It was one of the fatalities of travel, rather than any real interest
in the poet, which led me to visit the prison of Tasso on the night of
our arrival, which was mild and moonlit. The _portier_ at the
Stella d'Oro suggested the sentimental homage to sorrows which it is
sometimes difficult to respect, and I went and paid this homage in the
coal-cellar in which was never imprisoned the poet whose works I had
not read.
The famous hospital of St. Anna, where Tasso was confined for seven
years, is still an asylum for the infirm and sick, but it is no longer
used as a mad-house. It stands on one of the lone, silent Ferrarese
streets, not far from the Ducal Castle, and it is said that from the
window of his cell the unhappy poet could behold Leonora in her tower.
It may be so; certainly those who can believe in the genuineness of
the cell will have no trouble in believing that the vision of Tasso
could pierce through several brick walls and a Doric portico, and at
last comprehend the lady at her casement in the castle. We entered a
modern gateway, and passed into a hall of the elder edifice, where a
slim young soldier sat reading a romance of Dumas. This was the keeper
of Tasso's prison; and knowing me, by the instinct which teaches an
Italian custodian to distinguish his prey, for a seeker after the True
and Beautiful, he relinquished his romance, lighted a waxen taper,
unbolted a heavy door with a dramatic clang, and preceded me to the
cell of Tasso. We descended a little stairway, and found ourselves in
a sufficiently spacious court, which was still ampler in the poet's
time, and was then a garden planted with trees and flowers. On a low
doorway to the right was inscribed the legend "PRIGIONE DI TASSO," and
passing through this doorway into a kind of reception-cell, we entered
the poet's dungeon. It is an oblong room, with a low wagon-roof
ceiling, under which it is barely possible to stand upright. A single
narrow window admits the light, and the stone casing of this window
has a hollow in a certain place, which might well have been worn there
by the friction of the hand that for seven years passed the prisoner
his food through the small opening. The young custodian pointed to
this memento of suffering, without effusion, and he drew my attention
to other remarkable things in the cell, without troubling himself
to palliate their improbability in the least. They were his stock in
trade; you paid your money, and took your choice of believing in
them or not. On the other hand, my _portier_, an ex-_valet de place_,
pumped a softly murmuring stream of enthusiasm; and expressed the
freshest delight in the inspection of each object of interest.
One still faintly discerns among the vast number of names with which
the walls of the ante-cell are bewritten, that of Lamartine. The name
of Byron, which was once deeply graven in the stucco, had been scooped
away by the Grand Duke of Tuscany (so the custodian said), and there
is only part of a capital B now visible. But the cell itself is still
fragrant of associations with the noble bard, who, according to the
story related to Valery, caused himself to be locked up in it, and
there, with his head fallen upon his breast, and frequently smiting
his brow, spent two hours in pacing the floor with great strides. It
is a touching picture; but its pathos becomes somewhat embarrassing
when you enter the cell, and see the impossibility of taking more than
three generous paces without turning. When Byron issued forth, after
this exercise, he said (still according to Valery) to the custodian:
"I thank thee, good man! The thoughts of Tasso are now all in my mind
and heart." "A short time after his departure from Ferrara," adds the
Frenchman, maliciously, "he composed his 'Lament of Tasso,' a mediocre
result from such inspiration." No doubt all this is colored, for
the same author adds another tint to heighten the absurdity of the
spectacle: he declares that Byron spent part of his time in the cell
in writing upon the ceiling Lamartine's verses on Tasso, which he
misspelled. The present visitor has no means of judging of the truth
concerning this, for the lines of the poet have been so smoked by the
candles of successive pilgrims in their efforts to get light on them,
that they are now utterly illegible. But if it is uncertain what were
Byron's emotions on visiting the prison of Tasso, there is no doubt
about Lady Morgan's: she "experienced a suffocating emotion; her
heart failed her on entering that cell; and she satisfied a melancholy
curiosity at the cost of a most painful sensation."
I find this amusing fact stated in a translation of her ladyship's
own language, in a clever guide-book called _Il Servitore di Piazza_,
which I bought at Ferrara, and from which, I confess, I have learnt
all I know to confirm me in my doubt of Tasso's prison. The Count
Avventi, who writes this book, prefaces it by saying that he is a
valet de place who knows how to read and write, and he employs these
unusual gifts with singular candor and clearness. No one, he says,
before the nineteenth century, ever dreamed of calling the cellar in
question Tasso's prison, and it was never before that time made the
shrine of sentimental pilgrimage, though it has since been visited by
every traveller who has passed through Ferrara. It was used during the
poet's time to hold charcoal and lime; and not long ago died an old
servant of the hospital, who remembered its use for that purpose. It
is damp, close, and dark, and Count Avventi thinks it hardly possible
that a delicate courtier could have lived seven years in a place
unwholesome enough to kill a stout laborer in two months; while it
seems to him not probable that Tasso should have received there the
visits of princes and other distinguished persons whom Duke Alfonso
allowed to see him, or that a prisoner who was often permitted to ride
about the city in a carriage should have been thrust back into such a
cavern on his return to the hospital. "After this," says our _valet
de place_ who knows how to read and write, "visit the prison of Tasso,
certain that _in the hospital of St. Anna_ that great man was confined
for many years;" and, with this chilly warning, leaves his reader to
his emotions.
I am afraid that if as frank caution were uttered in regard to other
memorable places, the objects of interest in Italy would dwindle sadly
in number, and the _valets de place_, whether they know how to read
and write or not, would be starved to death. Even the learning of
Italy is poetic; and an Italian would rather enjoy a fiction than know
a fact--in which preference I am not ready to pronounce him unwise.
But this characteristic of his embroiders the stranger's progress
throughout the whole land with fanciful improbabilities; so that if
one use his eyes half as much as his wonder, he must see how much
better it would have been to visit, in fancy, scenes that have an
interest so largely imaginary. The utmost he can make out of the most
famous place is, that it is possibly what it is said to be, and
is more probably as near that as any thing local enterprise could
furnish. He visits the very cell in which Tasso was confined, and has
the satisfaction of knowing that it was the charcoal-cellar of the
hospital in which the poet dwelt. And the _genius loci_--where is
that? Away in the American woods, very likely, whispering some dreamy,
credulous youth,--telling him charming fables of its _locus_, and
proposing to itself to abandon him as soon as he sets foot upon its
native ground. You see, though I cared little about Tasso, and nothing
about his prison, I was heavily disappointed in not being able to
believe in it, and felt somehow that I had been awakened from a
cherished dream.