thick covering in an Italian August. "The blanched linen, white and
lavendered," seemed to have a peculiar charm, for though I had
promised to meet my excluded companions at sunrise, on the top of the
mountain, I slept soundly till nine, and was obliged to breakfast
alone in the refectory of the convent.
We were to dine at three, and start for Florence at four the next day,
and we spent our morning in traversing the mountain paths, and getting
views on every side. Fifty or a hundred feet above the convent,
perched on a rock like an eyry, stands a small building in which
Milton is supposed to have lived, during his six weeks sojourn at the
convent. It is now fitted up as a nest of small chapels--every one of
its six or eight little chambers having an altar. The ladies were not
permitted to enter it. I selected the room I presumed the poet must
have chosen--the only one commanding the immense view to the west,
and, looking from the window, could easily feel the truth of his
simile, "thick as leaves in Vallombrosa." It is a mountain of foliage.
Another sumptuous dinner was served, Father Gasparo sitting by, even
more voluble than before, the baskets and the pony were brought to the
door, and we bade farewell to the old monk with more regret than a
day's acquaintance often produces. We reached our carriage in an hour,
and were in Florence at eight--having passed, by unanimous opinion,
the two brightest days in our calendar of travel.
LETTER XLIX.
HOUSE OF MICHAEL ANGELO--THE ANCIENT CHURCH OF SAN
MINIATO--MADAME CATALANI--WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR--MIDNIGHT MASS,
ETC.
I went with a party this morning to visit _the house of Michael
Angelo_. It stands as he lived in it, in the Via Ghibellini, and is
still in possession of his descendants. It is a neat building of three
stories, divided on the second floor into three rooms, shown as those
occupied by the painter, sculptor, and poet. The first is panelled and
painted by his scholars after his death--each picture representing
some incident of his life. There are ten or twelve of these, and
several of them are highly beautiful. One near the window represents
him in his old age on a visit to "Lorenzo the Magnificent," who
commands him to sit in his presence. The Duke is standing before his
chair, and the figure of the old man is finely expressive.
The next room appears to have been his parlor, and the furniture is
exactly as it stood when he died. In one corner is placed a bust of
him in his youth, with his face perfect; and opposite, another, taken
from a cast after his nose was broken by a fellow painter in the
church of the Carmine. There are also one or two portraits of him, and
the resemblance through them all, shows that the likeness we have of
him in the engravings are uncommonly correct.
In the inner room, which was his studio, they show his pallet,
brushes, pots, maul-sticks, slippers, and easel--all standing
carelessly in the little closets around, as if he had left them but
yesterday. The walls are painted in fresco, by Angelo himself, and
represent groups of all the distinguished philosophers, poets and
statesmen of his time. Among them are the heads of Petrarch, Dante,
Galileo, and Lorenzo de Medici. It is a noble gallery! perhaps a
hundred heads in all.
The descendant of Buonarotti is now an old man, and fortunately rich
enough to preserve the house of his great ancestor as an object of
curiosity. He has a son, I believe studying the arts at Rome.
* * * * *
On a beautiful hill which ascends directly from one of the southern
gates of Florence, stands a church built so long ago as at the close
of the first century. The gate, church, and hill, are all called San
Miniato, after a saint buried under the church pavement. A large, and
at present flourishing convent, hangs on the side of the hill below,
and around the church stand the walls of a strong fortress, built by
Michael Angelo. A half mile or more south, across a valley, an old
tower rises against the sky, which was erected for the observations of
Galileo. A mile to the left, on the same ridge, an old villa is to be
seen in which Boccaccio wrote most of his "Hundred Tales of Love."
The Arno comes down from Vallombrosa, and passing through Florence at
the foot of San Miniato, is seen for three miles further on its way to
Pisa; the hill, tower, and convent of Fiesole, where Milton studied
and Catiline encamped with his conspirators, rise from the opposite
bank of the river; and right below, as if you could leap into the
lantern of the dome, nestles the lovely city of Florence, in the lap
of the very brightest vale that ever mountain sheltered or river ran
through. Such are the temptations to a _walk in Italy_, and add to it
the charms of the climate, and you may understand one of a hundred
reasons why it is the land of poetry and romance, and why it so easily
becomes the land of a stranger's affection.
The villas which sparkle all over the hills which lean unto Florence,
are occupied mainly by foreigners living here for health or luxury,
and most of them are known and visited by the floating society of the
place. Among them are Madame Catalani, the celebrated singer, who
occupies a beautiful palace on the ascent of Fiesole, and Walter
Savage Landor, the author of the "Imaginary Conversations," as refined
a scholar perhaps as is now living, who is her near neighbor. A
pleasant family of my acquaintance lives just back of the fortress of
San Miniato, and in walking out to them with a friend yesterday, I
visited the church again, and remarked more particularly the features
of the scene I have described.
The church of San Miniato was built by Henry I. of Germany, and
Cunegonde his wife. The front is pretty--a kind of mixture of Greek
and Arabic architecture, crusted with marble. The interior is in the
style of the primitive churches, the altar standing in what was called
the _presbytery_, a high platform occupying a third of the nave, with
two splendid flights of stairs of the purest white marble. The most
curious part of it is the rotunda in the rear, which is lit by five
windows of transparent oriental alabaster, each eight or nine feet
high and three broad, in single slabs. The sun shone full on one of
them while we were there, and the effect was inconceivably rich. It
was like a sheet of half molten gold and silver. The transparency of
course was irregular, but in the yellow spots of the stone the light
came through like the effect of deeply stained glass.
A partly subterranean chapel, six or eight feet lower than the
pavement of the church, extends under the presbytery. It is a
labyrinth of marble columns which support the platform above, no two
of which are alike. The ancient cathedral of Modena is the only church
I have seen in Italy built in the same manner.
* * * * *
The _midnight mass_ on "Christmas eve," is abused in all catholic
countries, I believe, as a kind of saturnalia of gallantry. I joined a
party of young men who were leaving a ball for the church of the
Annunciata, the fashionable rendezvous, and we were set down at the
portico when the mass was about half over. The entrances of the open
vestibule were thronged to suffocation. People of all ages and
conditions were crowding in and out, and the sound of the distant
chant at the altar came to our ears as we entered, mingled with every
tone of address and reply from the crowd about us. The body of the
church was quite obscured with the smoke of the incense. We edged our
way on through the press, carried about in the open area of the church
by every tide that rushed in from the various doors, till we stopped
in a thick eddy in the centre, almost unable to stir a limb. I could
see the altar very clearly from this point, and I contented myself
with merely observing what was about me, leaving my motions to the
impulse of the crowd.
It was a curiously mingled scene. The ceremonies of the altar were
going on in all their mysterious splendor. The waving of censers, the
kneeling and rising of the gorgeously clad priests, accompanied
simultaneously by the pealing of solemn music from the different
organs--the countless lights burning upon the altar, and, ranged
within the paling, a semicircle of the duke's grenadiers, standing
motionless, with their arms presented, while the sentinel paced to and
fro, and all kneeling, and grounding arms at the tinkle of the slight
bell--were the materials for the back-ground of the picture. In the
immense area of the church stood perhaps, four thousand people, one
third of whom, doubtless, came to worship. Those who did and those who
did not, dropped alike upon the marble pavement at the sound of the
bell; and then, as I was heretic enough to stand, I had full
opportunity for observing both devotion and intrigue. The latter was
amusingly managed. Almost all the pretty and young women were
accompanied by an ostensible duenna, and the methods of eluding their
vigilance in communication were various. I had detected under a
_blond_ wig, in entering, the young ambassador of a foreign court, who
being _cavaliere servente_ to one of the most beautiful women in
Florence, certainly had no right to the amusement of the hour. We had
been carried up the church in the same tide, and when the whole crowd
were prostrate, I found him just beyond me, slipping a card into the
shoe of an uncommonly pretty girl kneeling before him. She was
attended by both father and mother apparently, but as she gave no sign
of surprise, except stealing an almost imperceptible glance behind
her, I presumed she was not offended. I passed an hour, perhaps, in
amused observation of similar matters, most of which could not be well
described on paper. It is enough to say, that I do not think more
dissolute circumstances accompanied the worship of Venus in the most
defiled of heathen temples.
LETTER L.
FLORENCE--VISIT TO THE CHURCH OF SAN GAETANO--PENITENTIAL
PROCESSIONS--THE REFUGEE CARLISTS--THE MIRACLE OF RAIN--CHURCH
OF THE ANNUNCIATA--TOMB OF GIOVANNI DI BOLOGNA--MASTERPIECE OF
ANDREA DEL SARTO, ETC., ETC.
I heard the best passage of the opera of "Romeo and Juliet"
delightfully played in the church of _San Gaetano_ this morning. I was
coming from the _cafe_, where I had been breakfasting, when the sound
of the organ drew me in. The communion was administering at one of the
side chapels, the showy Sunday mass was going on at the great altar,
and the numerous confession boxes were full of penitents, _all
female_, as usual. As I took a seat near the communicants, the sacred
wafer was dipped into the cup and put into the mouth of a young woman
kneeling before the railing. She rose soon after, and I was not
lightly surprised to find it was a certain errand-girl of a bachelor's
washerwoman, as unfit a person for the holy sacrament as wears a
petticoat in Florence.
I was drawn by the agreeable odor of the incense to the paling of the
high altar. The censers were flung by unseen hands from the doors of
the sacristy at the sides, and an unseen chorus of boys in the choir
behind, broke in occasionally with the high-keyed chant that echoes
with its wild melody from every arch and corner of these immense
churches. It seems running upon the highest note that the ear can
bear, and yet nothing could be more musical. A man knelt on the
pavement near me, with two coarse baskets beside him, and the traces
of long and dirty travel from his heels to his hips. He had stopped in
to the mass, probably, on his way to market. There can be no greater
contrast than that seen in Catholic churches, between the splendor of
architecture, renowned pictures, statues and ornaments of silver and
gold, and the crowd of tattered, famished, misery-marked worshippers
that throng them. I wonder it never occurs to them, that the costly
pavement upon which they kneel might feed and clothe them.[6]
Penitential processions are to be met all over Florence to-day, on
account of the uncommon degree of sickness. One of them passed under
my window just now. They are composed of people of all classes, upon
whom it is inflicted as a penance by the priests. A white robe covers
them entirely, even the face, and, with their eyes glaring through the
two holes made for that purpose, they look like processions of
shrouded corpses. Eight of the first carry burning candles of six feet
in length, and a company in the rear have the church books, from which
they chant, the whole procession joining in a melancholy chorus of
three notes. It rains hard to-day, and their white dresses cling to
them with a ludicrously ungraceful effect.
Florence is an unhealthful climate in the winter. The tramontane winds
come down from the Appenines so sharply, that delicate constitutions,
particularly those liable to pulmonary complaints, suffer invariably.
There has been a dismal mortality among the Italians. The Marquis
Corsi, who presented me at court a week ago (the last day he was out,
and the last duty he performed), lies in state, at this moment, in the
church of Santa Trinita, and another of the duke's counsellors of
state died a few days before. His prime minister, Fossombroni, is
dangerously ill also, and all of the same complaint, the _mal di
petto_, as it is called, or disease of the lungs. Corsi is a great
loss to Americans. He was the grand chamberlain of court, wealthy and
hospitable, and took particular pride in fulfilling the functions of
an American ambassador. He was a courtier of the old school,
accomplished, elegant, and possessed of universal information.
* * * * *
The _refugee Carlists_ are celebrating to-day, in the church of Santa
Maria Novella, the anniversary of the death of _Louis XVI_. The bishop
of Strasbourg is here, and is performing high mass for the soul of the
"_martyr_," as they term him. Italy is full of the more aristocratic
families of France, and it has become _mauvais ton_ in society to
advocate the present government of France, or even its principles.
They detest Louis Philippe with the virulence of a deadly private
enmity, and declare universally, that they will exile themselves till
they can return to overthrow him. Among the refugees are great numbers
of young men, who are sent away from home with a chivalrous devotion
to the cause of the Duchess of Berri, which they avow so constantly in
the circles of Italian society, that she seems the exclusive heroine
of the day. There was nothing seen of the French exquisites in
Florence for a week after she was taken. They were in mourning for the
misfortune of their mistress.
* * * * *
All Florence is ringing with _the miracle_. The city fountains have
for some days been dry, and the whole country was suffering for rain.
_The day before the moon changed_, the procession began, and the day
after, when the sky was full of clouds, the holy picture in the church
of the Annunciata, "painted by St. Luke himself," was solemnly
uncovered. The result was the present miracle of _rain_, and the
priests are preaching upon it from every pulpit. The _padrone_ of my
lodgings came in this morning, and told me the circumstances with the
most serious astonishment.
I joined the crowd this morning, who are still thronging up the _via
de Servi_ to the church of the Annunciata at all hours of the day. The
square in front of the church was like a fair--every nook occupied
with the little booths of the sellers of rosaries, saints books, and
pictures. We were assailed by a troop of pedlars at the door, holding
leaden medals and crucifixes, and crying, at the top of their voices,
for _fidele Christiani_ to spend a crazie for the love of God.
After crowding up the long cloister with a hundred or two of wretches,
steaming from the rain, and fresh from every filthy occupation in the
city, we were pushed under the suspended leather door, and reached the
nave of the church. In the slow progress we made toward the altar, I
had full opportunity to study the fretted-gold ceiling above me, the
masterly pictures in the side chapels, the statuary, carving, and
general architecture. Description can give you no idea of the waste
of splendor in these places.
I stood at last within sight of the miraculous picture. It is painted
in fresco, above an altar surrounded with a paling of bronze and
marble projecting into the body of the church. Eight or ten massive
silver lamps, each one presented by some _trade_ in Florence, hung
from the roof of the chapel, burning with a dusky glare in the
daylight. A grenadier, with cap and musket, stood on each side of the
bronze gate, repressing the eager rush of the crowd. Within, at the
side of the altar, stood the officiating priest, a man with a look of
intellect and nobleness on his fine features and lofty forehead, that
seemed irreconcilable with the folly he was performing. The devotees
came in, one by one, as they were admitted by the sentinel, knelt,
offered their rosary to the priest, who touched it to the frame of the
picture with one hand, and received their money with the other, and
then crossing themselves, and pressing the beads to their bosom,
passed out at the small door leading into the cloisters.
As the only chance of seeing the picture, I bought a rosary for two
crazie (about three cents), and pressed into the throng. In a half
hour it came to my turn to pass the guard. The priest took my silver
paul, and while he touched the beads to the picture, I had a moment to
look at it nearly. I could see nothing but a confused mass of black
paint, with an indistinct outline of the head of the Madonna in the
centre. The large spiked rays of glory standing out from every side
were all I could see in the imperfect light. The richness of the
chapel itself, however, was better worth the trouble to see. It is
quite encrusted with silver. Silver _bassi relievi_, two silver
candelabra, six feet in height, two very large silver statues of
angels, a _ciborio_ (enclosing a most exquisite head of our Saviour,
by _Andrea del Sarto_), a massive silver cornice sustaining a heavily
folded silver curtain, and silver lilies and lamps in any quantity all
around. I wonder, after the plundering of the church of San Antonio,
at Padua, that these useless riches escaped Napoleon.
How some of the priests, who are really learned and clever men, can
lend themselves to such barefaced imposture as this miracle, it is
difficult to conceive. The picture has been kept as a doer of these
miracles, perhaps for a century. It is never uncovered in vain.
Supernatural results are certain to follow, and it is done as often as
they dare to make a fresh draught on the credulity and money of the
people. The story is as follows: "A certain Bartolomeo, while painting
a fresco of the annunciation, being at a loss how to make the
countenance of the Madonna properly seraphic, fell asleep while
pondering over his work; and, on waking, found it executed in a style
he was unable to equal." I can only say that St. Luke, or the angel,
or whoever did it, was a very indifferent draughtsman. It is ill
drawn, and whatever the colors might have been upon the pallet of the
sleepy painter, they were not made immortal by angelic use. It is a
mass of confused black.
I was glad to get away from the crowd and their mummery, and pay a new
tribute of reverence at the tomb of _Giovanni di Bologna_. He is
buried behind the grand altar, in a chapel ornamented at his own
expense, and with his own inimitable works. Six bas-reliefs in bronze,
than which life itself is not more natural, represent different
passages of our Saviour's history. They were done for the Grand Duke,
who, at the death of the artist, liberally gave them to ornament his
tomb. After the authors of the Venus and the Apollo Belvidere, John of
Bologna is, in my judgment, the greatest of sculptors. His _mounting
Mercury_, in the Florence gallery, might have been a theft from heaven
for its divine beauty.
In passing out by the cloisters of the adjoining convent, I stopped a
moment to see the fresco of the _Madonna del Sacco_, said to have been
the masterpiece of _Andrea del Sarto_. Michael Angelo and Raphael are
said to have "gazed at it unceasingly." It is much defaced, and
preserves only its graceful drawing. The countenance of Mary has the
_beau reste_ of singular loveliness. The models of this delightful
artist (who, by the way, is buried in the vestibule of this same
church), must have been the most beautiful in the world. All his
pictures move the heart.
FOOTNOTE:
[6] The Tuscans, who are the best governed people in Italy, pay
_twenty per cent._ of their property in taxes--paying the whole value
of their estates, of course, in five years. The extortions of the
priests, added to this, are sufficiently burdensome.
LETTER LI.
FLORENTINE PECULIARITIES--SOCIETY--BALLS--DUCAL
ENTERTAINMENTS--PRIVILEGE OF STRANGERS--FAMILIES OF HIGH
RANK--THE EXCLUSIVES--SOIREES--PARTIES OF A RICH
BANKER--PEASANT BEAUTY--VISITERS OF A BARONESS--AWKWARD
DEPORTMENT OF A PRINCE--A CONTENTED MARRIED LADY--HUSBANDS,
CAVALIERS, AND WIVES--PERSONAL MANNERS--HABITS OF SOCIETY,
ETC.
I am about starting on my second visit to Rome, after having passed
nearly three months in Florence. As I have seen most of the society of
this gayest and fairest of the Italian cities, it may not be
uninteresting to depart a little from the traveller's routine by
sketching a feature or two.
Florence is a resort for strangers from every part of the world. The
gay society is a mixture of all nations, of whom one third may be
Florentine, one third English, and the remaining part equally divided
between Russians, Germans, French, Poles, and Americans. The English
entertain a great deal, and give most of the balls and dinner parties.
The Florentines seldom trouble themselves to give parties, but are
always at home for visits in the _prima sera_ (from seven till nine),
and in their box at the opera. They go, without scruple, to all the
strangers' balls, considering courtesy repaid, perhaps, by the weekly
reception of the Grand Duke, and a weekly ball at the club-house of
young Italian noblemen.
The ducal entertainments occur every Tuesday, and are the most
splendid of course. The foreign ministers present all of their
countrymen who have been presented at their own courts, and the
company is necessarily more select than elsewhere. The Florentines who
go to court are about seven hundred, of whom half are invited on each
week--strangers, when once presented, having the double privilege of
coming uninvited to all. There are several Italian families, of the
highest rank, who are seen only here; but, with the single exception
of one unmarried girl, of uncommon beauty, who bears a name celebrated
in Italian history, they are no loss to general society. Among the
foreigners of rank, are three or four German princes, who play high
and waltz well, and are remarkable for nothing else; half a dozen
star-wearing dukes, counts, and marquises, of all nations and in any
quantity, and a few English noblemen and noble ladies--only the latter
nation showing their blood at all in their features and bearing.
The most exclusive society is that of the Prince Montfort (Jerome
Bonaparte), whose splendid palace is shut entirely against the
English, and difficult of access to all. He makes a single exception
in favor of a descendant of the Talbots, a lady whose beauty might be
an apology for a much graver departure from rule. He has given two
grand entertainments since the carnival commenced, to which nothing
was wanting but people to enjoy them. The immense rooms were flooded
with light, the music was the best Florence could give, the supper
might have supped an army--stars and red ribands entered with every
fresh comer, but it looked like a "banquet hall deserted." Some thirty
ladies, and as many men, were all that Florence contained worthy of
the society of the Ex-King. A kinder man in his manners, however, or
apparently a more affectionate husband and father, I never saw. He
opened the dance by waltzing with the young Princess, his daughter, a
lovely girl of fourteen, of whom he seems fond to excess, and he was
quite the gayest person in the company till the ball was over. The
Ex-Queen, who is a miracle of size, sat on a divan, with her ladies of
honor about her, following her husband with her eyes, and enjoying his
gayety with the most childish good humor.