FROM ROME, VIA PISA AND FLORENCE, TO VENICE.
Peasants—A Three-Fold Crop—Elba, the Exiled Home of
Napoleon—Pisa—Leaning Tower—An Odd Burial-Ground—Florence—The
Home of Savonarola, Dante, and Michael Angelo—Art Galleries—On
to Venice—A Flood—Johnson Excited—Storm Raging—Lightening the
Ship—Venice, a Water-Lily—No Streets but Water—No Carriages but
Gondolas—Shylocks.
WITH our face to the northward, we are now skirting along the western
coast of Italy. The air is crisp and cold, the sky soft and clear.
Yonder, scattered over the bare hillside to our right, are many rude
huts and humble peasant homes. The smoke slowly rising from the low
chimneys curls up and on, and still up, until it stands like so many
slender columns leaning against the sky for support.
The peasants are at work, one feeding the chickens, the second holding
the cow to grass, while the third is milking the goats. Everywhere the
country is cut up into one, two, and three-acre plots by narrow ditches
and low hedges which serve as fences to divide one peasant’s patch
from another. Each plot of ground is a vineyard, a wheat field and a
mulberry orchard, the three growing together.
The wheat is, of course, sown broadcast. The trees, twelve to eighteen
feet high, are planted in straight rows, fifteen feet apart. The
healthy vines clamber up the mulberries, and wreathe themselves into
huge and rich festoons from tree to tree. The ground rapidly glides
from under us, the orchards, the villages and peasant homes, one by one
dash by us. Now the sun is bending low in the evening sky, and, looking
out over the broad expanse of waters on our left, we see not far away
the island of Elba, the first exiled home of Napoleon Bonaparte. But
this beautiful island was too small for so great a spirit. After one
year’s confinement here, Napoleon, rising up in his madness and might,
broke the political fetters which the allied Powers had placed upon
him, returned to Paris, gathered an army and marched to Waterloo. There
his already waning star went down in blood to rise no more (1815).
As the dying day begins to wrap herself in the sombre folds of evening,
we find ourselves in Pisa, a quiet little town of 26,000 inhabitants,
beautifully situated on both banks of the Arno, six miles from the
sea. The night comes and goes. Next morning I am standing on the top
of Pisa’s “Leaning Tower,” in time to see the sun rise. This tower
is one of the wonders, not of the ancient, but modern world. It is
some thirty-three feet in diameter and one hundred and eighty feet in
height, and leans thirteen feet out of the perpendicular. This oblique
or leaning position gives it a very peculiar appearance. It looks as
if it were falling; you expect every moment to see it dashed to pieces
against the ground. But it has been in this position some 650 years,
and, if we may argue from the past, many moons will wax and wane before
it strikes the ground. No one knows whether the original design was to
build a leaning tower, or whether in the course of construction one
side of the foundation gave way, and thus left the tower in an oblique
position. It was by dropping balls from the summit of this tower that
Galileo verified his theories regarding the laws of gravitation. It was
the swaying of the bronze lamp which still hangs in the cathedral at
the foot of this tower that first suggested to Galileo the idea of a
pendulum.
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL AND LEANING TOWER OF PISA.]
The Campo Santo, or burial-ground, of Pisa is interesting because of
its history. After the Crusaders were driven out of the Holy Land, in
the year 1190, Archbishop Ubaldo had fifty-three ship-loads of earth
brought hither from Mount Calvary in order that the dead might repose
in “holy ground.” What men need to-day is not the earth of Calvary for
their dead bodies, but the Christ of Calvary for their living spirits.
Three hours after leaving Pisa, I am walking through the streets of
Florence, looking at her monuments, statues, palaces and cathedrals.
Among the monuments, if so it might be named, is a splendid water
fountain which marks the site of the stake at which Savonarola was
burned, in 1498, six years after the discovery of America. Like Elijah
of old, Savonarola went from earth to Heaven in a chariot of fire.
The flames that wafted his spirit to the glory world are still burning
brightly upon the pages of history. The martyr’s ashes were thrown into
the Arno, and were carried thence to the ocean. So the stream of Time
will bear his influence on to the ocean of eternity.
Of the many statues in the city, I will mention only Dante’s. This
excellent statue of white marble is nine feet high, on a pedestal
twenty-three feet high. It was unveiled with great solemnity, in 1865,
in commemoration of the 600th anniversary of the immortal poet. Dante’s
greatest work was the “Divine Comedy.” I also visited the house in
which he was born in 1265. The house in which Michael Angelo was born
in 1475 is now used as a picture gallery. He died in Rome in 1564. His
ashes were brought back to his native city, and now repose in a vault
in the church of Santa Croce.
The art galleries I found worthy of their fame, so beautiful in
architectural design, so vast in extent, so rich in the productions of
the best artists of every school. “Each street of Florence contains
a world of art. The walls of the city are the calyx containing the
fairest flowers of the human mind; and this is but the richest gem
in the diadem with which the Italian people have adorned the earth.”
Florence has been the home of many of the greatest artists that have
lived since the twelfth century. The main centres of art in Florence
are the Pitti and the Uffizi galleries; these, being on the opposite
sides of the Arno, are connected by a suspension gallery which spans
the river. Thus one passes from one gallery to the other by means of
this swinging corridor, which is itself flanked on both sides with
faultless statues and lined with pictures that no money could buy.
I wandered, one day after another, through the stately halls of
many-colored marble in Florence. Many of these pictures I should like
to show you, but I know full well that words can not copy them. To copy
Raphael’s “Madonna” would require the hand of genius, and paints as
beautiful, and as delicately mixed, as are the colors of the rainbow.
“Variety is the spice of life,” and truly it is refreshing to come to
this land of Art and Music after spending a few months in Asia and
Africa. Since leaving home, more of my time has been spent among the
mountains and around the lakes than in the cities; or, in other words,
“I have been accustomed to entwine
My thoughts with Nature rather in the fields
Than art in galleries.”
“On to Venice” is the war cry. To reach there, we tunnel mountains,
dash through a blinding snow-storm, and encounter a heavy rainfall.
Presently we are surrounded by water. The train stops. Johnson is
excited; he thinks the bridge is washed away. Looking out of the
window, and pointing to the water, I ask a by-stander, “Is that the
ocean?” The reply is, “No; it is Venice.” “A flood!” exclaims Johnson;
“if it continues to rain in this way two hours longer, the whole city
will be washed away, and we, where will we be?” By this time, as there
is a gondola near, we, like Jonah, pay the fare thereof, and go down
into it. We are soon on the way to the hotel.
The storm is raging, the waves are dashing high. The gondola, which
is black, and really reminds one of a hearse, seems to be bearing us
away to a watery grave. The boat must be lightened, or we will all go
down. What to do, I know not. Hope wanes. “My latest sun is sinking
fast.” In the extremity of that hour, I say: “This I will do. I will
throw overboard all hatred, envy and strife, all contention, malice and
jealousy, all egotism, selfishness and pride.” When I have emptied my
heart of all these, a surprising change occurs. It is as if some divine
one has whispered, “Peace, be still.”
Reader, this experience points a moral, if it does not adorn a tale. We
are all voyagers on the Sea of Life. Tempests frequently come, and our
frail bark is often threatened; but if we will only throw overboard our
ignoble feelings and baser selves, a holy calm will settle on the face
of the deep, and in our hearts we will have that “peace which passeth
all understanding.”
Venice, you remember, is situated two miles from the mainland, in a
shallow part of the Adriatic. Its 15,000 houses and palaces are built
on 117 islands. Streets are unknown. There are 150 canals and 380
bridges in the city. The population is 130,000, one-fourth of whom are
paupers.
Yes, here is Venice rising above the surface like a water nymph, and
floating like a sea fowl on the ocean wave. She was once the ruler of
the waters and their powers. Those days are past, but beauty is still
here. “States fall, arts fade, but nature doth not die.” There was
never a horse, carriage, or wheel-barrow in the city. I presume there
are half grown persons here who never saw any of these. The Venetians
go visiting in boats, they go to market, to church, to the theatre, to
the grave, in boats.
The houses rise up out of the water; the gondola, graceful in its
motion as a serpent, glides up to the door, the people step in, and
off they go. The gondola is a contrivance peculiar to Venice. It is
twenty-five or thirty feet long, and is deep and narrow like a canoe.
Its sharp bow and stern sweep upwards from the water like the horns of
a crescent, with the abruptness of the curve slightly modified. The
bow, which rises some six feet above the water, is ornamented with
a steel comb and a broad battle ax. In the centre of the boat is a
little house something like the body of a carriage. This is elegantly
fitted up with cushioned seats, silk curtains, and glass windows. The
gondolier, who is usually a picturesque rascal, stands erect in the
stern of the boat, and with one oar he manages to guide and propel his
boat with an accuracy and a speed that are truly surprising. Almost
every moment you expect your gondola to collide with some other; but
by some timely turn the two glide gracefully by each other without
touching. All the gondolas are painted black—the color of mourning.
Well may Venice mourn. Her glory has departed. She is great only in
history.
The chief industry of Venice is glass manufacture. The first glass
mirror that was ever made was manufactured here about the year 1,300.
The Venetians are yet ahead in this kind of work. They now make men and
monkeys, horses and houses, doves and donkeys, of glass. I saw them
spinning glass; and without handling the thread one could not tell it
from silk. They fashion glass into buds and blossoms which need little
else than perfume to make them as perfect as those wrought by Nature’s
hand. Perhaps the most delicate glass work I saw going on was the
manufacture of human eyes. This, you may rest assured, requires skilled
workmen. It is a large and remunerative business. God and Venice
furnish eyes for the world. In bargaining with the glass dealers, one
soon finds that now, as in the days of Shakespeare, many Shylocks live
in Venice, and each one contends for his “pound of flesh.”
If I had time to write another chapter concerning this “Ocean Queen,”
I would tell you something about the Bridge of Sighs “with a palace
and a prison on each hand,” about St. Mark’s Cathedral, which “looks
more like the work of angels than of men,” about the granite columns,
one surmounted by “the winged lion and the other by St. Theodore, the
protector of the republic.” Of course it is a great pity (?) that you
can not read what I would write on these subjects if I had time, but,
as this is impossible, perhaps the next best thing you could read would
be “Childe Harold,” “Stones of Venice,” and “St. Mark’s Rest.”
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:
—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.
End of Project Gutenberg's A Baptist Abroad, by Walter Andrew Whittle