursing,

on condition that two paupers in the same state should receive the same

attentions in an adjoining apartment. The poor were to him objects of

real and tender affection.

As eleemosynary charity is an essential portion of Catholicism, we may

expect that it should flourish in the capital of the Catholic world.

There are many beggars, but there is no absolute want, at Rome. Beggary

is a condition, and it becomes a matter of favour to be allowed to beg.

Plates of metal are given to such as are permitted, and fastened to the

arm of poor deformed objects, who are to be found in every corner of the

city, asking alms. Many convents distribute food regularly at different

hours, when all who ask may have. There is, besides, a house of

industry, I hear, carried on on excellent principles. There are, to the

destruction of the savings of the poor, state lotteries all over Italy.

It was considered that this demoralising gambling ought not to be kept

up in the capital of the head of the church: but it was argued that a

love of putting in the lottery could not be rooted out, and while

Naples, Tuscany, and Venice had lotteries, the Romans would send their

money to those states, if they could not be indulged at home. A Roman

lottery therefore exists, and the proceeds go to keep up a house of

industry. Here a number of young people are taught various trades. Young

men are apprenticed, and girls receive dowries, while the old people

have a home that smoothes their passage to the grave. Besides these

conventual aids and government institutions, there are many

confraternities of citizens whose bond of duty is charity to the sick

and poor. People of all classes of society belong to them, and meet on

an equal footing. The city is divided into several quarters, and the

various confraternities have each one assigned to them, which they visit

and relieve.

Several of the persons I know remained in Rome during the visitation of

the cholera in 1837, and they still vividly remember the horror of the

time.