THE “PORTA ROSSA”--JOURNEY TO BOLOGNA--THE BELLI
ARTI--ARCADES--CERTOSA--OUR FELLOW-TRAVELLERS--THE PARROT--AUSTRIAN
DOUANE--FERRARA--PADUA--CAFFE PEDROCCHI--VENICE--THE CASA
RAFFAELLI--GONDOLAS--LUISH’S PROFESSIONAL PURSUITS--MY FRIEND D.
AGAIN--TITIAN--MILITARY SALUTE--THE PASSEGGIATA.
Arrived at “Firenze la bella,” we drove to an inn called _La Porta
Rossa_, which had been recommended to us by a Roman acquaintance. Here
I met my friends Bellamy and Dickson, who were on their way northward,
and in an adjoining house, I discovered Vetch, of water-colour
celebrity, who kindly undertook to introduce me to Dr. P----, an
English physician, resident in Florence. This gentleman advised my
proceeding without delay to Venice, to take mud-baths, and gave me an
introductory letter to the Herr T----g, a German doctor of extensive
practice. Luish, although loth to quit Florence with only a single
day’s loitering in its wonderful galleries, was too kind to let me
start off alone, and we accordingly booked two places in the Orchesi
diligence to Bologna. It was late in the afternoon, when we quitted
the _Lung’ Arno_, as the quay along the south bank of the river is
denominated. As the evening closed in, we were accompanied by a swarm
of fire-flies, which flew in and out of the open windows of the coupé,
and were exceedingly brilliant. Luish caught one as we walked up a
hill, and having kept it until it was quite dark, we found that it gave
out sufficient light to enable us to see the time. We gradually lost
sight of them as we approached the more lofty ground of the chain of
Appenines, and it soon became so cold, that we were glad to use all the
clothing we could muster.
At Bologna we staid one day, being anxious to see its Accademia. The
Bolognese school of painting numbers among its disciples some of the
highest professors of the art. The four Caracci, and their followers
Domenichino and Guercino, as well as Guido and Albani, with whose death
the art of painting declined in Italy, were of this school, and all
natives of Bologna.
In the Accademia, are some beautiful pictures. The _St. Agnes_ of
Domenichino, the _Madonna della Pietà_, by Guido, and Raffaelle’s _St.
Cecilia_, are wonderful. The _Pere Eternel_, by Guercino, said to have
been commenced and finished in one night, although to my thinking, a
subject none should dare to attempt, is an extraordinary production.
Guido’s _Massacre of the Innocents_ is also a beautiful composition.
The arcades which line both sides of nearly every street in Bologna,
although very convenient in wet weather, render the town dark and
gloomy, and having peeped into its finest churches, and clambered with
much labour to the summit of the leaning tower of Asinelli, I spent
with Luish a great part of the afternoon, in the interesting Certosa,
or Campo Santo, formed by Napoleon, about a mile out of the city, from
a destroyed convent of Carthusians. Its aisles and corridors are now
filled with tombs and monuments, and the resting-places of the dead
are interspersed with shrubs and flowers, forming an instructive, if
not to all tastes, an agreeable promenade. The Bolognese are so fond
of arcades, that they have constructed one three miles in length, a
continuous covered portico, from the city to the summit of a hill
called _La Guardia_, where there is a temple dedicated to the Madonna
of that name. Luish would not be satisfied until he had explored the
whole of it. I managed a portion of the distance, but finding it very
up-hill and fatiguing work, returned to the carriage at the foot of the
arcade, and waited for him.
At a caffé in the evening we were accosted by a smart-looking
Vetturino, who offered us seats for Padua, to start at one the next
afternoon, staying a night at Ferrara. He had already arranged with
two other travellers, and finding his terms sufficiently moderate, we
closed with his offer. The next morning was spent in the Accademia, and
punctual to his appointment, Gioachino picked us up at the “Pension
Suisse.” We found our travelling companions to be two of our own
countrymen; one of them a Captain ----, returning from India, who
was bringing home, among other curiosities, a valuable parrot, whose
talking-qualifications caused us considerable amusement. We found
Ferrara so crowded with travellers, that one room at the hotel was all
our Vetturino could procure for us, and the honest fellow seemed quite
mortified at the want of accommodation. The landlord, however, did
all he could to serve us, and as we were disposed to make the best of
everything, we did ample justice to his cheer, and drawing lots to see
who should get the beds, and who the shake-downs, passed an undisturbed
night, and were called by the parrot in the morning.
Soon after leaving Ferrara, we crossed the river Po on a flying
bridge, propelled from side to side by the current, and entering the
Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, were pulled up at the Emperor’s dogana, by
the fierce whiskerando on duty. It was still early in the morning, and
the head officer was in no very good humour at being knocked up at so
unconstitutional an hour, and kept us a long time kicking our heels
under the covered _douane_. We tried hard to conceal the parrot, which
was a contraband article, and, enclosed as it was in a small cage,
covered with a handkerchief, and on the top of the vehicle, I think
it possible it might have escaped detection, had it not, on hearing
its master’s voice, croaked out lustily in sound English, a desire
for some hot brandy and water, bestowing at the same time some hearty
curses upon an imaginary waiter. _We_ exploded with laughter, whilst
the _chef de douane_, who was ignorant from whence the strange voice
proceeded, glanced around from under his shaggy eye-brows, and soon
detected the hitherto unnoticed package. To hand it down was but the
work of a moment, but the officer who untied the wrapper, received a
bite that he would long remember. Poll’s vocal powers expanded with the
restoration of daylight, and no sooner did she see her master, than
she treated us with a variation from “Merrily danced,” in so shrill
and amusing a key, that good humour was restored on all hands saving
that of the bitten searcher. Captain ---- having paid the necessary
tax, and reconsigned his loquacious bird to the roof, we again resumed
our journey, reaching Padua at five in the afternoon. We drove to the
“Principe Carlo,” a hotel overlooking the Prato della Valle, where the
accommodation is excellent. It is, however, at rather an inconvenient
distance from the omnibus station, and busy portion of the city, for
alas! the learned repose of “Fair Padua, nursery of Arts,” is now
disturbed by the shriek of the locomotive, and the rumbling of railway
traffic.
By the time our dinner was over it was quite dark, and we could
therefore see little of this venerable city. We walked to the Caffé
Pedrocchi, unquestionably the finest in Europe: no expense seems to
have been spared in its decorations, which are of a style more suited
to a regal dwelling than a place of public resort. It is one glare of
mirrors, gilding, and polished marbles. Many are the stories current
respecting the origin of the wealth which enabled the Signor Pedrocchi
to raise so gorgeous a palace. Certain it is, that from a state of
comparative poverty, he all at once leapt into possession of a large
sum of money, and commenced the erection of the new Caffé, paying his
workmen in good old Venetian sequins, a fact which led his friends to
infer, that in demolishing the old establishment, he had stumbled upon
one of those fabulous monsters, a crock of real gold. This is possibly
the fact, but it is to be regretted that he placed this monument of his
good luck in so mean a situation, where its architectural merits, (if
it possess any!) are very much in the shade.
We took the first train the next morning to Maestre, from whence
we embarked in a gondola-omnibus for the Venetian custom-house.
The transition from the main land to the marshy Lagune, is almost
imperceptible, and in the space of a few short months we shall be
fizzed all the way into Venice, and this most beautiful of cities, this
“Sea Cybele” will then have lost half its romance. It is to be hoped
that this useful, but unpicturesque innovation will never be suffered
to encroach beyond the outermost limits of the city, and that Venice
may lose none of its originality by the somewhat unnecessary extension
of the railway across the lagune. After passing through the Dogana, and
bidding “_a rividerci_,” to our companions of the vettura, my friend
and I hired a gondola to convey us to the “Leone Bianco,” a hotel at
which I had passed a few pleasant days some eight years before.
In the evening we walked to the Piazza di San Marco, as the surest
spot to meet with such of our acquaintance as might have arrived from
Rome. It was unnecessary to make an elaborate search,--a white hat,
whose capacious leaf might have roused envy in the breast of a West
India planter, shone out conspicuously from among the thickly occupied
benches of the “Florian,” and revealed to us the presence of our friend
Mack, who had quitted Rome some weeks before us, on a summer-tour.
This gentleman informed us where we should at once find apartments,
and introduced us to his landlord, the Signor Raffaelli, living in a
commodious house, at the Campo San Vio, about a stone’s-throw from
the Accademia, on the Grand Canal. We rowed thither the next day, and
taking possession of our rooms, had time to look about us. Not only is
Venice unlike any other city in the world, in respect of its peculiar
position; but every thing Venetian seems to possess a distinct and
particular charm, that indefinable _non so che_, belonging to _it_
only, even to the most ordinary common-places of life. No description
could arouse in the mind of one who has not visited Venice, any
adequate idea of the feelings of delight and enthusiasm excited by
all around. These feelings are increased rather than diminished by a
lengthened stay. Moore must have viewed Venice through a pair of very
dull spectacles indeed when he wrote about--
“---- her true, real, dismal state,
Her mansions closed and desolate,
Her foul canals, exhaling wide
Such fetid airs as-- * *
* * * * *
Seem like a city where the pest
Is holding her last visitation.”
An occasional bad odour may certainly be detected in some of the more
obscure canals during hot weather, but there can be no reason for
supposing that this was not always the case, even in the palmiest days
of the Republic.[37] If we pitch poetry aside, and come to plain matter
of fact, we shall find, that whatever Venice may once have been, it is
still a port of very considerable importance. Merchant vessels from all
parts of the world are to be found at the quays of San Giorgio and the
Giudecca, whilst a brisk trade is kept up between it and the other
ports of the Mediterranean. Nor are its manufactures to be forgotten;
the busy furnaces of Murano supply the whole world with glass beads
and dolls’ eyes; the region of the Rialto furnishes half Italy with
jewellery, and the glittering Merceria dazzles the eye with its costly
wares, and reeks with all the varied odours of extravagant perfumery.
It was on the second-floor of the Casa Raffaelli, that Luish and I were
domiciled. A large saloon with a spacious balcony overhanging the Grand
Canal, into which room all the other apartments opened, served as the
_sala commune_ for ourselves and the family of our landlord. This, as
well as our bed-rooms, was paved with a plum-pudding-like scaliguola,
which ensured a far cooler and cleaner floor than the dusty carpets of
Rome, which usually have an underlayer of straw or hay to preserve them
from wear against the hard brick or concrete. The room which fell to
my lot, had a side view over the Campo or Square of San Vio, and the
window commanded a good stretch of the Grand Canal, in the direction of
the Rialto. My first care was to inquire for Herr T----g, the doctor
to whom I had a letter of introduction, and I was agreeably surprised
to find that he lived exactly opposite to us, on the other side the
Canal, and that there was a _traghetto_ or ferry, between the two
houses. I paid him an early visit during a paroxysm of rheumatic pain,
and though he did not recommend me to have recourse to mud-baths, he
gave me some hope of relief.
The next preliminary was the procuring of a _carta di sicurezza_,
without which the stranger in an Italian town would soon find himself
in difficulty. It serves as a local passport, (the original document
remaining in the care of the police authorities,) and requires a
renewal every month. In order to obtain this, it was necessary that
Luish and myself should possess a recommendation from some resident in
the city, an obligation which was very kindly rendered by Mr. H., the
American Consul.
As the Herr T----g’s treatment prohibited the use of more exercise
than was necessary, I hired a gondola and _barcaruolo_, paying a
Napoleon a-week for the boat and the man’s time. I was fortunate in
my selection, inasmuch as I found Antonio steady, honest and skilful,
and his gondola one of the very best description. It is only those
who have tried it that can imagine the luxury of skimming the smooth
water in a well-managed gondola. No other species of locomotion
is to be compared to it. I almost lived in one, and during the
course of my stay in Venice, there were very few of its canals that
I did not thoroughly explore. Securely moored to one or other of
the quaint-looking posts, which form so prominent a feature in the
foregrounds of Prout and Canaletti, I passed the mornings in sketching.
And what spot can furnish more beautiful and diversified subjects than
Venice, where every turn reveals some fresh scene, and every canal
abounds with palaces and churches, or picturesque masses of building.
The chimney-pots alone are a study, and the genius of John of Bologna
is apparent, even in the knockers and scrapers at the street doors. The
former were the peculiar delight of my companion Luish, who passed all
his mornings on the roofs of the Venetian palaces, perched astride on
the leads, or half concealed in an eave-gutter from his fellow-mortals,
himself exposed to all the fierceness of a vertical sun. The “_piombi_”
of Silvio Pellico were nothing to the voluntary martyrdom of my
friend, who daguerreotyped all the chimney-pots in “New Tyre,” and
took portraits of all such knockers as had escaped the wrench of
his countrymen, for, in shame be it spoken, the mania for midnight
fooleries has extended even to the shores of the Adriatic.
I was returning one morning from sketching, when I was surprised, and
almost alarmed by the apparition of our facetious friend D., who had
just arrived from the South. He had already got into apartments on the
Grand Canal, with two brother artists who had accompanied him, and
seemed as fully bent as ever on the perpetration of new jokes. Stepping
into his gondola, which was a peculiarly neat one, and manned by two
red-scarfed Gondolieri in livery, we rowed off to the Accademia, where
we hoped to fall in with Mack and others. This collection contains
the finest specimens of the Venetian school of painting, famous more
particularly for its perfection of colour. Of this school, Titian is
the chief ornament. At the commencement of the sixteenth century, and
before his extraordinary talent was much known, this great painter held
an office under the Ducal government, and painted the portraits of
several successive doges. One of Barberigo, a Venetian noble, is said
to have first established Titian’s fame, and this at the early age of
eighteen, but it was not until he had secured the patronage of Alfonso,
Duke of Ferrara, that he began to derive any pecuniary benefit from
his works, and even this was so limited that he was always poor. It
remained for Charles the Fifth, who honoured Titian with his personal
friendship to establish thoroughly the renown of the great painter,
and at the court of that monarch, he passed many years of his life,
returning in his old age to his native land, where he was cut off by
the plague which visited Venice in 1576.
The “Accademia dei belli arti,” contains Titian’s most celebrated
picture--the Assumption of the Virgin. This is unquestionably one
of the finest productions in the world, perhaps second only to the
“Transfiguration” of Raffaelle in the Vatican. Many artists were
engaged in making copies of this painting at the time of our visit.
Most of these were very faithful imitations of the great original, but
we were more particularly struck with one by an American artist, whose
picture when finished, was to serve as an altar-piece in his native
town of Cincinnati. The accuracy of the drawing was extreme, while the
colouring of such portions as were finished was the admiration of all,
and K---- had seldom the satisfaction of pursuing his art in peace and
quiet. The facilities afforded to young artists at Venice, in the way
of copying, are very great, and might be advantageously adopted by the
authorities of some other and larger galleries in the north of Italy.
Besides the works of Titian, there are pictures by Paul Veronese, and
Giorgione, Pordenone and Tintoretto, and a host of other painters of
this particular school, which it is needless to describe. There are
also many private galleries in Venice, all of which possess more or
less attraction for the lovers of the art, and are easily accessible.
Having devoted an hour or two to the _Belli Arti_, I followed D. to
his gondola, and was not a little surprised as we passed the soldiers
on duty there, to see them formally present arms. Never before had the
“_cinque cento_” beaver, and black velvet paletot produced so great
a sensation. I had remarked a similar proceeding as we ascended the
steps leading to the Accademia, but concluded that some great man had
passed up unnoticed by us. The salute was now undoubtedly intended
for ourselves, but what could possibly induce it. D. declared he had
been treated in a similar way at the Police-office, and some other
places, and thought the fellows were trying to make a fool of him.
The cause was soon explained. The gondola which he had hired, at the
recommendation of the waiter at his hotel, belonged to the Principessa
G----, who had quitted Venice a few weeks previously on a journey, and
the plate-glass windows were blazoned with the arms of her family. The
mistake never occurred when the windows were not drawn out. It appears
that when a family leaves the city, their gondolas, instead of being
locked up in the boat-house, are let out on hire by their retainers:
this is sometimes done with the consent of the owner, as in the present
instance, but it more frequently happens that the servants turn the
practice to their own account.
The _Passeggiata_, or promenade, is an interesting sight, and one may
there witness the perfection of gondola management. These occur usually
twice in the week, the spot chosen being either the clear portion of
the Giudecca, opposite the Riva delle Zattere, or under the public
gardens, in the Canal of St. Marc. The surface of the water is then
covered with the noiseless and graceful vehicles of Venice, whose
sombre-looking coverings have been removed, that the fair occupants may
the more readily be seen and admired. Here also is the open _barca_,
with its striped canopy of red and white, contrasting pleasantly with
the sable hue of the old regime, whose colour no one has yet been
sufficiently bold to depart from. All the boats are rowed by two men,
as none would appear at the _passeggiata_ with a single gondolier.
Speed is a great desideratum, and all is rushing and gliding--the
_barcaruoli_ seem in their own proper element, and vie with each other
in parading their skill, cutting and cleaving with their sharp prows,
or dashing along in one mass, like a vast floating raft of gondolas.
The forward rower having no room to ply his oar, quietly unships it,
and leaves to the other the task of keeping up the motion, and now the
forced propinquity to the fair occupants of other gondolas is agreeably
perplexing, and a severe tax is imposed upon the watchfulness of
maiden aunts, and sharp-sighted duennas, (who can detect in a moment
the faintest _occhiata_,) for the hook of a walking-cane, if used
as a grapnel, will keep you firmly alongside, and within whispering
distance, of the fairest belle of Venice. At the turning point, all is
confusion, as each gondolier is striving to tack as short as possible,
and get the lead. The spray raised by the hundreds of busy oars,
glistens in the rays of the declining sun, and splashes unceremoniously
into the faces of the _promeneurs_. The strains of Mercadante and Verdi
mingle with the salt breeze of the lagune, which may here be enjoyed
in all its purity. It is untainted even by the presence of a solitary
cigar. No one smokes at the _passeggiata_; it is not _the thing_. And
then we all get fixed again into a mass, but on looking round, we find
we have lost the fair face which had so charmed us during the last
_course_. Our next-door neighbours are, on one side, the great French
lady, who takes four daily breakfasts at the Florian, and on the other,
a boat-load of Austrian officers, who are enjoying a forced reprieve
from their pipes. The walking-cane is at a discount, so giving a wink
to Antonio, and a sly push to the gondolas of the officers and fat
lady, we hasten to take up a more advantageous position.
FOOTNOTES:
[37] For many months I had rooms in a court opening out of the
Frezzaria, one of the most thickly populated thoroughfares of Venice,
and although my bed-room looked out over a canal of most questionable
appearance, I cannot recollect having ever remarked any unpleasant
exhalation.