My arrival at Turin was the first and only moment of intoxication I have
found in Italy. It is a city of palaces. After a change of dress (which,
at the end of a long journey, is a great luxury) I walked out, and
traversing several clean, spacious streets, came to a promenade outside
the town, from which I saw the chain of Alps we had left behind us,
rising like a range of marble pillars in the evening sky. Monte Viso and
Mount Cenis resembled two pointed cones of ice, shooting up above all
the rest. I could distinguish the broad and rapid Po, winding along at
the other extremity of the walk, through vineyards and meadow grounds.
The trees had on that deep sad foliage, which takes a mellower tinge
from being prolonged into the midst of winter, and which I had only seen
in pictures. A Monk was walking in a solitary grove at a little distance
from the common path. The air was soft and balmy, and I felt transported
to another climate—another earth—another sky. The winter was suddenly
changed to spring. It was as if I had to begin my life anew. Several
young Italian women were walking on the terrace, in English dresses, and
with graceful downcast looks, in which you might fancy that you read the
soul of the Decameron. It was a fine, serious grace, equally remote from
French levity and English sullenness, but it was the last I saw of it. I
have run the gauntlet of vulgar shapes and horrid faces ever since. The
women in Italy (so far as I have seen hitherto) are detestably ugly.
They are not even dark and swarthy, but a mixture of brown and red,
coarse, marked with the small pox, with pug-features, awkward, ill-made,
fierce, dirty, lazy, neither attempting nor hoping to please. Italian
beauty (if there is, as I am credibly informed, such a thing) is
retired, conventual, denied to the common gaze. It was and it remains a
dream to me, a vision of the brain! I returned to the inn (the _Pension
Suisse_) in high spirits, and made a most luxuriant dinner. We had a
wild duck equal to what we had in Paris, and the grapes were the finest
I ever tasted. Afterwards we went to the Opera, and saw a _ballet of
action_ (out-heroding Herod) with all the extravagance of incessant
dumb-show and noise, the glittering of armour, the burning of castles,
the clattering of horses on and off the stage, and heroines like furies
in hysterics. Nothing at Bartholomew Fair was ever in worse taste,
noisier, or finer. It was as if a whole people had buried their
understandings, their imaginations, and their hearts in their senses;
and as if the latter were so jaded and worn out, that they required to
be inflamed, dazzled, and urged almost to a kind of frenzy-fever, to
feel any thing. The house was crowded to excess, and dark, all but the
stage, which shed a dim, ghastly light on the gilt boxes and the
audience. Milton might easily have taken his idea of Pandemonium from
the inside of an Italian Theatre, its heat, its gorgeousness, and its
gloom. We were at the back of the pit, in which there was only standing
room, and leaned against the first row of boxes, full of the Piedmontese
Nobility, who talked fast and loud in their harsh guttural dialect, in
spite of the repeated admonitions of ‘a gentle usher, Authority by
name,’ who every five seconds hissed some lady of quality and high
breeding whose voice was heard with an _éclat_ above all the rest. No
notice whatever was taken of the acting or the singing (which was any
thing but Italian, unless Italian at present means a bad imitation of
the French) till a comic dance attracted all eyes, and drew forth bursts
of enthusiastic approbation. I do not know the performers’ names, but a
short, squat fellow (a kind of _pollard_ of the green-room) dressed in a
brown linsey-woolsey doublet and hose, with round head, round shoulders,
short arms and short legs, made love to a fine _die-away_ lady, dressed
up in the hoops, lappets and furbelows of the last age, and stumped,
nodded, pulled and tugged at his mistress with laudable perseverance,
and in determined opposition to the awkward, mawkish graces of an Adonis
of a rival, with flowing locks, pink ribbons, yellow kerseymere
breeches, and an insipid expression of the utmost distress. It was an
admirable grotesque and fantastic piece of pantomime humour. The little
fellow who played the Clown, certainly entered into the part with
infinite adroitness and spirit. He merited the _teres et rotundus_ of
the poet. He bounded over the stage like a foot-ball, rolled himself up
like a hedge-hog, stuck his arms in his sides like fins, rolled his eyes
in his head like bullets—and the involuntary plaudits of the audience
witnessed the success of his efforts at once to electrify and _stultify_
them! The only annoyance I found at Turin was the number of beggars who
are stuck against the walls like fixtures, and expose their diseased,
distorted limbs, with no more remorse or feeling than if they did not
belong to them, deafening you with one wearisome cry the whole day long.
We were fortunate enough to find a voiture going from Geneva to
Florence, with an English lady and her niece—I bargained for the two
remaining places for ten guineas, and the journey turned out pleasantly,
I believe, to all parties; I am sure it did so to us. We were to be
eight days on the road, and to stop two days to rest, once at Parma, and
once at Bologna, to see the pictures. Having made this arrangement, I
was proceeding over the bridge towards the Observatory that commands a
view of the town and the whole surrounding country, and had quite
forgotten that I had such a thing as a passport to take with me. I
found, however, I had no fewer than four signatures to procure, besides
the six that were already tacked to my passport, before I could proceed,
and which I had some difficulty in obtaining in time to set out on the
following morning. The hurry I was thrown into by this circumstance
prevented me from seeing some fine Rembrandts, Spagnolettos and
Caraccis, which I was told are to be found in the Palace of Prince
Carignani and elsewhere. I received this piece of information from my
friend the Spaniard, who called on me to inquire my proposed route, and
to ‘testify,’ as he said, ‘his respect for the English character.’ Shall
I own it? I who flout, rail at, and contemn the English, was more
pleased with this compliment paid to me in my national character, than
with any I ever received on the score of personal civility. My
fellow-traveller was for Genoa and Milan; I for Florence: but we were to
meet at Rome.
The next morning was clear and frosty, and the sun shone bright into the
windows of the voiture, as we left Turin, and proceeded for some miles
at a gentle pace along the banks of the Po. The road was level and
excellent, and we met a number of market people with mules and yokes of
oxen. There were some hills crowned with villas; some bits of
traditional Italian scenery now and then; but in general you would not
know but that you were in England, except from the greater clearness and
lightness of the air. We breakfasted at the first town we came to, in
two separate English groups, and I could not help being struck with the
manner of our reception at an Italian inn, which had an air of
indifference, insolence, and hollow swaggering about it, as much as to
say, ‘Well, what do you think of us Italians? Whatever you think, we
care very little about the matter!’ The French are a politer people than
the Italians—the English are honester; but I may as well postpone these
comparisons till my return. The room smoked, and the waiter insisted on
having the windows and the door open, in spite of my remonstrances to
the contrary. He flung in and out of the room as if he had a great
opinion of himself, and wished to express it by a _braggadocio_ air. The
partridges, coffee, cheese and grapes, on which we breakfasted _à la
fourchette_, were, however, excellent. I said so, but the acknowledgment
seemed to be considered as superfluous by our attendant, who received
five francs for his master, and one for himself, with an air of
condescending patronage. In consequence of something being said about
our passports, he relaxed in the solemnity of his deportment, and
observed that ‘he had been once near being engaged as valet to an
English gentleman, at Ostend; that he had but three hours to procure his
passport, but while he was getting it, the ship sailed, and he lost his
situation.’ Such was my first impression of Italian inns and waiters,
and I have seen nothing since materially to alter it. They receive you
with a mixture of familiarity and fierceness, and instead of expecting
any great civility from them, they excite that sort of uncomfortable
sensation as to the footing you are upon, that you are glad to get away
without meeting with some affront. There is either a fawning sleekness,
which looks like design, or an insolence, which looks as if they had you
in their power. In Switzerland and Savoy you are waited on by women; in
Italy by men. I cannot say I like the exchange. From Turin to Florence,
only one girl entered the room, and she (not to mend the matter) was a
very pretty one.—I was told at the office of Messrs. Bonnafoux at Turin,
that travelling to Rome by a vetturino was highly dangerous, and that
their Diligence was guarded by four carabineers, to defend it from the
banditti. I saw none, nor the appearance of any thing that looked like a
robber, except a bare-foot friar, who suddenly sprang out of a hedge by
the road-side, with a somewhat wild and haggard appearance, which a
little startled me. Instead of finding a thief concealed behind each
bush, or a Salvator Rosa face scowling from a ruined hovel, or peeping
from a jutting crag at every turn, there is an excellent turnpike-road
all the way, three-fourths perfectly level, skirted with hedges,
corn-fields, orchards and vineyards, populous with hamlets and villages,
with labourers at work in the fields, and with crowds of peasants in
gay, picturesque attire, and with healthy, cheerful, open, but manly
countenances, passing along, either to or from the different
market-towns. It was Carnival time; and as we travelled on, we were
struck with the variety of rich dresses, red, yellow, and green, the
high-plaited head-dresses of the women, some in the shape of helmets,
with pins stuck in them like skewers, with gold crosses at their bosoms,
and large muffs on their hands, who poured from the principal towns
along the high-road, or turned off towards some village-spire in the
distance, chequering the landscape with their gaily-tinted groups. They
often turned back and laughed as we drove by them, or passed
thoughtfully on without noticing us, but assuredly showed no signs of an
intention to rob or murder us. Even in the Apennines, though the road is
rugged and desolate, it is lined with farm-houses and towns at small
distances; and there is but one house all the way that is stained by the
recollection of a tragic catastrophe. How it may be farther south, I
cannot say; but so far, the reports to alarm strangers are (to the best
of my observation and conjecture) totally unfounded.
We had left the Alps behind us, the white tops of which we still saw
scarcely distinguishable from ridges of rolling clouds, and that seemed
to follow us like a formidable enemy, and almost enclose us in a
semicircle; and we had the Apennines in front, that, gradually emerging
from the horizon, opposed their undulating barrier to our future
progress, with shadowy shapes of danger and Covigliaijo lurking in the
midst of them. All the space between these two, for at least 150 miles
(I should suppose) is one level cultivated plain, one continuous garden.
This became more remarkably the case, as we entered the territories of
Maria-Louisa (the little States of Parma and Placentia) when, for two
whole days, we literally travelled through an uninterrupted succession
of corn-fields, vineyards and orchards, all in the highest state of
cultivation, with the hedges neatly clipped into a kind of trellis-work,
and the vines hanging in festoons from tree to tree, or clinging ‘with
marriageable arms’ round the branches of each regularly planted and
friendly support. It was more like passing through a number of
orchard-plots or garden-grounds in the neighbourhood of some great city
(such as London) than making a journey through a wide and extensive
tract of country. Not a common came in sight, nor a single foot of waste
or indifferent ground. It became tedious at last from the richness, the
neatness, and the uniformity; for the whole was worked up to an ideal
model, and so exactly a counterpart of itself, that it was like looking
out of a window at the same identical spot, instead of passing on to new
objects every instant. We were saturated even with beauty and comfort,
and were disposed to repeat the wish—
‘To-morrow to fresh fields and pastures new.’
A white square villa, or better sort of farm-house, sometimes stared on
us from the end of a long, strait avenue of poplars, standing in
ostentatious, unadorned nakedness, and in a stiff, meagre, and very
singular taste. What is the cause of the predilection of the Italians
for straight lines and unsheltered walls? Is it for the sake of security
or vanity? The desire of seeing everything or of being seen by every
one? The only thing that broke the uniformity of the scene, or gave an
appearance of wretchedness or neglect to the country, was the number of
dry beds of the torrents of melted snow and ice that came down from the
mountains in the breaking up of the winter, and that stretched their
wide, comfortless, unprofitable length across these valleys in their
progress to the Adriatic. Some of them were half a mile in breadth, and
had stately bridges over them, with innumerable arches—(the work, it
seems, of Maria Louisa) some of which we crossed over, others we rode
under. We approached the first of them by moonlight, and the effect of
the long, white, glimmering, sepulchral arches was as ghastly then as it
is dreary in the day-time. There is something almost preternatural in
the sensation they excite, particularly when your nerves have been
agitated and harassed during several days’ journey, and you are disposed
to startle at everything in a questionable shape. You do not know what
to make of them. They seem like the skeletons of bridges over the dry
bones and dusty relics of rivers. It is as if some mighty concussion of
the earth had swept away the water, and left the bridge standing in
stiffened horror over it. It is a new species of desolation, as flat,
dull, disheartening, and hopeless as can be imagined. Mr. Crabbe should
travel post to Italy on purpose to describe it, and to add it to his
list of prosaic horrors. While here, he might also try his hand upon an
Italian vintage, and if he does not squeeze the juice and spirit out of
it, and leave nothing but the husk and stalks, I am much mistaken. As we
groped our way under the stony ribs of the first of these structures
that we came to, one of the arches within which the moonlight fell,
presented a momentary appearance of a woman in a white dress and hood,
stooping to gather stones. I wish I had the petrific pencil of the
ingenious artist above-named, that I might imbody this flitting shadow
in a permanent form.
It was late on the fourth day (Saturday) before we reached Parma. Our
two black, glossy, easy-going horses were tired of the sameness or
length of the way; and our guide appeared to have forgotten it, for we
entered the capital of the Archduchy without his being aware of it. We
went to the Peacock Inn, where we were shewn into a very fine but faded
apartment, and where we stopped the whole of the next day. Here, for the
first time on our journey, we found a carpet, which, however, stuck to
the tiled floor with dirt and age. There was a lofty bed, with a crimson
silk canopy, a marble table, looking-glasses of all sizes and in every
direction,[37] and excellent coffee, fruit, game, bread and wine at a
moderate rate—that is to say, our supper the first night, our breakfast,
dinner, and coffee the next day, and coffee the following morning, with
lodging and fire, came to twenty-three francs. It would have cost more
than double in England in the same circumstances. We had an exhilarating
view from our window of the street and great square. It was full of
noise and bustle. The people were standing in lounging attitudes by
themselves, or talking loud in groups, and with great animation. The
expression of character seemed to be natural and unaffected. Every one
appeared to follow the bent of his own humour and feelings (good or bad)
and I did not perceive any of that smirking grimace and varnish of
affectation and self-complacency, which glitters in the face and manners
of every Frenchman, and makes them so many enemies. If an individual is
inordinately delighted with himself, do not others laugh at and take a
dislike to him? Must it not be equally so with a nation enamoured of
itself?—The women that I saw did not answer to my expectations. They had
high shoulders, thick waists, and shambling feet, or that _crapaudeux_
shape, which is odious to see or think of. The men looked better, and I
saw little difference between them and the English, except a greater
degree of fire and spirit. The priests had many of them (both here and
at Turin) fine faces, with a jovial expression of good humour and good
living, or of subtle thought and painful watching, studious to keep the
good things that enriched the veins and pampered the pride of the
brotherhood. Here we saw the whole market-place kneel down as the host
passed by. Being Carnival time, high mass was celebrated at the
principal churches, and _Moses in Egypt_ was given at the Opera in the
evening. The day before, as we entered Parma in the dusk, we saw a
procession of flambeaux at a distance, which denoted a funeral. The
processions are often joined by persons of the highest quality in
disguise, who make a practice of performing penance, or expiating some
offence by attending the obsequies of the dead. This custom may be
ridiculed as superstitious by an excess of Protestant zeal; but the
moralist will hardly blame what shews a sense of human infirmity, and
owns something ‘serious in mortality;’ and is besides freed from the
suspicion of ostentation or hypocrisy. Lord Glenallan, in ‘The
Antiquary,’ has been censured on the same principle, as an excrescence
of morbid and superannuated superstition. _Honi soit qui mal y pense._
When human nature is no longer liable to such misfortunes, our sympathy
with them will then be superfluous—we may dry up our tears, and stifle
our sighs. In the mean time, they who enlarge our sympathy with others,
or deepen it for ourselves from lofty, imaginary sources, are the true
teachers of morality, and benefactors of mankind, were they twenty times
tools and Tories. It is not the shutting up of hospitals, but the
opening of the human heart, that will lead to the regeneration of the
world[38]!
It was at Parma I first noticed the women looking out of the windows
(not one or two stragglers, but two or three from every house) where
they hang like signs or pictures, stretching their necks out, or
confined, like children by iron bars, often with cushions to lean upon,
_scaldalettos_ dangling from their hands (another vile custom). This
seems to shew a prodigious predominance of the _organ of sight_, or a
want of something to do or to think of. In France, the passion of the
women is not to see, but to talk. In Hogarth, you perceive some symptoms
of the same prurience of the optic nerve, and willingness to take in
knowledge at the entrance of the eyes. It certainly has a great look of
ignorance, indolence, and vulgarity. In summer time, perhaps, the
practice might be natural—in winter, the habit is quite unaccountable. I
thought, at first, it might be one of the abuses of the Carnival; but
the Carnival is over, and the windows are still lined with eyes and
heads—that do not like the trouble of putting on a cap.
We were told we could see her Majesty at mass, (so her dutiful subjects
call the Archduchess) and we went to see the daughter of a sovereign,
the self-devoted consort of one who only lost himself by taking upon him
a degrading equality with Emperors and Kings. We had a Cicerone with us,
who led us, without ceremony, to a place in the chapel, where we could
command a full view of Maria Louisa, and which we made use of without
much reserve. She knelt, or stood, in the middle of a small gallery,
with attendants, male and female, on each side of her. We saw her
distinctly for several minutes. She has full fair features, not
handsome, but with a mild, unassuming expression, tinged with
thoughtfulness. She appears about forty; she seemed to cast a wistful
look at us, being strangers and English people—
‘Methought she looked at us—
So every one believes, that sees a Duchess!’—OLD PLAY.
There are some not very pleasant rumours circulated of her. She must
have had something of the heroine of the Cid about her. She married the
man who had conquered her father. She is said to have leaned on the Duke
of Wellington’s arm. After that, she might do whatever she pleased.
Perhaps these stories are only circulated to degrade her; or, perhaps, a
scheme may have been laid to degrade her in reality, by the persons
nearest to her, and most interested in, but most jealous of, her honour!
We were invited to see the cradle of the little Napoleon, which I
declined; and we then went to see the new gallery which the Archduchess
has built for her pictures, in which there is a bust of herself, by
Canova. Here I saw a number of pictures, and among others the Correggios
and the celebrated St. Jerome, which I had seen at Paris. I must have
been out of tune; for my disappointment and my consequent mortification
were extreme. I had never thought Correggio a God; but I had attributed
this to my own inexperience and want of taste, and I hoped by this time
to have ripened into that full idolatry of him expressed by Mengs and
others. Instead of which, his pictures (they stood on the ground without
frames, and in a bad light) appeared to be comparatively mean, feeble,
and affected. There is the master-hand, no doubt, but tremulous with
artificial airs—beauty and grace carried to a pitch of quaintness and
conceit—the expression of joy or woe, but lost in a doting contemplation
of its own ecstasy or agony, and after being raised to the height of
truth and nature, hurried over the brink of refinement into effeminacy,
by a craving after impossibilities, and a wanton dalliance with the
_ideal_. Correggio has painted the wreathed smile of sweetness, but he
does not stop till he has contorted it into affectation; he has
expressed the utmost distress and despondency of soul, but it is the
weakness of suffering without the strength. His pictures are so perfect
and delicate, that ‘the sense aches at them;’ and in his efforts after
refinement, he has worked himself up into a state of languid, nervous
irritability, which is reflected back upon the spectator. These remarks
appeared to me applicable in their full force to the St. Jerome, the
Taking down from the Cross, and the Martyrdom of St. Placide, in which
there is an executioner with his back turned, in a _chiaro-scuro_ of the
most marvellous clearness and beauty. In all these there is a want of
manly firmness and simplicity. He might be supposed to have touched, at
some period of his progress, on the highest point of excellence, and
then to have spoiled all by a wish to go farther, without knowing how or
why. Perhaps modesty, or an ignorance of what others had done, or of
what the art could do, was at the foundation of this, and prevented him
from knowing where to stop. Perhaps he had too refined and tender a
susceptibility, or ideas of sanctity and sweetness beyond the power of
his art to express; and in the attempt to reconcile the mechanical and
_ideal_, failed from an excess of feeling! I saw nothing else to please
me, and I was sorry I had come so far to have my faith in great names
and immortal works misgive me. I was ready to exclaim, ‘Oh painting! I
thought thee a substance, and I find thee a shadow!’ There was, however,
a _Crowning of the Virgin_, a fresco (by Correggio) from the Church of
St. Paul, which was full of majesty, sweetness, and grace; and in this,
and the heads of boys and fawns, in the _Chase of Diana_, there is a
freedom and breadth of execution, owing to the mode in which they were
painted, and which makes them seem pure emanations of the mind, without
anything overdone, finical, or little. The cupola of St. Paul’s, painted
by Correggio in fresco, is quite destroyed, or the figures flutter in
idle fragments from the walls. Most of the other pictures in this church
were in a tawdry, meretricious style. I was beginning to think that
painting was not calculated for churches, coloured surfaces not agreeing
with solid pillars and masses of architecture, and also that Italian art
was less severe, and more a puppet-show business than I had thought it.
I was not a little tired of the painted shrines and paltry images of the
Virgin at every hundred yards as we rode along. But if my thoughts were
veering to this cheerless, attenuated speculation of nothingness and
vanity, they were called back by the sight of the Farnese Theatre—the
noblest and most striking monument I have seen of the golden age of
Italy. It was built by one of the Farnese family about the fifteenth or
sixteenth century, and would hold eight thousand spectators. It is cold,
empty, silent as the receptacles of the dead. The walls, roofs, rafters,
and even seats, remain perfect; but the tide of population and of
wealth, the pomp and pride of patronage and power, seemed to have turned
another way, and to have left it a deserted pile, that would, long ere
this, have mouldered into ruin and decay, but that its original strength
and vast proportions would not suffer it—a lasting proof of the
magnificence of a former age, and of the degeneracy of this! The streets
of Parma are beautiful, airy, clean, spacious; the churches elegant; and
the walls around it picturesque and delightful. The walls and ramparts,
with the gardens and vineyards close to them, have a most romantic
effect; and we saw, on a flight of steps near one of the barriers, a
group of men, women, and children, that for expression, composition, and
colouring rivalled any thing in painting. We here also observed the
extreme clearness and brilliancy of the southern atmosphere: the line of
hills in the western horizon was distinguished from the sky by a tint so
fine that it was barely perceptible.
Bologna is even superior to Parma. If its streets are less stately, its
public buildings are more picturesque and varied; and its long arcades,
its porticos, and silent walks are a perpetual feast to the eye and the
imagination. At Parma (as well as Turin) you see a whole street at once,
and have a magical and imposing effect produced once for all. At Bologna
you meet with a number of surprises; new beauties unfold themselves, a
perspective is gradually prolonged, or branches off by some retired and
casual opening, winding its heedless way—the _rus in urbe_—where leisure
might be supposed to dwell with learning. Here is the Falling Tower, and
the Neptune of John of Bologna, in the great square. Going along, we met
Professor Mezzofanti, who is said to understand thirty-eight languages,
English among the rest. He was pointed out to us as a prodigious
curiosity by our guide, (Signor Gatti) who has this pleasantry at his
tongue’s end, that ‘there is one Raphael to paint, one Mezzofanti to
understand languages, and one Signor Gatti to explain everything they
wish to know to strangers.’ We went under the guidance of this
accomplished person, and in company of our fellow-travellers, to the
Academy, and to the collection of the Marquis Zampieri. In the last
there is not a single picture worth seeing, except some old and curious
ones of Giotto and Ghirlandaio. One cannot look at these performances
(imperfect as they are, with nothing but the high endeavour, the fixed
purpose stamped on them, like the attempts of a deformed person at
grace) with sufficient veneration, when one considers what they must
have cost their authors, or what they have enabled others to do. If
Giotto could have seen the works of Raphael or Correggio, would he not
have laughed or wept? Yet Raphael and Correggio should have bowed the
head to him, for without those first rude beginners and dumb creators of
the art, they themselves would never have been!—What amused us here was
a sort of wild _Meg Merrilies_ of a woman, in a grey coarse dress, and
with grey matted hair, that sprang out of a dungeon of a porter’s lodge,
and seizing upon Madame ——, dragged her by the arm up the staircase,
with unrestrained familiarity and delight. We thought it was some one
who presumed on old acquaintance, and was overjoyed at seeing Madame ——
a second time. It was the mere spirit of good fellowship, and the excess
of high animal spirits. No woman in England would dream of such an
extravagance, who was not mad or drunk. She afterwards followed us about
the rooms; and though she rather slunk behind, being somewhat abashed by
our evident wish to shake her off, she still seemed to watch for an
opportunity to dart upon some one, like an animal whose fondness you
cannot get rid of by repeated repulses.[39] There is a childishness and
want of self-control about the Italians, which has an appearance of
folly or craziness. We passed a group of women on the road, and though
there was something odd in their dress and manner, it was not for some
time that we discovered that they were insane persons, walking out under
the charge of keepers, from a greater degree of vacant vivacity, or
thoughtful abstraction than usual.
To return. The Collection of Pictures in the Academy is worthy of Italy
and of Bologna. It is chiefly of the Bolognese school; or in that fine,
sombre, shadowy tone that seems reflected from sacred subjects or from
legendary lore, that corresponds with crucifixions and martyrdoms, that
points to skyey glories or hovers round conventual gloom. Here is the
St. Cecilia of Raphael (of which the engraving conveys a faithful idea),
several Caraccis, Domenichino’s St. Teresa, and his St. Peter Martyr, (a
respectable, not a formidable rival of Titian’s) a Sampson, by Guido (an
ill-chosen subject, finely coloured) and the Five Patron-Saints of
Bologna, by the same, a very large, finely-painted and impressive
picture, occupying the end of the Gallery. Four out of five of the
Saints are admirable old Monkish heads (even their very cowls seem to
think): the Dead Christ above has a fine monumental effect; and the
whole picture, compared with this master’s general style, is like ‘the
cathedral’s gloom and choir,’ compared with sunny smiles and the
shepherd’s pipe upon the mountains. I left this Gallery, once more
reconciled to my favourite art. Guido also gains upon me, because I
continually see fine pictures of his. ‘By their works ye shall know
them,’ is a fair rule for judging of painters or men.
There is a side pavement at Bologna, Modena, and most of the other towns
in Italy, so that you do not walk, as in Paris, in continual dread of
being run over. The shops have a neat appearance, and are well supplied
with the ordinary necessaries of life, fruit, poultry, bread, onions or
garlick, cheese and sausages. The butchers’ shops look much as they do
in England. There is a technical description of the chief towns in
Italy, which those who learn the Italian Grammar are told to get by
heart—_Genoa la superba_, _Bologna la dotta_, _Ravenna l’antica_,
_Firense la bella_, _Roma la santa_. Some of these I have seen, and
others not; and those that I have not seen seem to me the finest. Does
not this list convey as good an idea of these places as one can well
have? It selects some one distinct feature of them, and that the best.
Words may be said, after all, to be the finest things in the world.
Things themselves are but a lower species of words, exhibiting the
grossnesses and details of matter. Yet, if there be any country
answering to the description or idea of it, it is Italy; and to this
theory, I must add, the Alps are also a proud exception.