to be perceptible, with orders to Giuseppe to take us where he would.
_Abroad in a summer's moonlight in Venice_, is a line that might never
be written but as the scene of a play. You can not miss pleasure. If
it were only the tracking silently and swiftly the bosom of the
broader canals lying asleep like streets of molten silver between the
marble palaces, or shooting into the dark shadows of the narrower,
with the black spirit-like gondolas gliding past, or lying in the
shelter of a low and not unoccupied balcony; or did you but loiter on
in search of music, lying unperceived beneath the windows of a palace,
and listening, half asleep, to the sound of the guitar and the song of
the invisible player within; this, with the strange beauty of every
building about you, and the loveliness of the magic lights and
shadows, were enough to make a night of pleasure, even were no charm
of personal adventure to be added to the enumeration.
We glided along under the Rialto, talking of Belvidera, and Othello,
and Shylock, and, entering a cross canal, cut the arched shadow of the
Bridge of Sighs, hanging like a cobweb in the air, and shot in a
moment forth to the full, ample, moonlit bosom of the Giudecca. This
is the canal that makes the harbor and washes the stairs of San Marc.
The Lido lay off at a mile's distance across the water, and, with the
moon riding over it, the bay between us as still as the sky above, and
brighter, it looked like a long cloud pencilled like a landscape in
the heavens. To the right lay the Armenian island, which Lord Byron
visited so often, to study with the fathers at the convent; and, a
little nearer the island of the Insane--spite of its misery, asleep,
with a most heavenly calmness on the sea. You remember the touching
story of the crazed girl, who was sent here with a broken heart,
described as putting her hand through the grating at the dash of every
passing gondola, with her unvarying and affecting "_Venite per me?
Venite per me?_"
At a corner of the harbor, some three quarters of a mile from San
Marc, lies an island once occupied by a convent. Napoleon rased the
buildings, and connecting it with the town by a new, handsome street
and a bridge, laid out the ground as a public garden. We debarked at
the stairs, and passed an hour in strolling through shaded walks,
filled with the gay Venetians, who come to enjoy here what they find
nowhere else, the smell of grass and green leaves. There is a pavilion
upon an artificial hill in the centre, where the best lemonades and
ices of Venice are to be found; and it was surrounded to-night by
merry groups, amusing themselves with all the heart-cheering gayety of
this delightful people. The very sight of them is an antidote to
sadness.
In returning to San Marc a large gondola crossed us, filled with
ladies and gentlemen, and followed by another with a band of music.
This is a common mode of making a party on the canals, and a more
agreeable one never was imagined. We ordered the gondolier to follow
at a certain distance, and spent an hour or two just keeping within
the softened sound of the instruments. How romantic are the veriest,
every-day occurrences of this enchanting city.
We have strolled to-day through most of the narrow streets between the
Rialto and the San Marc. They are, more properly, alleys. You wind
through them at sharp angles, turning constantly, from the
interruption of the canals, and crossing the small bridges at every
twenty yards. They are dark and cool; and no hoof of any description
ever passing through them, the marble flags are always smooth and
clean; and with the singular silence, only broken by the shuffling of
feet, they are pleasant places to loiter in at noon-day, when the
canals are sunny.
We spent a half hour on the _Rialto_. This is the only bridge across
the grand canal, and connects the two main parts of the city. It is,
as you see by engravings, a noble span of a single arch, built of pure
white marble. You pass it, ascending the arch by a long flight of
steps to the apex, and descending again to the opposite side. It is
very broad, the centre forming a street, with shops on each side,
with alleys outside these, next the parapet, usually occupied by
idlers or merchants, probably very much as in the time of Shylock.
Here are exposed the cases of shell-work and jewelry for which Venice
is famous. The variety and cheapness of these articles are surprising.
The Rialto has always been to me, as it is probably to most others,
quite the core of romantic locality. I stopped on the upper stair of
the arch, and passed my hand across my eyes to recall my idea of it,
and realize that I was there. One is disappointed, spite of all the
common sense in the world, not to meet Shylock and Antonio and Pierre.
"Shylock and the Moor
And Pierre cannot be swept or worn away,"
says Childe Harold; and that, indeed, is the feeling everywhere in
these romantic countries. You cannot separate them from the characters
with which poetry or history once peopled them.
At sunset we mounted into the tower of San Marc, to get a general view
of the city. The gold-dust atmosphere, so common in Italy at this
hour, was all over the broad lagunes and the far stretching city; and
she lay beneath us, in the midst of a sea of light, an island far out
into the ocean, crowned with towers and churches, and heaped up with
all the splendors of architecture. The Friuli mountains rose in the
north with the deep blue dyes of distance, breaking up the else level
horizon; the shore of Italy lay like a low line-cloud in the west; the
spot where the Brenta empties into the sea glowing in the blaze of the
sunset. About us lay the smaller islands, the suburbs of the sea-city,
and all among them, and up and down the Giudecca, and away off in the
lagunes, were sprinkled the thousand gondolas, meeting and crossing
in one continued and silent panorama. The Lido, with its long wall
hemmed in the bay, and beyond this lay the wide Adriatic. The floor of
San Marc's vast square was beneath, dotted over its many-colored
marbles with promenaders, its _cafes_ swarmed by the sitters outside,
and its long arcades thronged. One of my pleasantest hours in Venice
was passed here.
LETTER XXXIII.
PALACES--PALAZZO GRIMANI--OLD STATUARY--MALE AND FEMALE
CHERUBS--THE BATH OF CLEOPATRA--TITIAN'S PALACE--UNFINISHED
PICTURE OF THE GREAT MASTER--HIS MAGDALEN AND BUST--HIS
DAUGHTER IN THE ARMS OF A SATYR--BEAUTIFUL FEMALE HEADS--THE
CHURCHES OF VENICE--BURIAL-PLACES OF THE DOGES--TOMB OF
CANOVA--DEPARTURE FOR VERONA, ETC.
We have passed a day in visiting palaces. There are some eight or ten
in Venice, whose galleries are still splendid. We landed first at the
stairs of the _Palazzo Grimani_, and were received by an old family
servant, who sat leaning on his knees, and gazing idly into the canal.
The court and staircase were ornamented with statuary, that had not
been moved for centuries. In the ante-room was a fresco painting by
Georgione, in which there were two _female_ cherubs, the first of that
sex I ever saw represented. They were beautifully contrasted with the
two male cherubs, who completed the picture, and reminded me strongly
of Greenough's group in sculpture. After examining several rooms,
tapestried and furnished in such a style as befitted the palace of a
Venetian noble, when Venice was in her glory, we passed on to the
gallery. The best picture in the first room was a large one by Cigoli,
_the bath of Cleopatra_. The four attendants of the fair Egyptian are
about her, and one is bathing her feet from a rich vase. Her figure is
rather a voluptuous one, and her head is turned, but without alarm, to
Antony, who is just putting aside the curtain and entering the room.
It is a piece of fine coloring, rather of the Titian school, and one
of the few good pictures left by the English, who have bought up
almost all the private galleries of Venice.
We stopped next at the stairs of the noble old _Barberigo_ Palace, in
which Titian lived and died. We mounted the decaying staircases,
imagining the choice spirits of the great painter's time, who had
trodden them before us, and (as it was for ages the dwelling of one of
the proudest races of Venice) the beauty and rank that had swept up
and down those worn slabs of marble on nights of revel, in the days
when Venice was a paradise of splendid pleasure. How thickly come
romantic fancies in such a place as this. We passed through halls hung
with neglected pictures to an inner room, occupied only with those of
Titian. Here he painted, and here is a picture half finished, as he
left it when he died. His famous _Magdalen_, hangs on the wall,
covered with dirt; and so, indeed, is everything in the palace. The
neglect is melancholy. On a marble table stood a plaster bust of
Titian, moulded by himself in his old age. It is a most noble head,
and it is difficult to look at it, and believe he could have painted a
picture which hangs just against it--_his own daughter in the arms of
a satyr_. There is an engraving from it in one of the souvenirs; but
instead of a satyr's head, she holds a casket in her hands, which,
though it does not sufficiently account for the delight of her
countenance, is an improvement upon the original. Here, too, are
several slight sketches of female heads, by the same master. Oh how
beautiful they are! There is one, less than the size of life, which I
would rather have than his Magdalen.
* * * * *
I have spent my last day in Venice in visiting churches. Their
splendor makes the eye ache and the imagination weary. You would think
the surplus wealth of half the empires of the world would scarce
suffice to fill them as they are. I can give you no descriptions. The
gorgeous tombs of the Doges are interesting, and the plain black
monument over Marino Faliero made me linger. Canova's tomb is
splendid; and the simple slab under your feet in the church of the
Frari, where Titian lies with his brief epitaph, is affecting--but,
though I shall remember all these, the simplest as well as the
grandest, a description would be wearisome to all who had not seen
them. This evening at sunset I start in the post-boat for the
mainland, on my way to the place of Juliet's tomb--Verona. My friends,
the painters, are so attracted with the galleries here that they
remain to copy, and I go back alone. Take a short letter from me this
time, and expect to hear from me by the next earliest opportunity, and
more at length. Adieu.
LETTER XXXIV.
DEPARTURE FROM VENICE--A SUNSET SCENE--PADUA--SPLENDID
HOTEL--MANNERS OF THE COUNTRY--VICENZA--MIDNIGHT--LADY
RETURNING FROM A PARTY--VERONA--JULIET'S TOMB--THE TOMB OF THE
CAPULETS--THE TOMBS OF THE SCALIGERS--TWO GENTLEMEN OF
VERONA--A WALKING CHRONICLE--PALACE OF THE CAPULETS--ONLY COOL
PLACE IN AN ITALIAN CITY--BANQUETING HALL OF THE
CAPULETS--FACTS AND FICTION, ETC.
We pushed from the post-office stairs in a gondola with six oars at
sunset. It was melancholy to leave Venice. A hasty farewell look, as
we sped down the grand canal, at the gorgeous palaces, even less
famous than beautiful--a glance at the disappearing Rialto, and we
shot out into the Giudecca in a blaze of sunset glory. Oh how
magnificently looked Venice in that light--rising behind us from the
sea--all her superb towers and palaces, turrets and spires, fused into
gold; and the waters about her, like a mirror of stained glass,
without a ripple!
An hour and a half of hard rowing brought us to the nearest land. You
should go to Venice to know how like a dream a reality may be. You
will find it difficult to realize, when you smell once more the fresh
earth and grass and flowers, and walk about and see fields and
mountains, that this city upon the sea exists out of the imagination.
You float to it and about it and from it, in their light craft, so
aerially, that it seems a vision.
With a drive of two or three hours, half twilight, half moonlight, we
entered _Padua_. It was too late to see the portrait of Petrarch, and
I had not time to go to his tomb at Arqua, twelve miles distant, so,
musing on Livy and Galileo, to both of whom Padua was a home, I
inquired for a _cafe_. A new one had lately been built in the centre
of the town, quite the largest and most thronged I ever saw. Eight or
ten large, high-roofed halls were open, and filled with tables, at
which sat more beauty and fashion than I supposed all Padua could have
mustered. I walked through one after another, without finding a seat,
and was about turning to go out, and seek a place of less pretension,
when an elderly lady, who sat with a party of seven, eating ices,
rose, with Italian courtesy, and offered me a chair at their table. I
accepted it, and made the acquaintance of eight as agreeable and
polished people as it has been my fortune to meet. We parted as if we
had known each other as many weeks as minutes. I mention it as an
instance of the manners of the country.
Three hours more, through spicy fields and on a road lined with the
country-houses of the Venetian nobles, brought us to _Vicenza_. It was
past midnight, and not a soul stirring in the bright moonlit streets.
I remember it as a kind of city of the dead. As we passed out of the
opposite gate, we detained for a moment a carriage, with servants in
splendid liveries, and a lady inside returning from a party, in full
dress. I have rarely seen so beautiful a head. The lamps shone
strongly on a broad pearl fillet on her forehead, and lighted up
features such as we do not often meet even in Italy. A gentleman
leaned back in the corner of the carriage, fast asleep--probably her
husband!
* * * * *
I breakfasted at _Verona_ at seven. A humpbacked _cicerone_ there took
me to "Juliet's tomb." A very high wall, green with age, surrounds
what was once a cemetery, just outside the city. An old woman answered
the bell at the dilapidated gate, and, without saying a word, pointed
to an empty granite sarcophagus, raised upon a rude pile of stones.
"Questa?" asked I, with a doubtful look. "Questa," said the old woman.
"Questa!" said the hunchback. And here, I was to believe, lay the
gentle Juliet! There was a raised place in the sarcophagus, with a
hollowed socket for the head, and it was about the measure for a
woman! I ran my fingers through the cavity, and tried to imagine the
dark curls that covered the hand of Father Lawrence as he laid her
down in the trance, and fitted her beautiful head softly to the place.
But where was "the tomb of the Capulets?" The beldame took me through
a cabbage-garden, and drove off a donkey who was feeding on an
artichoke that grew on the very spot. "Ecco!" said she, pointing to
one of the slightly sunken spots on the surface. I deferred my belief,
and paying an extra paul for the privilege of chipping off a fragment
of the stone coffin, followed the cicerone.
The _tombs of the Scaligers_ were more authentic. They stand in the
centre of the town, with a highly ornamental railing about them, and
are a perfect mockery of death with their splendor. If the poets and
scholars whom these petty princes drew to their court had been buried
in these airy tombs beside them, one would look at them with some
interest. _Now_, one asks, "who were the Scaligers, that their bodies
should be lifted high in air in the midst of a city, and kept for
ages, in marble and precious stones?" With less ostentation, however,
it were pleasant to be so disposed of after death, lifted thus into
the sun, and in sight of moving and living creatures.
I inquired for the old palace of the Capulets. The cicerone knew
nothing about it, and I dismissed her and went into a _cafe_. "Two
gentlemen of Verona" sat on different sides; one reading, the other
asleep, with his chin on his cane--an old, white-headed man, of about
seventy. I sat down near the old gentleman, and by the time I had
eaten my ice, he awoke. I addressed him in Italian, which I speak
indifferently; but, stumbling for a word, he politely helped me out in
French, and I went on in that language with my inquiries. He was the
very man--a walking chronicle of Verona. He took up his hat and cane
to conduct me to _casa Capuletti_, and on the way told me the true
history, as I had heard it before, which differs but little, as you
know, from Shakspeare's version. The whole story is in the annuals.
After a half hour's walk among the handsomer, and more modern parts of
the city, we stopped opposite a house of an antique construction, but
newly stuccoed and painted. A wheelwright occupied the lower story,
and by the sign, the upper part was used as a tavern. "Impossible!"
said I, as I looked at the fresh front and the staring sign. The old
gentleman smiled, and kept his cane pointed at it in silence. "It is
well authenticated," said he, after enjoying my astonishment a minute
or two, "and the interior still bears marks of a palace." We went in
and mounted the dirty staircase to a large hall on the second floor.
The frescoes and cornices had not been touched, and I invited my kind
old friend to an early dinner on the spot. He accepted, and we went
back to the cathedral, and sat an hour in the only cool place in an
Italian city. The best dinner the house could afford was ready when we
returned, and a pleasanter one it has never been my fortune to sit
down to; though, for the meats, I have eaten better. That I relished
an hour in the very hall where the masque must have been held, to
which Romeo ventured in the house of his enemy, to see the fair
Juliet, you may easily believe. The wine was not so bad, either, that
my imagination did not warm all fiction into fact; and another time,
perhaps, I may describe my old friend and the dinner more
particularly.
LETTER XXXV.
ANOTHER SHORT LETTER--DEPARTURE FROM VERONA--MANTUA--FLEAS--
FLEAS--MODENA--TASSONI'S BUCKET--A MAN GOING TO EXECUTION--THE
DUKE OF MODENA--BOLOGNA--AUSTRIAN OFFICERS--THE APPENINES--
MOONLIGHT ON THE MOUNTAINS--ENGLISH BRIDAL PARTY--PICTURESQUE
SUPPER, ETC.
I left Verona with the courier at sunset, and was at _Mantua_ in a few
hours. I went to bed in a dirty hotel, the best in the place, and
awoke, bitten at every pore by fleas--the first I have encountered in
Italy, strange as it may seem, in a country that swarms with them. For
the next twenty-four hours I was in such positive pain that my
interest in "Virgil's birthplace" quite evaporated. I hired a
_caleche_, and travelled all night to _Modena_.
I liked the town as I drove in, and after sleeping an hour or two, I
went out in search of "Tassoni's bucket" (which Rogers says _is not
the true one_), and the picture of "_Ginevra_." The first thing I met
was a man going to execution. He was a tall, exceedingly handsome man;
and, I thought, a marked gentleman, even in his fetters. He was one of
the body-guard of the duke, and had joined a conspiracy against him,
in which he had taken the first step by firing at him from a window
as he passed. I saw him guillotined, but I will spare you the
description. The duke is the worst tyrant in Italy, it is well known,
and has been fired at _eighteen times_ in the streets. So said the
cicerone, who added, that "the d----l took care of his own." After
many fruitless inquiries, I could find nothing of "the picture," and I
took my place for Bologna in the afternoon.
I was at Bologna at ten the next morning. As I felt rather indisposed,
I retained my seat with the courier for Florence; and, hungry with
travel and a long fast, went into a _restaurant_, to make the best use
of the hour given me for refreshment. A party of Austrian officers sat
at one end of the only table, breakfasting; and here I experienced the
first rudeness I have seen in Europe. I mention it to show its rarity,
and the manner in which, even among military men, a quarrel is guarded
against or prevented. A young man, who seemed the wit of the party,
chose to make comments from time to time on the solidity of what he
considered my breakfast. These became at last so pointed, that I was
compelled to rise and demand an apology. With one voice, all except
the offender, immediately sided with me, and insisted on the justice
of the demand, with so many apologies of their own, that I regretted
noticing the thing at all. The young man rose, after a minute, and
offered me his hand in the frankest manner; and then calling for a
fresh bottle, they drank wine with me, and I went back to my
breakfast. In America, such an incident would have ended, nine times
out of ten, in a duel.
The two mounted _gens d'armes_, who usually attend the courier at
night, joined us as we began to ascend the Appenines. We stopped at
eleven to sup on the highest mountain between Bologna and Florence,
and I was glad to get to the kitchen fire, the clear moonlight was so
cold. Chickens were turning on the long spit, and sounds of high
merriment came from the rooms above. A _bridal party_ of English had
just arrived, and every chamber and article of provision was engaged.
They had nothing to give us. A compliment to the hostess and a bribe
to the cook had their usual effect, however; and as one of the
dragoons had ridden back a mile or two for my travelling cap, which
had dropped off while I was asleep, I invited them both, with the
courier, to share my bribed supper. The cloth was spread right before
the fire, on the same table with all the cook's paraphernalia, and a
merry and picturesque supper we had of it. The rough Tuscan flasks of
wine and Etruscan pitchers, the brazen helmets formed on the finest
models of the antique, the long mustaches, and dark Italian eyes of
the men, all in the bright light of a blazing fire, made a picture
that Salvator Rosa would have relished. We had time for a hasty song
or two after the dishes were cleared, and then went gayly on our way
to Florence.
Excuse the brevity of this epistle, but I must stop here, or lose the
opportunity of sending. If my letters do not reach you with the utmost
regularity, it is no fault of mine. You can not imagine the difficulty
I frequently experience in getting a safe conveyance.
LETTER XXXVI.
BATHS OF LUCCA--SARATOGA OF ITALY--HILL SCENERY--RIVER
LIMA--FASHIONABLE LODGINGS--THE VILLA--THE DUKE'S PALACE--
MOUNTAINS--VALLEYS--COTTAGES--PEASANTS--WINDING-PATHS--
AMUSEMENTS--PRIVATE PARTIES--BALLS--FETES--A CASINO--ORIGINALS
OF SCOTT'S DIANA VERNON AND THE MISS PRATT OF THE
INHERITANCE--A SUMMER IN ITALY, ETC., ETC.
I spent a week at the baths of Lucca, which is about sixty miles north
of Florence, and the Saratoga of Italy. None of the cities are
habitable in summer, for the heat, and there flocks all the world to
bathe and keep cool by day, and dance and intrigue by night, from
spring to autumn. It is very like the month of June in our country in
many respects, and the differences are not disagreeable. The scenery
is the finest of its kind in Italy. The whole village is built about a
bridge across the river Lima, which meets the Serchio a half mile
below. On both sides of the stream the mountains rise so abruptly,
that the houses are erected against them, and from the summits on both
sides you look directly down on the street. Half-way up one of the
hills stands a cluster of houses, overlooking the valley to fine
advantage, and these are rather the most fashionable lodgings. Round
the base of this mountain runs the Lima, and on its banks for a mile
is laid out a superb road, at the extremity of which is another
cluster of buildings, called the Villa, composed of the duke's palace
and baths, and some fifty lodging-houses. This, like the pavilion at
Saratoga, is usually occupied by invalids and people of more retired
habits. I have found no hill scenery in Europe comparable to the baths
of Lucca. The mountains ascend so sharply and join so closely, that
two hours of the sun are lost, morning and evening, and the heat is
very little felt. The valley is formed by four or five small
mountains, which are clothed from the base to the summit with the
finest chestnut woods; and dotted over with the nest-like cottages of
the Luccese peasants, the smoke from which, morning and evening,
breaks through the trees, and steals up to the summits with an effect
than which a painter could not conceive anything more beautiful. It is
quite a little paradise; and with the drives along the river on each
side at the mountain foot, and the trim winding-paths in the hills,
there is no lack of opportunity for the freest indulgence of a love of
scenery or amusement.