This animal has four wings, four eyes, and two membranes like parchment
under the hard scales he is covered with; and these, it is said, create
the uncommon noise he makes, by blowing them somewhat like bellows, to
sharpen the sound; which, whatever it proceeds from, is louder than can
be guessed at by those who have not heard it in Tuscany. He is of the
locust kind, an inch and a half long, and wonderfully light in
proportion; though no small feeder, I should imagine, by the total
destruction his noisy tribe make amongst the leaves, which are now
wholly stript by them of all their verdure, the fibres only being left;
and I observed yesterday evening, as we returned from airing, another
strange deprivation practised on the mulberry leaves round the city,
which being all forcibly torn away for the use of the silk-worms, make
an odd fort of artificial winter near the town walls; and remind one of
the wretched geese in Lincolnshire, plucked once a year for their
feathers by their truly unfeeling proprietors. I am told indeed, that
both revegetate, though I trust neither tree nor bird can fail to
experience fatal effects one day or other in consequence of so unnatural
an operation. Here is some ivy of uncommon growth, but I have seen
larger both at Beaumaris castle in North Wales, and at the abbey of
Glastonbury in Somersetshire: but the great pines in the Caseine woods
have, I suppose, no rival nearer than the Castagno a Cento Cavalli,
mentioned by Mr. Brydone. They afford little shade or shelter from heat
however, as their umbrella-like covering is strangely small in
proportion to their height and size; some of them being ten, and some
twelve feet in diameter. These venerable, these glorious productions of
nature are all now marked for destruction however; all going to be put
in wicker baskets, and feed the Grand Duke's fires. I saw a fellow
hewing one down to-day, and the rest are all to follow;--the feeble
Florentines had much ado to master it;
Seemed the harmful hatchet to fear,
And to wound holy Eld would forbear,
as Spenser says: I did half hope they could not get it down; but the
loyal Tuscans (evermore awed by the name _principe_) told us it was
right to get rid of them, as one of the cones, of which they bore vast
quantities, might chance to drop upon the head of a _Principettino_, or
little Prince, as he passed along.
I was observing that restraint was necessary to man; I have now learned
a notion that noise is necessary too. The clatter made here in the
Piazza del Duomo, where you sit in your carriage at a coffee-house door,
and chat with your friends according to Italian custom, while _one_
eats ice, and _another_ calls for lemonade, to while away the time after
dinner, the noise made then and there, I say, is beyond endurance.
Our Florentines have nothing on earth to do; yet a dozen fellows crying
_ciambelli_, little cakes, about the square, assisted by beggars, who
lie upon the church steps, and pray or rather promise to pray as loud as
their lungs will let them, for the _anime sante di purgatorio_[Footnote:
Holy souls in purgatory.]; ballad-singers meantime endeavouring to drown
these clamours in their own, and gentlemen's servants disputing at the
doors, whose master shall be first served; ripping up the pedigrees of
each to prove superior claims for a biscuit or macaroon; do make such an
intolerable clatter among them, that one cannot, for one's life, hear
one another speak: and I did say just now, that it were as good live at
Brest or Portsmouth when the rival fleets were fitting out, as here;
where real tranquillity subsists under a bustle merely imaginary. Our
Grand Duke lives with little state for aught I can observe here; but
where there is least pomp, there is commonly most power; for a man must
have _something pour se de dommages_[Footnote: To make himself amends.],
as the French express it; and this gentleman possessing the _solide_ has
no care for the _clinquant_, I trow. He tells his subjects when to go to
bed, and who to dance with, till the hour he chuses they should retire
to rest, with exactly that sort of old-fashioned paternal authority that
fathers used to exercise over their families in England before commerce
had run her levelling plough over all ranks, and annihilated even the
name of subordination. If he hear of any person living long in Florence
without being able to give a good account of his business there, the
Duke warns him to go away; and if he loiter after such warning given,
sends him out. Does any nobleman shine in pompous equipage or splendid
table; the Grand Duke enquires soon into his pretensions, and scruples
not to give personal advice, and add grave reproofs with regard to the
management of each individual's private affairs, the establishment of
their sons, marriage of their sisters, &c. When they appeared to
complain of this behaviour to _me_, I know not, replied I, what to
answer: one has always read and heard that the Sovereigns ought to
behave in despotic governments like the _fathers of their family_: and
the Archbishop of Cambray inculcates no other conduct than this, when
advising his pupil, heir to the crown of France. "Yes, Madam," replied
one of my auditors, with an acuteness truly Italian; "but this Prince is
_our father-in-law_." The truth is, much of an English traveller's
pleasure is taken off at Florence by the incessant complaints of a
government he does not understand, and of oppressions he cannot remedy.
Tis so dull to hear people lament the want of liberty, to which I
question whether they have any pretensions; and without ever knowing
whether it is the tyranny or the tyrant they complain of. Tedious
however and most uninteresting are their accounts of grievances, which a
subject of Great Britain has much ado to comprehend, and more to pity;
as they are now all heart-broken, because they must say their prayers in
their own language and not in Latin, which, how it can be construed
into misfortune, a Tuscan alone can tell.
Lord Corke has given us many pleasing anecdotes of those who were
formerly Princes in this land. Had they a sovereign of the old Medici
family, they would go to bed when _he_ bid them quietly enough I
believe, and say their prayers in what language _he_ would have them:
'tis in our parliamentary phrase, the _men_, not the _measures_ that
offend them; and while they pretend to whine as if despotism displeased
them, they detest every republican state, feel envy towards Venice, and
contempt for Lucca.
I would rather talk of their gallery than their government: and surely
nothing made by man ever so completely answered a raised expectation, as
the apparent contest between Titian's recumbent beauty, glowing with
colour and animated by the warmest expression, and the Greek statue of
symmetrical perfection and fineness of form inimitable, where sculpture
supplies all that fancy can desire, and all that imagination can
suggest. These two models of excellence seem placed near each other, at
once to mock all human praise, and defy all future imitation. The
listening slave appears disturbed by the blows of the wrestlers in the
same room, and hearkens with an attentive impatience, such as one has
often felt when unable to distinguish the words one wishes to repeat.
You really then do not seem as if you were alone in this tribune, so
animated is every figure, so full of life and soul: yet I commend not
the representing of St Catharine with leering eyes, as she is here
painted by Titian; that it is meant for a portrait, I find no excuse;
some character more suited to the expression should have been chosen;
and if it were only the picture of a saint, that expression was
strangely out of character. An anachronism may be found in the Tobit
over the door too, by acute observers, who will deem it ill-managed to
paint the cross in the clouds, where it is an old testament story, and
that story apocryphal beside; might I add, that Guido's meek Madonna, so
divinely contrasted to the other women in the room, loses something of
dignity by the affected position of the thumbs. I think I might leave
the tribune without a word said of the St. John by Raphael, which no
words are worthy to extol: 'tis all sublimity; and when I look on it I
feel nothing but veneration pushed to astonishment. Unlike the elegant
figure of the Baptist at Padua, covered with glass, and belonging to a
convent of friars, who told me, and truly, That it had no equal; it is
painted by Guido with every perfection of form and every grace of
expression. I agree with them it has no equal; but in the tribune at
Florence maybe found its superior.
We were next conducted to the Niobe, who has an apartment to herself:
and now, thought I, dear Mrs. Siddons has never seen this figure: but
those who can see it or her, without emotions equally impossible to
contain or to suppress, deserve the fate of Niobe, and have already
half-suffered it. Their hearts and eyes are stone.
Nothing is worth speaking of after this Niobe! Her beauty! her maternal
anguish! her closely-clasped Chloris! her half-raised head, scarcely
daring to deprecate that vengeance of which she already feels such
dreadful effects! What can one do
But drop the shady curtain on the scene,
and run to see the portraits of those artists who have exalted one's
ideas of human nature, and shewn what man can perform. Among these
worthies a British eye soon distinguishes Sir Joshua Reynolds; a citizen
of the world fastens his to Leonardo da Vinci.
I have been out to dinner in the country near Prato, and what a
charming, what a delightful thing is a nobleman's seat near Florence!
How cheerful the society! how splendid the climate! how wonderful the
prospects in this glorious country! The Arno rolling before his house,
the Appenines rising behind it! a sight of fertility enjoyed by its
inhabitants, and a view of such defences to their property as nature
alone can bestow.
A peasantry so rich too, that the wives and daughters of the farmer go
dressed in jewels; and those of no small value. A pair of one-drop
ear-rings, a broadish necklace, with a long piece hanging down the
bosom, and terminated with a cross, all of set garnets clear and
perfect, is a common, a _very_ common treasure to the females about this
country; and on every Sunday or holiday, when they dress and mean to
look pretty, their elegantly-disposed ornaments attract attention
strongly; though I do not think them as handsome as the Lombard lasses,
and our Venetian friends protest that the farmers at Crema in _their_
state are still richer.
La Contadinella Toscana however, in a very rich white silk petticoat,
exceedingly full and short, to shew her neat pink slipper and pretty
ancle, her pink _corps de robe_ and straps, with white silk lacing down
the stomacher, puffed shirt sleeves, with heavy lace robbins ending at
the elbow, and fastened at the shoulders with at least eight or nine
bows of narrow pink ribbon, a lawn handkerchief trimmed with broad lace,
put on somewhat coquettishly, and finishing in front with a nosegay,
must make a lovely figure at any rate: though the hair is drawn away
from the face in a way rather too tight to be becoming, under a red
velvet cushion edged with gold, which helps to wear it off I think, but
gives the small Leghorn hat, lined with green, a pretty perking air,
which is infinitely nymphish and smart. A tolerably pretty girl so
dressed may surely more than vie with a _fille d' opera_ upon the Paris
stage, even were she not set off as these are with a very rich suit of
pearls or set garnets, that in France or England would not be purchased
for less than forty or fifty pounds: and I am now speaking of the women
perpetually under one's eye; not one or two picked from the crowd, like
Mrs. Vanini, an inn-keeper's wife in Florence, who, when she was dressed
for the masquerade two nights ago, submitted her finery to Mrs.
Greatheed's inspection and my own; who agreed she could not be so
adorned in England for less than a thousand pounds.
It is true the nobility are proud of letting you see how comfortably
their dependants live in Tuscany; but can any pride be more rational or
generous, or any desire more patriotick? Oh may they never look with
less delight on the happiness of their inferiors! and then they will not
murmur at their prince, whose protection of _this_ rank among his
subjects is eminently tender and attentive.
Returning home from our splendid dinner and agreeable day passed at
Conte Mannucci's country-seat, while our noble friends amused me with
various chat, I thought some unaccountable sparks of fire seemed to
strike up and down the hedges as if in perpetual motion, but checked
the fancy concluding it a trick of the imagination only; till the
evening, which shuts in strangely quick here in Tuscany, grew dark, and
exhibited an appearance wholly new to me; whose surprise that no flame
followed these wandering fires was not small, when I recollected the
state of desiccation that nature suffered, and had done for some months.
My dislike of interrupting an agreeable conversation kept me long from
enquiring into the cause of this appearance, which however I doubted not
was electrick, till they told me it was the _lucciola_, or fire-fly; of
which a very good account is given in twenty books, but I had forgotten
them all. As the Florence Miscellany has never been published, I will
copy out what is said of it _there_, because the Abate Fontana was
consulted when that description was given.
"This insect then differs from every other of the luminous tribe,
because its light is by no means continual, but emitted by flashes,
suddenly striking out as it flies; when crushed it leaves a lustre on
the spot for a considerable time, from whence one may conclude its
nature is phosphorick."
Oh vagrant insect, type of our short life,
'Tis thus we shine, and vanish from the view;
For the cold season comes,
And all our lustre's o'er.
MERRY's Ode to Summer.
It is said I think, that no animal affords an acid except ants, which
are therefore most quickly destroyed by lime, pot-ash, &c. or any strong
alkali of course; yet acid must the lucciola be proved, or she can never
be phosphorick surely; as upon its analysis that strangest of all
compositions appears to be a union of violent acid with inflammable
matter, whence it may be termed an animal sulphur, and is actually found
to burn successfully under a common glass-bell; and to afford flowers
too, which, by attracting the humidity of the air, become a liquor like
_oleum sulphuris per campanam_[Footnote: Oil of sulphur by the bell.].
The colour of the sky viewed, when one dares to look at it, through this
pure atmosphere is particularly beautiful; of a much more brilliant and
celestial blue I think, than it appeared from the tower of St. Mark's
Place, Venice. Were I to affirm that the sea is of a more peculiar
transparent brightness upon the coast of North Wales than elsewhere, it
would seem prejudice perhaps, and yet is strictly true: I am not less
persuaded that the sky appears of a finer tint in Tuscany than any other
country I have visited:--Naples is however the vaunted climate, and that
yet remains to be examined.
I have been shewed, at the horse-race, the theatre, &c. the unfortunate
grandson of King James the Second. He goes much into publick still,
though old and sickly; gives the English arms and livery, and wears the
garter, which he has likewise bestowed upon his natural daughter. The
Princess of Stoldberg, his consort, whom he always called Queen, has
left him to end a life of disappointment and sorrow by _himself_, with
the sad reflection, that even conjugal attachment, and of course
domestic comfort, was denied to _him_, and fled--in defiance of poetry
and fiction--fled with the crown, to its powerful and triumphant
possessors.
The Duomo, or Cathedral, has engaged my attention all to-day: its
prodigious size, perfect proportions, and exquisite taste, ought to
have detained me longer. Though the outside does not please me as well
as if it had been less rich and less magnificent. Superfluity always
defeats its own purpose, of striking you with awe at its superior
greatness; while simplicity looks on, and laughs at its vain attempts.
This wonderful church, built of striped marbles, white, black, and red
alternately, has scarcely the air of being so composed, but looks like
painted ivory to _me_, who am obliged to think, and think again, before
I can be sure it is of so ponderous and massy, as well as so inestimable
a substance: nor can I, without more than equal difficulty, persuade
myself to give its sudden view the decided preference over St. Paul's in
London, which never, never misses its immediate effect on a spectator,
But stands sublime in simplest majesty.
The Battisterio is another structure close to the church, and of
surprising beauty; Michael Angelo said the gates of it deserved to be
those which open Paradise: and that speech was more the speech of a good
workman, than of a man whose mind was exalted by his profession. The
gates are of brass, divided into ninety-six compartments each, and
carved with such variety of invention, such elaboration of art and
ingenuity, that no praise except that which he gave them could have been
too high. The font has not been used since the days when immersion in
baptism was deemed necessary to salvation; a ceremony still considered
by the Greek church as indispensable. Why the disputes concerning _this_
sacrament were carried on with more decency and less lasting rancour
among Christians, than those which related to the other great pledge of
our pardon, the communicating with our Saviour Christ in his last
Supper, I know not, nor can imagine. Every page of ecclesiastical
history exhibits the tenaciousness with which the smallest attendant
circumstance on this last-mentioned sacrament has been held fast by the
Romanists, who dropped the immersion at baptism of themselves; and in so
warm a climate too! it moves my wonder; when nothing is more obvious to
the meanest understanding, than that if the first sacrament is not
rightly and duly administered, we never shall arrive at receiving the
other at all. I hope it is impossible for any one less than myself to
wish the continuance or revival of contentions so disgraceful to
humanity in general; so peculiarly repugnant to the true spirit of
Christianity, which consists chiefly in charity, and that brotherly love
we know to have been cemented by the blood of our blessed Lord: yet very
strange it is to think, that while other innovations have been resisted
even to death, scarcely any among the many sects we have divided into,
retain the original form in that ceremony so emphatically called
_christening_.
These observations suggested by the sight of the old font at Florence
shall now be succeeded by lighter subjects of reflection; among which
the first that presents itself is the superior elegance of the language;
for till we arrive _here_, all is dialect; though by this word I would
not have any one mistake me, or understand it as meant in the limited
sense of a provincial jargon, such as Yorkshire, Derbyshire, or
Cornwall, present us with; where every sound is corruption, barbarism,
and vulgarity.
The States of Italy being all under different rulers, are kept separate
from each other, and speak a different dialect; that of Milan full of
consonants and harsh to the ear, but abounding with classical
expressions that rejoice one's heart, and fill one with the oddest but
most pleasing sensations imaginable. I heard a lady there call a runaway
nobleman _Profugo_ mighty prettily; and added, that his conduct had put
all the town into _orgasmo grande_. All this, however, the Tuscans may
possibly have in common with them. My knowledge of the language must
remain ever too imperfect for me to depend on my own skill in it; all I
can assert is, that the Florentines _appear_, as far as I have been
competent to observe, to depend more on their own copious and beautiful
language for expression, than the Milanese do; who run to Spanish,
Greek, or Latin for assistance, while half their tongue is avowedly
borrowed from the French, whose pronunciation, in the letter _u_, they
even profess to retain.
At Venice, the sweetness of the patois is irresistible; their lips,
incapable of uttering any but the sweetest sounds, reject all
consonants they can get quit of; and make their mouths drop honey more
completely than it can be said by any eloquence less mellifluous than
their own.
The Bolognese dialect is detested by the other Italians, as gross and
disagreeable in its sounds: but every nation has the good word of its
own inhabitants; and the language which Abbate Bianconi praises as
nervous and expressive, I would advise no person, less learned than
himself, to censure as disgusting, or condemn as dull. I staid very
little at Bologna; saw nothing but their pictures, and heard nothing but
their prayers: those were superior, I fancy, to all rivals. Language can
be never spoken of by a foreigner to any effect of conviction. I have
heard our countryman. Mr. Greatheed himself, who perhaps possesses more
Italian than almost any Englishman, and studies it more closely, refuse
to decide in critical disputations among his literary friends here,
though the sonnets he writes in the Tuscan language are praised by the
natives, who best understand it, and have been by some of them preferred
to those written by Milton himself. Mean time this is acknowledged to
be the prime city for purity of phrase and delicacy of expression,
which, at last, is so disguised to me by the guttural manner in which
many sounds are pronounced, that I feel half weary of running about from
town to town so, and never arriving at any, where I can understand the
conversation without putting all the attention possible to their
discourse. I am now told that less efforts will be necessary at Rome.
Nothing can be prettier, however, than the slow and tranquil manners of
a Florentine; nothing more polished than his general address and
behaviour: ever in the third person, though to a blackguard in the
street, if he has not the honour of his particular acquaintance, while
intimacy produces _voi_ in those of the highest rank, who call one
another Carlo and Angelo very sweetly; the ladies taking up the same
notion, and saying Louisa, or Maddalena, without any addition at all.
The Don and Donna of Milan were offensive to me somehow, as they
conveyed an idea of Spain, not Italy. Here Signora is the term, which
better pleases one's ear, and Signora Contessa, Signora Principessa, if
the person is of higher quality, resembles our manners more when we say
my Lady Dutchess, &c. What strikes me as most observable, is the
uniformity of style in all the great towns.
At Venice the men of literature and fashion speak with the same accent,
and I believe the same quick turns of expression as their Gondolier; and
the coachman at Milan talks no broader than the Countess; who, if she
does not speak always in French to a foreigner, as she would willingly
do, tries in vain to talk Italian; and having asked you thus, _alla
capi?_ which means _ha ella capita?_ laughs at herself for trying to
_toscaneggiare_, as she calls it, and gives the point up with _no cor
altr._ that comes in at the end of every sentence, and means _non
occorre altro_; there is no more occurs upon the subject.
The Laquais de Place who attended us at Bologna was one of the few
persons I had met then, who spoke a language perfectly intelligible to
me. "Are you a Florentine, pray friend, said I?" "No, madam, but the
_combinations_ of this world having led me to talk much with strangers,
I contrive to _tuscanize_ it all I can for _their_ advantage, and doubt
not but it will tend to my own at last."
Such a sentiment, so expressed by a footman, would set a plain man in
London a laughing, and make a fanciful Lady imagine he was a nobleman
disguised. Here nobody laughs, nor nobody stares, nor wonders that their
valet speaks just as good language, or utters as well-turned sentences
as themselves. Their cold answer to my amazement is as comical as the
fellow's fine style--_è battizzato_[Footnote: He has been baptized.],
say they, _come noi altri_[Footnote: As well as we.]. But we are called
away to hear the fair Fantastici, a young woman who makes improviso
verses, and sings them, as they tell me, with infinite learning and
taste. She is successor to the celebrated Corilla, who no longer
exhibits the power she once held without a rival: yet to _her_
conversations every one still strives for admittance, though she is now
ill, and old, and hoarse with repeated colds. She spares, however, now
by no labour or fatigue to obtain and keep that superiority and
admiration which one day perhaps gave her almost equal trouble to
receive and to repay. But who can bear to lay their laurels by? Corilla
is gay by nature, and witty, if I may say so, by habit; replete with
fancy, and powerful to combine images apparently distant. Mankind is at
last more just to people of talents than is universally allowed, I
think. Corilla, without pretensions either to immaculate character (in
the English sense), deep erudition, or high birth, which an Italian
esteems above all earthly things, has so made her way in the world, that
all the nobility of both sexes crowd to her house; that no Prince passes
through Florence without waiting on Corilla; that the Capitol will long
recollect her being crowned there, and that many sovereigns have not
only sought her company, but have been obliged to put up with slights
from her independent spirit, and from her airy, rather than haughty
behaviour. She is, however, (I cannot guess why) not rich, and keeps no
carriage; but enjoying all the effect of money, convenience, company,
and general attention, is probably very happy; as she does not much
suffer her thoughts of the next world to disturb her felicity in
_this_, I believe, while willing to turn every thing into mirth, and
make all admire _her wit_, even at the expence of _their own virtue_.
The following Epigram, made by her, will explain my meaning, and give a
specimen of her present powers of improvisation, undecayed by ill
health; and I might add, _undismayed_ by it. An old gentleman here, one
Gaetano Testa Grossa had a young wife, whose name was Mary, and who
brought him a son when he was more than seventy years old. Corilla led
him gaily into the circle of company with these words:
"Miei Signori Io vi presento
Il buon Uomo Gaetano;
Che non sà che cosa sia
Il misterio sovr'umano
Del Figliuolo di Maria."
Let not the infidels triumph however, or rank among them the
truly-illustrious Corilla! 'Twas but the rage, I hope, of keeping at any
rate the fame she has gained, when the sweet voice is gone, which once
enchanted all who heard it--like the daughters of Pierius in Ovid.
And though I was exceedingly entertained by the present improvisatrice,
the charming Fantastici, whose youth, beauty, erudition, and fidelity to
her husband, give her every claim upon one's heart, and every just
pretension to applause, I could not, in the midst of that delight, which
classick learning and musical excellence combined to produce, forbear a
grateful recollection of the civilities I had received from Corilla, and
half-regretting that her rival should be so successful;
For tho' the treacherous tapster, Thomas,
Hangs a new angel ten doors from us,
We hold it both a shame and sin
To quit the true old Angel Inn.
Well! if some people have too little appearance of respect for religion,
there are others who offend one by having too much, and so the balance
is kept even.
We were a walking last night in the gardens of Porto St. Gallo, and met
two or three well-looking women of the second rank, with a baby, four or
five years old at most, dressed in the habit of a Dominican Friar,
bestowing the benediction as he walked along like an officiating Priest.
I felt a shock given to all my nerves at once, and asked Cavalier
D'Elci the meaning of so strange a device. His reply to me was, "_E
divozione mal intesa, Signora_[Footnote: 'Tis ill-understood devotion,
madam.];" and turning round to the other gentlemen, "Now this folly,"
said he, "a hundred years ago would have been the object of profound
veneration and prodigious applause. Fifty years hence it would be
censured as hypocritical; it is now passed by wholly unnoticed, except
by this foreign Lady, who, I believe, thought it was done for a joke.
I have had a little fever since I came hither from the intense heat I
trust; but my maid has a worse still. Doctor Bicchierei, with that
liberality which ever is found to attend real learning, prescribed
James's powders to _her_, and bid me attend to Buchan's Domestick
Medicine, and I should do well enough he said.
Mr. Greatheed, Mr. Parsons, Mr. Biddulph, and Mr. Piozzi, have been
together on a party of pleasure to see the renowned Vallombrosa, and
came home contradicting Milton, who says the devils lay bestrewn
Thick as autumnal leaves in Vallombrosa:
Whereas, say they, the trees are all evergreen in those woods. Milton,
it seems, was right notwithstanding: for the botanists tell me, that
nothing makes more litter than the shedding of leaves, which, replace
themselves by others, as on the plants stiled ever-green, which change
like every tree, but only do not change all at once, and remain stript
till spring. They spoke highly of their very kind and hospitable
reception at the convent, where
Safe from pangs the worldling knows,
Here secure in calm repose,
Far from life's perplexing maze,
The pious fathers pass their days;
While the bell's shrill-tinkling sound
Regulates their constant round.