LIDO--A POETICAL SCENE--AN ITALIAN SUNSET--PALACE OF
MANFRINI--PESARO'S PALACE AND COUNTRY RESIDENCE--CHURCH OF
SAINT MARY OF NAZARETH--PADUA--THE UNIVERSITY--STATUES OF
DISTINGUISHED FOREIGNERS THE PUBLIC PALACE--BUST OF TITUS
LIVY--BUST OF PETRARCH--CHURCH OF ST. ANTONY DURING MASS--THE
SAINT'S CHIN AND TONGUE--MARTYRDOM OF ST. AGATHA--AUSTRIAN AND
GERMAN SOLDIERS--TRAVELLER'S RECORD-BOOK--PETRARCH'S COTTAGE
AND TOMB--ITALIAN SUMMER AFTERNOON--THE POET'S HOUSE--A FINE
VIEW--THE ROOM WHERE PETRARCH DIED, ETC.
I was loitering down one of the gloomy aisles of San Marc's church,
just at twilight this evening, listening to the far-off Ave Maria in
one of the distant chapels, when a Boston gentleman, who I did not
know was abroad, entered with his family, and passed up to the altar.
It is difficult to conceive with what a tide the half-forgotten
circumstances of a home, so far away, rush back upon one's heart in a
strange land, after a long absence, at the sight of familiar faces. I
could realize nothing about me after it--the glittering mosaic of
precious stones under my feet, the gold and splendid colors of the
roof above me, the echoes of the monotonous chant through the
arches--foreign and strange as these circumstances all were. I was
irresistibly at home, the familiar pictures of my native place filling
my eye, and the recollections of those whom I love and honor there
crowding upon my heart with irresistible emotion. The feeling is a
painful one, and with the necessity for becoming again a forgetful
wanderer, remembering home only as a dream, one shrinks from such
things. The reception of a letter, even, destroys a day.
* * * * *
There has been a grand _festa_ to-day at the _Lido_. This, you know,
is a long island, forming part of the sea-wall of Venice. It is,
perhaps, five or six miles long, covered in part with groves of small
trees, and a fine green sward; and to the Venetians, to whom leaves
and grass are holyday novelties, is the scene of their gayest
_festas_. They were dancing and dining under the trees; and in front
of the fort which crowns the island, the Austrian commandant had
pitched his tent, and with a band of military music, the officers were
waltzing with ladies in a circle of green sward, making altogether a
very poetical scene. We passed an hour or two wandering among this gay
and unconscious people, and came home by one of the loveliest sunsets
that ever melted sea and sky together. Venice looked like a vision of
a city hanging in mid-air.
* * * * *
We have been again to that delightful _palace of Manfrini_. The
"Portia swallowing fire," the Rembrandt portrait, the far-famed
"Giorgione, son and wife," and twenty others, which to see is to be
charmed, delighted me once more. I believe the surviving Manfrini is
the only noble left in Venice. _Pesaro_, who disdained to live in his
country after its liberty was gone, died lately in London. His palace
here is the finest structure I have seen, and his country-house on the
Brenta is a paradise. It must have been a strong feeling which exiled
him from them for eighteen years.
In coming from the Manfrini, we stopped at the church of "St. Mary of
Nazareth." This is one of those whose cost might buy a kingdom. Its
gold and marbles oppress one with their splendor. In the centre of the
ceiling is a striking fresco of the bearing of "Loretto's chapel
through the air;" and in one of the corners a lovely portrait of a boy
looking over a balustrade, done by the artist _fourteen years of age_!
* * * * *
PADUA.--We have passed two days in this venerable city of learning,
including a visit to Petrarch's tomb at Arqua. The university here is
still in its glory, with fifteen hundred students. It has never
declined, I believe, since Livy's time. The beautiful inner court has
two or three galleries, crowded with the arms of the nobles and
distinguished individuals who have received its honors. It has been
the "cradle of princes" from every part of Europe.
Around one of the squares of the city, stand forty or fifty statues of
the great and distinguished foreigners who have received their
education here. It happened to be the month of vacation, and we could
not see the interior.
At a public palace, so renowned for the size and singular architecture
of its principal hall, we saw a very antique bust of Titus Livy--a
fine, cleanly-chiselled, scholastic old head, that looked like the
spirit of Latin embodied. We went thence to the Duomo, where they show
a beautiful bust of Petrarch, who lived at Padua some of the latter
years of his life. It is a softer and more voluptuous countenance than
is given him in the pictures.
The church of Saint Antony here has stood just six hundred years. It
occupied a century in building, and is a rich and noble old specimen
of the taste of the times, with eight cupolas and towers, twenty-seven
chapels inside, four immense organs, and countless statues and
pictures. Saint Antony's body lies in the midst of the principal
chapel, which is surrounded with relievos representing his miracles,
done in the best manner of the glorious artists of antiquity. We were
there during mass, and the people were nearly suffocating themselves
in the press to touch the altar and tomb of the saint. This chapel was
formerly lit by massive silver lamps, which Napoleon took, presenting
them with their models in gilt. He also exacted from them three
thousand sequins for permission to retain the chin and tongue of St.
Antony, which works miracles still, and are preserved in a splendid
chapel with immense brazen doors. Behind the main altar I saw a
harrowing picture by Tiepoli, of the martyrdom of St. Agatha. Her
breasts are cut off, and lying in a dish. The expression in the face
of the dying woman is painfully well done.
Returning to the inn, we passed a magnificent palace on one of the
squares, upon whose marble steps and column-bases, sat hundreds of
brutish Austrian troops, smoking and laughing at the passers-by. This
is a sight you may see now through all Italy. The palaces of the
proudest nobles are turned into barracks for foreign troops, and there
is scarce a noble old church or monastery that is not defiled with
their filth. The German soldiers are, without exception, the most
stolid and disagreeable looking body of men I ever saw; and they have
little to soften the indignant feeling with which one sees them
rioting in this lovely and oppressed country.
We passed an hour before bedtime in the usual amusement of travellers
in a foreign hotel--reading the traveller's record-book. Walter
Scott's name was written there, and hundreds of distinguished names
besides. I was pleased to find, on a leaf far back, "Edward Everett,"
written in his own round legible hand. There were at least the names
of fifty Americans within the dates of the year past--such a wandering
nation we are. Foreigners express their astonishment always at their
numbers in these cities.
On the afternoon of the next day, we went to Arqua, on a pilgrimage to
Petrarch's cottage and tomb. It was an Italian summer afternoon, and
the Euganean hills were rising green and lovely, with the sun an hour
high above them, and the yellow of the early sunset already commencing
to glow about the horizon.
We left the carriage at the "pellucid lake," and went into the hills a
mile, plucking the ripe grapes which hung over the road in profusion.
We were soon at the little village and the tomb, which stands just
before the church door, "reared in air." The four laurels Byron
mentions are dead. We passed up the hill to the poet's house, a rural
stone cottage, commanding a lovely view of the campagna from the
portico. Sixteen villages may be counted from the door, and the two
large towns of Rovigo and Ferrara are distinguishable in a clear
atmosphere. It was a retreat fit for a poet. We went through the
rooms, and saw the poet's cat, stuffed and exhibited behind a wire
grating, his chair and desk, his portrait in fresco, and Laura's, and
the small closet-like room where he died. It was an interesting visit,
and we returned by the golden twilight of this heavenly climate,
repeating Childe Harold, and wishing for his pen to describe afresh
the scene about us.
LETTER XL.
EXCURSION FROM VENICE TO VERONA--TRUTH OF BYRON'S DESCRIPTION
OF ITALIAN SCENERY--THE LOMBARDY PEASANTRY--APPEARANCE OF THE
COUNTRY--MANNER OF CULTIVATING THE VINE ON LIVING TREES--THE
VINTAGE--ANOTHER VISIT TO JULIET'S TOMB--THE OPERA AT
VERONA--THE PRIMA DONNA--ROMAN AMPHITHEATRE--BOLOGNA
AGAIN--MADAME MALIBRAN IN LA GAZZA LADRA--CHEAP LUXURIES--THE
PALACE OF THE LAMBACCARI--A MAGDALEN OF GUIDO CARRACCI--
CHARLES THE SECOND'S BEAUTIES--VALLEY OF THE ARNO--FLORENCE
ONCE MORE.
Our gondola set us on shore at Fusina an hour or two before sunset,
with a sky (such as we have had for five months) without a cloud, and
the same promise of a golden sunset, to which I have now become so
accustomed, that rain and a dark heaven would seem to me almost
unnatural. It was the hour and the spot at which Childe Harold must
have left Venice, and we look at the "blue Friuli mountains," the
"deep-died Brenta," and the "Rhoetian hill," and feel the truth of
his description as well as its beauty. The two banks of the Brenta are
studded with the palaces of the Venetian nobles for almost twenty
miles, and the road runs close to the water on the northern side,
following all its graceful windings, and, at every few yards,
surprising the traveller with some fresh scene of cultivated beauty,
church, palace, or garden, while the gondolas on the stream, and the
fair "damas" of Italy sitting under the porticoes, enliven and
brighten the picture. These people live out of doors, and the road was
thronged with the _contadini_; and here and there rolled by a
carriage, with servants in livery; or a family of the better class on
their evening walk, sauntered along at the Italian pace of indolence,
and a finer or happier looking race of people would not easily be
found. It is difficult to see the athletic frames and dark flashing
eyes of the Lombardy peasantry, and remember their degraded condition.
You cannot believe it will remain so. If they think at all, they must,
in time, feel too deeply to endure.
The guide-book says, the "traveller wants words to express his
sensations at the beauty of the country from Padua to Verona." Its
beauty is owing to the perfection of a method of cultivation universal
in Italy. The fields are divided into handsome squares, by rows of
elms or other forest trees, and the vines are trained upon these with
all the elegance of holyday festoons, winding about the trunks, and
hanging with their heavy clusters from one to the other, the foliage
of vine and tree mingled so closely that it appears as if they sprung
from the same root. Every square is perfectly enclosed with these
fantastic walls of vine-leaves and grapes, and the imagination of a
poet could conceive nothing more beautiful for a festival of Bacchus.
The ground between is sown with grass or corn. The vines are luxuriant
always, and often send their tendrils into the air higher than the
topmost branch of the tree, and this extends the whole distance from
Padua to Verona, with no interruption except the palaces and gardens
of the nobles lying between.
It was just the season for gathering and pressing the grape, and the
romantic vineyards were full of the happy peasants, of all ages,
mounting the ladders adventurously for the tall clusters, heaping the
baskets and carts, driving in the stately gray oxen with their loads,
and talking and singing as merrily as if it were Arcadia. Oh how
beautiful these scenes are in Italy. The people are picturesque, the
land is like the poetry of nature, the habits are all as they were
described centuries ago, and as the still living pictures of the
glorious old masters represent them. The most every-day traveller
smiles and wonders, as he lets down his carriage windows to look at
the vintage.
* * * * *
We have been three or four days in Verona, visiting Juliet's tomb, and
riding through the lovely environs. The opera here is excellent, and
we went last night to see "Romeo and Juliet" performed in the city
renowned by their story. The _prima donna_ was one of those syrens
found often in Italy--a young singer of great promise, with that
daring brilliancy which practice and maturer science discipline, to my
taste, too severely. It was like the wild, ungovernable trill of a
bird, and my ear is not so nice yet, that I even would not rather feel
a roughness in the harmony than lose it. Malibran delighted me more in
America than in Paris.
The opera was over at twelve, and, as we emerged from the crowded
lobby, the moon full, and as clear and soft as the eye of a child,
burst through the arches of the portico. The theatre is opposite the
celebrated Roman amphitheatre, and the wish to visit it by moonlight
was expressed spontaneously by the whole party. The _custode_ was
roused, and we entered the vast arena and stood in the midst, with the
gigantic ranges of stone seats towering up in a receding circle, as if
to the very sky, and the lofty arches and echoing dens lying black and
silent in the dead shadows of the moon. A hundred thousand people
could sit here; and it was in these arenas, scattered through the
Roman provinces, that the bloody gladiator fights, and the massacre of
Christians, and every scene of horror, amused the subjects of the
mighty mistress of the world. You would never believe it, if you could
have seen how peacefully the moonlight now sleeps on the
moss-gathering walls, and with what untrimmed grace the vines and
flowers creep and blossom on the rocky crevices of the windows.
We arrived at Bologna just in time to get to the opera. Malibran in
_La Gazza Ladra_ was enough to make one forget more than the fatigue
of a day's travel. She sings as well as ever and plays much better,
though she had been ill, and looked thin. In the prison scene, she was
ghastlier even than the character required. There are few pleasures in
Europe like such singing as hers, and the Italians, in their excellent
operas, and the cheap rate at which they can be frequented, have a
resource corresponding to everything else in their delightful country.
Every comfort and luxury is better and cheaper in Italy than
elsewhere, and it is a pity that he who can get his wine for three
cents a bottle, his dinner and his place at the opera for ten, and has
lodgings for anything he chooses to pay, can not find leisure, and
does not think it worth the trouble, to look about for means to be
free. It is vexatious to see nature lavishing such blessings on
slaves.
The next morning we visited a palace, which, as it is not mentioned in
the guide-books of travel, I had not before seen--the _Lambaccari_. It
was full of glorious pictures, most of them for sale. Among others we
were captivated with a Magdalen of unrivalled sweetness by _Guido
Carracci_. It has been bought since by Mr. Cabot, of Boston, who
passed through Bologna the day after, and will be sent to America, I
am happy to say, immediately. There were also six of "Charles the
Second's beauties,"--portraits of the celebrated women of that gay
monarch's court, by Sir Peter Lely--ripe, glowing English women, more
voluptuous than chary-looking, but pictures of exquisite workmanship.
There were nine or ten apartments to this splendid palace, all crowded
with paintings by the first masters, and the surviving Lambaccari is
said to be selling them one by one for bread. It is really melancholy
to go through Italy, and see how her people are suffering, and her
nobles starving under oppression.
We crossed the Appenines in two of the finest days that ever shone,
and descending through clouds and mist to the Tuscan frontier, entered
the lovely valley of the Arno, sparkling in the sunshine, with all its
palaces and spires, as beautiful as ever. I am at Florence once more,
and parting from the delightful party with whom I have travelled for
two months. I start for Rome to-morrow, in company with five artists.
LETTER XLI.
JOURNEY TO THE ETERNAL CITY--TWO ROADS TO ROME--SIENNA--THE
PUBLIC SQUARE--AN ITALIAN FAIR--THE CATHEDRAL--THE
LIBRARY--THE THREE GRECIAN GRACES--DANDY OFFICERS--PUBLIC
PROMENADE--LANDSCAPE VIEW--LONG GLEN--A WATERFALL--A
CULTIVATED VALLEY--THE TOWN OF AQUAPENDENTE--SAN
LORENZO--PLINY'S FLOATING ISLANDS--MONTEFIASCONE--
VITERBO--PROCESSION OF FLOWER AND DANCING GIRLS TO THE
VINTAGE--ASCENT OF THE MONTECIMINO--THE ROAD OF THIEVES--LAKE
VICO--BACCANO--MOUNT SORACTE--DOME OF ST. PETER'S, ETC.
I left Florence in company with the five artists mentioned in my last
letter, one of them an Englishman, and the other four pensioners of
the royal academy at Madrid. The Spaniards had but just arrived in
Italy, and could not speak a syllable of the language. The Englishman
spoke everything but French, which he avoided learning _from
principle_. He "hated a Frenchman!"
There are two roads to Rome. One goes by Sienna, and is a day shorter;
the other by Perugia, the Falls of Terni, Lake Thrasymene, and the
Clitumnus. Childe Harold took the latter, and his ten or twelve best
cantos describe it. I was compelled to go by Sienna, and shall return,
of course, by the other road.
I was at Sienna on the following day. As the second capital of
Tuscany, this should be a place of some interest, but an hour or two
is more than enough to see all that is attractive. The public square
was a gay scene. It was rather singularly situated, lying fifteen or
twenty feet lower than the streets about it. I should think there were
several thousand people in its area--all buying or selling, and
vociferating, as usual, at the top of their voices. We heard the
murmur, like the roar of the sea, in all the distant streets. There
are few sights more picturesque than an Italian fair, and I strolled
about in the crowd for an hour, amused with the fanciful costumes, and
endeavoring to make out with the assistance of the eye, what rather
distracted my unaccustomed ear--the cries of the various wandering
venders of merchandise. The women, who were all from the country, were
coarse, and looked well only at a distance.
The cathedral is the great sight of Sienna. It has a rich exterior,
encrusted with curiously wrought marbles, and the front, as far as I
can judge, is in beautiful taste. The pavement of the interior is very
precious, and covered with a wooden platform, which is removed but
once a year. The servitor raised a part of it, to show us the
workmanship. It was like a drawing in India ink, quite as fine as if
pencilled, and representing, as is customary, some miracle of a saint.
A massive iron door, made ingeniously to imitate a rope-netting, opens
from the side of the church into the _library_. It contained some
twenty volumes in black letter, bound with enormous clasps and placed
upon inclined shelves. It would have been a task for a man of moderate
strength to lift either of them from the floor. The little sacristan
found great difficulty in only opening one to show us the letter.
In the centre of the chapel on a high pedestal, stands the original
antique group, so often copied, of the three Grecian Graces. It is
shockingly mutilated; but its original beauty is still in a great
measure discernable. Three naked women are an odd ornament for the
private chapel of a cathedral.[1] One often wonders, however, in
Italian churches, whether his devotion is most called upon by the arts
or the Deity.
As we were leaving the church, four young officers passed us in gay
uniform, their long steel scabbards rattling on the pavement, and
their heavy tread disturbing visibly every person present. As I turned
to look after them, with some remark on their coxcombry, they dropped
on their knees at the bases of the tall pillars about the altar, and
burying their faces in their caps, bowed their heads nearly to the
floor, in attitudes of the deepest devotion. Sincere or not, Catholic
worshippers of all classes _seem_ absorbed in their religious duties.
You can scarce withdraw the attention even of a child in such places.
In the six months that I have been in Italy, I never saw anything like
irreverence within the church walls.
The public promenade, on the edge of the hill upon which the town is
beautifully situated, commands a noble view of the country about. The
peculiar landscape of Italy lay before us in all its loveliness--the
far-off hills lightly tinted with the divided colors of distance, the
atmosphere between absolutely clear and invisible, and villages
clustered about, each with its ancient castle on the hill-top above,
just as it was settled in feudal times, and as painters and poets
would imagine it. You never get a view in this "garden of the world"
that would not excuse very extravagant description.
Sienna is said to be the best place for learning the language. Just
between Florence and Rome, it combines the "_lingua Toscano_," with
the "_bocca Romano_"--the Roman pronunciation with the Florentine
purity of language. It looks like a dull place, however, and I was
very glad after dinner to resume my passport at the gate and get on.
The next morning, after toiling up a considerable ascent, we suddenly
rounded the shoulder of a mountain, and found ourselves at the edge of
a long glen, walled up at one extremity by a precipice with an old
town upon its brow, and a waterfall pouring off at its side, and
opening away at the other into a broad, gently-sloped valley,
cultivated like a garden as far as the eye could distinguish. I think
I have seen an engraving of it in the Landscape Annual. Taken
together, it is positively the most beautiful view I ever saw, from
the road edge, as you wind up into the town of _Acquapendente_. The
precipice might be a hundred feet, and from its immediate edge were
built up the walls of the houses, so that a child at the window might
throw its plaything into the bottom of the ravine. It is scarce a
pistol-shot across the glen, and the two hills on either side lean off
from the level of the town in one long soft declivity to the
valley--the little river which pours off the rock at the very base of
the church, fretting and fuming its way between to the meadows--its
stony bed quite hidden by the thick vegetation of its banks. The bells
were ringing to mass, and the echoes came back to us at long distances
with every modulation. The streets, as we entered the town, were full
of people hurrying to the churches; the women with their red shawls
thrown about their heads, and the men with their immense dingy cloaks
flung romantically over their shoulders, with a grace, one and all,
that in a Parisian dandy, would be attributed to a consummate study of
effect. For outline merely, I think there is nothing in costume which
can surpass the closely-stockinged leg, heavy cloak, and slouched hat
of an Italian peasant. It is added to by his indolent, and,
consequently, graceful motion and attitudes. Johnson, in his book on
the climate of Italy, says their sloth is induced by _malaria_. You
will see a man watching goats or sheep, with his back against a rock,
quite motionless for hours together. His dog feels, apparently, the
same influence, and lies couched in his long white hair, with his eyes
upon the flock, as lifeless, and almost as picturesque, as his master.
The town of San Lorenzo is a handful of houses on the top of a hill
which hangs over Lake Bolsena. You get the first view of the lake as
you go out of the gate toward Rome, and descend immediately to its
banks. There was a heavy mist upon the water, and we could not see
across, but it looked like as quiet and pleasant a shore as might be
found in the world--the woods wild, and of uncommonly rich foliage for
Italy, and the slopes of the hills beautiful. Saving the road, and
here and there a house with no sign of an inhabitant, there can
scarcely be a lonelier wilderness in America. We stopped two hours at
an inn on its banks, and whether it was the air, or the influence of
the perfect stillness about us, my companions went to sleep, and I
could scarce resist my own drowsiness.
The mist lifted a little from the lake after dinner, and we saw the
two islands said by Pliny to have floated, in his time. They look like
the tops of green hills rising from the water.