May 30th.--We started at six o'clock, and left the one ugly street of
Passignano, before many of the beggars were awake. Immediately in the
vicinity of the village there is very little space between the lake in
front and the ridge of hills in the rear; but the plain widened as we
drove onward, so that the lake was scarcely to be seen, or often quite
hidden among the intervening trees, although we could still discern the
summits of the mountains that rise far beyond its shores. The country
was fertile, presenting, on each side of the road, vines trained on
fig-trees; wheat-fields and olives, in greater abundance than any other
product. On our right, with a considerable width of plain between, was
the bending ridge of hills that shut in the Roman army, by its close
approach to the lake at Passignano. In perhaps half all hour's drive, we
reached the little bridge that throws its arch over the Sanguinetto, and
alighted there. The stream has but about a yard's width of water; and
its whole course, between the hills and the lake, might well have been
reddened and swollen with the blood of the multitude of slain Romans.
Its name put me in mind of the Bloody Brook at Deerfield, where a company
of Massachusetts men were massacred by the Indians.
The Sanguinetto flows over a bed of pebbles; and J----- crept under the
bridge, and got one of them for a memorial, while U----, Miss Shepard,
and R----- plucked some olive twigs and oak leaves, and made them into
wreaths together,--symbols of victory and peace. The tower, which is
traditionally named after Hannibal, is seen on a height that makes part
of the line of enclosing hills. It is a large, old castle, apparently of
the Middle Ages, with a square front, and a battlemented sweep of wall.
The town of Torres (its name, I think), where Hannibal's main army is
supposed to have lain while the Romans came through the pass, was in full
view; and I could understand the plan of the battle better than any
system of military operations which I have hitherto tried to fathom.
Both last night and to-day, I found myself stirred more sensibly than I
expected by the influences of this scene. The old battle-field is still
fertile in thoughts and emotions, though it is so many ages since the
blood spilt there has ceased to make the grass and flowers grow more
luxuriantly. I doubt whether I should feel so much on the field of
Saratoga or Monmouth; but these old classic battle-fields belong to the
whole world, and each man feels as if his own forefathers fought them.
Mine, by the by, if they fought them at all, must have been on the side
of Hannibal; for, certainly, I sympathized with him, and exulted in the
defeat of the Romans on their own soil. They excite much the same
emotion of general hostility that the English do. Byron has written some
very fine stanzas on the battle-field,--not so good as others that he has
written on classical scenes and subjects, yet wonderfully impressing his
own perception of the subject on the reader. Whenever he has to deal
with a statue, a ruin, a battle-field, he pounces upon the topic like a
vulture, and tears out its heart in a twinkling, so that there is nothing
more to be said.
If I mistake not, our passport was examined by the papal officers at the
last custom-house in the pontifical territory, before we traversed the
path through which the Roman army marched to its destruction. Lake
Thrasymene, of which we took our last view, is not deep set among the
hills, but is bordered by long ridges, with loftier mountains receding
into the distance. It is not to be compared to Windermere or Loch Lomond
for beauty, nor with Lake Champlain and many a smaller lake in my own
country, none of which, I hope, will ever become so historically
interesting as this famous spot. A few miles onward our passport was
countersigned at the Tuscan custom-house, and our luggage permitted to
pass without examination on payment of a fee of nine or ten pauls,
besides two pauls to the porters. There appears to be no concealment on
the part of the officials in thus waiving the exercise of their duty, and
I rather imagine that the thing is recognized and permitted by their
superiors. At all events, it is very convenient for the traveller.
We saw Cortona, sitting, like so many other cities in this region, on its
hill, and arrived about noon at Arezzo, which also stretches up a high
hillside, and is surrounded, as they all are, by its walls or the remains
of one, with a fortified gate across every entrance.
I remember one little village, somewhere in the neighborhood of the
Clitumnus, which we entered by one gateway, and, in the course of two
minutes at the utmost, left by the opposite one, so diminutive was this
walled town. Everything hereabouts bears traces of times when war was
the prevalent condition, and peace only a rare gleam of sunshine.
At Arezzo we have put up at the Hotel Royal, which has the appearance of
a grand old house, and proves to be a tolerable inn enough. After lunch,
we wandered forth to see the town, which did not greatly interest me
after Perugia, being much more modern and less picturesque in its aspect.
We went to the cathedral,--a Gothic edifice, but not of striking
exterior. As the doors were closed, and not to be opened till three
o'clock, we seated ourselves under the trees, on a high, grassy space
surrounded and intersected with gravel-walks,--a public promenade, in
short, near the cathedral; and after resting ourselves here we went in
search of Petrarch's house, which Murray mentions as being in this
neighborhood. We inquired of several people, who knew nothing about the
matter; one woman misdirected us, out of mere fun, I believe, for she
afterwards met us and asked how we had succeeded. But finally, through
------'s enterprise and perseverance, we found the spot, not a
stone's-throw from where we had been sitting.
Petrarch's house stands below the promenade which I have just mentioned,
and within hearing of the reverberations between the strokes of the
cathedral bell. It is two stories high, covered with a light-colored
stucco, and has not the slightest appearance of antiquity, no more than
many a modern and modest dwelling-house in an American city. Its only
remarkable feature is a pointed arch of stone, let into the plastered
wall, and forming a framework for the doorway. I set my foot on the
doorsteps, ascended them, and Miss Shepard and J----- gathered some weeds
or blades of grass that grew in the chinks between the steps. There is a
long inscription on a slab of marble set in the front of the house, as is
the fashion in Arezzo when a house has been the birthplace or residence
of a distinguished man.
Right opposite Petrarch's birth-house--and it must have been the well
whence the water was drawn that first bathed him--is a well which
Boccaccio has introduced into one of his stories. It is surrounded with
a stone curb, octagonal in shape, and evidently as ancient as Boccaccio's
time. It has a wooden cover, through which is a square opening, and
looking down I saw my own face in the water far beneath.
There is no familiar object connected with daily life so interesting as a
well; and this well or old Arezzo, whence Petrarch had drunk, around
which he had played in his boyhood, and which Boccaccio has made famous,
really interested me more than the cathedral. It lies right under the
pavement of the street, under the sunshine, without any shade of trees
about it, or any grass, except a little that grows in the crevices of its
stones; but the shape of its stone-work would make it a pretty object in
an engraving. As I lingered round it I thought of my own town-pump in
old Salem, and wondered whether my townspeople would ever point it out to
strangers, and whether the stranger would gaze at it with any degree of
such interest as I felt in Boccaccio's well. O, certainly not; but yet I
made that humble town-pump the most celebrated structure in the good
town. A thousand and a thousand people had pumped there, merely to water
oxen or fill their teakettles; but when once I grasped the handle, a rill
gushed forth that meandered as far as England, as far as India, besides
tasting pleasantly in every town and village of our own country. I like
to think of this, so long after I did it, and so far from home, and am
not without hopes of some kindly local remembrance on this score.
Petrarch's house is not a separate and insulated building, but stands in
contiguity and connection with other houses on each side; and all, when I
saw them, as well as the whole street, extending down the slope of the
hill, had the bright and sunny aspect of a modern town.
As the cathedral was not yet open, and as J----- and I had not so much
patience as my wife, we left her and Miss Shepard, and set out to return
to the hotel. We lost our way, however, and finally had to return to the
cathedral, to take a fresh start; and as the door was now open we went
in. We found the cathedral very stately with its great arches, and
darkly magnificent with the dim rich light coming through its painted
windows, some of which are reckoned the most beautiful that the whole
world has to show. The hues are far more brilliant than those of any
painted glass I saw in England, and a great wheel window looks like a
constellation of many-colored gems. The old English glass gets so smoky
and dull with dust, that its pristine beauty cannot any longer be even
imagined; nor did I imagine it till I saw these Italian windows. We saw
nothing of my wife and Miss Shepard; but found afterwards that they had
been much annoyed by the attentions of a priest who wished to show them
the cathedral, till they finally told him that they had no money with
them, when he left them without another word. The attendants in churches
seem to be quite as venal as most other Italians, and, for the sake of
their little profit, they do not hesitate to interfere with the great
purposes for which their churches were built and decorated; hanging
curtains, for instance, before all the celebrated pictures, or hiding
them away in the sacristy, so that they cannot be seen without a fee.
Returning to the hotel, we looked out of the window, and, in the street
beneath, there was a very busy scene, it being Sunday, and the whole
population, apparently, being astir, promenading up and down the smooth
flag-stones, which made the breadth of the street one sidewalk, or at
their windows, or sitting before their doors.
The vivacity of the population in these parts is very striking, after the
gravity and lassitude of Rome; and the air was made cheerful with the
talk and laughter of hundreds of voices. I think the women are prettier
than the Roman maids and matrons, who, as I think I have said before,
have chosen to be very uncomely since the rape of their ancestresses, by
way of wreaking a terrible spite and revenge.
I have nothing more to say of Arezzo, except that, finding the ordinary
wine very bad, as black as ink, and tasting as if it had tar and vinegar
in it, we called for a bottle of Monte Pulciano, and were exceedingly
gladdened and mollified thereby.