Leaving Venice--Hervey's Lament--Scenery _en route_--Padua--Associations
of the past--A brief history of Padua, and the House of Carrara--General
appearance of the town--Giotto's Chapel--His beautiful frescoes--Character
of Giotto's work--The Cathedral--Palazzo della Ragione--The Wooden Horse
--St. Antonio--The Hermitage--The Fallen Angels--The University and its
students--Ladies of Padua--Situation of the city--An old bridge--Climate.
The silvery-voiced bells of Venice chimed sweetly over the waters as we
left her, bidding us a tender farewell, almost reproachful that we could
leave her so soon. Siren-like, she would fain entice us to remain with
her, but the old charm-power has departed with her past glory; and we
echoed Hervey's beautiful lament as we watched her domes and minarets
disappear slowly one by one in the distance.
"And where art thou, with all thy songs and smiles,
Thou dream-like city of the hundred isles--
Thy marble columns, and thy princely halls,
Thy merry masques and moonlight carnivals,
Thy weeping myrtles and thy orange bowers,
Thy lulling fountains 'mid ambrosial flowers,
The cloudless beauty of thy deep blue skies,
Thy starlight serenades to ladies' eyes,
Thy lion, looking o'er the Adrian sea,
Defiance to the world and power to thee?
That pageant of the sunny waves is gone,
Her glory lives on memory's page alone;
It flashes still in Shakespeare's living lay,
And Otway's song has snatched it from decay.
But ah! her Chian steeds of brass no more
Shall lord it proudly over sea and shore;
Nor ducal sovereigns launch upon the tide,
To win the Adriatic for their bride!
Hushed is the music of her gondoliers,
And fled the glory of a thousand years;
And Tasso's spirit round her seems to sigh
In every Adrian gale that wanders by!"
The journey to Padua is over a level, well-cultivated, and fertile
plain, intersected by many small canals. To the north, and on the left,
the snow-capped Tyrolese Alps form a grand relief to the monotony of the
surrounding country.
Padua is now a very quiet unimportant little city, with only about
forty-five thousand inhabitants; and very greatly changed from the time
when it was so justly famed for its University.
"In thine halls, the lamp of learning
Padua, now no more is burning;
* * * * *
Once remotest nations came
To adore that sacred flame."
When Galileo, Fallopius, Fabricius, and other celebrated men were
professors at this university, it could boast of numerous students from
all parts of the world: Tasso and Columbus were educated here.
Shakespeare bears witness to the respect in which its learned doctors
were held, in his immortal "Merchant of Venice."
Livy was born here 50 B.C., dying in his seventy-sixth year.
He is supposed to be buried here, and his tomb is shown; but that his
bones lie beneath the stones is certainly like too many things in
Italy--a fable. Here, by-the-by, also dwelt the shrewish Katharina--
"Renown'd in Padua, for her scolding tongue."
Padua, once Patavium, is of very ancient date, and is said to owe its
origin to Antenor, the brother of Priam, King of Troy. Dryden, in his
translation of Virgil, says--
"Antenor founded Padua's happy seat,
And gave his Trojans a secure retreat;
There fixed his arms, and there renewed their name,
And there in quiet rules; and crown'd with fame."
"In 452 Padua suffered severely from the invasion of Attila; and in 601
was burnt by Agilulf, King of the Longobards. In the Middle Ages it was
one of the towns which struggled most successfully against the Imperial
rule. In 1164 it joined the Lombardy league, and instituted its free
government. The town was then extended, and the Palazzo della Ragione
built. In 1222 the University of Padua was founded, in consequence of
the dissolution of that at Bologna. As a Guelphic city, Padua fought
against the detested tyrant Eccelino; and upon his fall, in 1259, the
town rose to great power. This time was marked by the building of the
grand Church of St. Antonio.... In 1337 Marsiglio da Carrara became an
independent prince. The Palazzo dei Princepili was built, and the town
greatly adorned under his government. His successor, Marsiglietti
Papafava, was murdered by Jacopo da Carrara (the friend of Petrarch),
who was in his turn murdered in 1350, after which his brother Jacopino
ruled five years. He was succeeded by his nephew, Francesco da Carrara,
who was celebrated for his wars against the Venetians, and afterwards
against the Milanese under the Visconti. An alliance between Venice and
Milan ended in the total defeat of the Paduans in 1388, and the
temporary fall of the House of Carrara. The story of the imprisonment
and after adventures of the Carraras is one of the most romantic of the
Middle Ages. Francesco Novello da Carrara and his devoted wife, Taddea
d'Este, escaped from the castle where they were immured by the Visconti,
and after a series of almost incredible adventures they reached
Florence. With assistance obtained from Bologna and Fruili, Francesco
once more presented himself before his native town, with a banner
bearing the arms of the House of Carrara. He called upon the Milanese
governor to surrender, and was received with derision; but he swam the
Brenta by night, crept into the town, and was welcomed with joy by the
citizens, who rose suddenly and successfully against the Milanese, and
proclaimed Francesco Novello sovereign lord of Padua on Sept. 8th, 1390.
He ruled till 1405, when a succession of wars with the Visconti and
Venice ended in the treacherous capture of the town by the Venetians.
Then brave Francesco Novello da Carrara and his sons were strangled,
after having endured imprisonment in a cage eight feet long by twelve
feet broad. Henceforth Padua shared the fortunes of Venice."
For this brief historical account I am indebted to Mr. Augustus Hare,
who has written so ably on the Northern and Central cities of Italy.
* * * * *
As we intended to resume our journey and reach Verona the same evening,
we only remained in Padua a few hours. We put up at the Croce d'Oro,
where we found such comfortable quarters, that we almost regretted our
visit was to be so short. However, there was a decided air of melancholy
about the old city; the narrow streets with their arcaded walks were
unnaturally silent. These arcades afford shelter from both the sun and
rain, and one finds but little use for the English umbrella. The walks
are sometimes bordered by chestnut trees, and there are pleasant gardens
surrounding the quaint and noble old palaces. In Italy every residence
with an entrance for carriages is entitled a palace palazzo.
Not far from our hotel is the Church of S. Maria dell' Arnea, so called
from its standing near the ruins of an old Roman amphitheatre. It is a
plain Gothic building, designed by Giotto when quite young, and contains
his wonderful frescoes. Dante was living with him at this time.
The interior of the church--often called Giotto's Chapel--is somewhat
cold and bare at first sight; but the beauty of the paintings, which are
in a very fair state of preservation, considering their age, speedily
dispels this idea. The frescoes represent the history of the Virgin from
the rejection of Joachim's sacrifice to Mary's bridal procession. Ruskin
says, "It can hardly be doubted that Giotto had a peculiar pleasure in
dwelling on the circumstances of the shepherd life of the father of the
Virgin, owing to its resemblance to that of his own early years."
The Annunciation, the birth, and youth of the Saviour, and the events of
His ministry up to His driving the money-changers from the Temple, form
a second series; and afterwards the story of His passion and
crucifixion. They are most tenderly and beautifully dealt with,
conveying deep impressions of this painter's wonderful power, and the
concentrated thought and labour he must have bestowed upon his work.
There are also allegorical frescoes, representing very appropriately the
virtues and vices. The female figures of this artist are singularly
graceful.
"The works of Giotto," says a modern writer (Lindesay), "speak most
feelingly to the heart in his own peculiar language of dramatic
composition; he glances over creation with the eye of love, all the
charities of life follow in his steps, and his thoughts are as the
breath of the morning. A man of the world, living in it, and loving it,
yet with a heart that it could not spoil nor wean from its allegiance to
God--'non meno buon Christiano che excellenti pittore,' as Vasari
emphatically describes him. His religion breathes of the free air of
heaven rather than of the cloister; neither enthusiastic nor
superstitious, but practical, manly, and healthy."
One needs go again and again to do full justice to this interesting
church, but being exceedingly cold, it is difficult to avoid taking a
chill. It is a great pity that all the churches throughout Italy are
allowed to be so cold and damp, to the injury of the valuable works of
art they contain.
We paid a hasty visit to the Cathedral, which claims Michael Angelo as
its architect. Here we admired a beautiful missal in vellum, printed at
Venice in 1498; it is full of miniatures. We also saw Rinaldo's bust of
Petrarch, who was a Canon of this church.
The Piazza delle Erbe and the Piazza dei Frutti, the quaint-looking
vegetable and fruit markets, are situate on either side of the Palazzo
della Ragione, celebrated for its vast Hall, with great vaulted ceiling,
said to be the largest in the world unsupported by pillars. It measures
ninety-one yards in length and thirty in breadth, and is seventy-eight
feet high. The inner walls are adorned with frescoes. At the end of the
hall is a gigantic wooden horse, built in sections, supposed to have
been the model of Donatello for his bronze statue of Gattamelata, or one
of the horses of St Mark's at Venice. At one time it was covered with
skin to resemble life.
We scarcely did more than catch a glimpse of that ugly pile St Antonio,
where the bones of Padua's patron saint repose--the good St. Anthony.
In the Hermitage Church are the tombs of the Carrara family; and in the
old Sacristry there is a very beautiful picture of St. John the Baptist,
by Guido; also some frescoes and other paintings, but very much spoiled
by the damp.
At the Palazzo Trente Papafava, through the kindness of its noble owner,
we saw Fasolata's most beautiful piece of sculpture, the Fallen Angels.
It is a solid block of white Carrara marble about five feet high, and
represents the angels cast out from heaven, a group of sixty-five to
seventy figures. "They are in all attitudes that the human form could
take in such a headlong descent, and are so animated in appearance that
they are almost flying. Each angel is separate from the rest, but the
whole are twisted and twined together in a complicated manner, and are
most exquisitely chiselled, even in the minutest part. The wonder is how
the sculptor reached the inner portion of the group. The archangel
Michael forms the top of the pyramid."
This wonderful and unique piece of statuary took Fasolata twelve years
to accomplish; it was the first work he had ever done. He was afterwards
induced to visit England in order to execute a similar piece, but he
died, it is said, of home-sickness, poor fellow! I was greatly pleased
to have seen this great work, which, I think, is one of the most
beautiful and wonderful I have ever beheld. It is of priceless value.
In this palace are also Damini's frescoes.
We regretted we had not time to visit the university, which as late as
1864 had over a thousand students. Howells, writing some years ago,
says, "They were to be met everywhere; one could not be mistaken with
the blended air of pirate and dandy these studious young men assumed.
They were to be seen a good deal on the promenade outside the walls,
where the Paduan ladies are driven in their carriages in the afternoon,
and where one sees the blood horses and fine equipages for which Padua
is famous."
Talking of ladies, I noticed with pleasure that all the women in this
town wore the graceful and picturesque lace head-dress of the country,
which I thought significant of their conservative good sense.
Padua is situated near the junction of the rivers Brenta and
Bacchiglione, amidst gardens and vineyards; behind rise the Euganean
Hills, among which Shelley wrote his beautiful "Lines":
"Beneath is spread like a green sea
The waveless plain of Lombardy,
Bounded by the vaporous air,
Islanded by cities fair;
* * * * *
Many-domed Padua proud
Stands, a peopled solitude,
'Mid the harvest shining plain,
Where the peasant heaps his grain
In the garner of his foe,
And the milk-white oxen slow
With the purple vintage strain
Heap'd upon the creaking wain."
We crossed an old bridge, on which was the following inscription:--
"Here Novello da Carrara with forty-two hero friends went down the
stream, attacked the bridge, routed the Visconti; and in glad
triumph was received again by the people as their lord. June 19,
1390."
Padua is considered a healthy place for invalids, and many, are ordered
thither from other Italian towns. The cost of living is, I believe, more
moderate than in any other city of Northern Italy.
The people complained bitterly of the cold and unseasonable weather they
had experienced; and more especially of the incessant rains and
destructive inundation of the winter of 1882.