THE CLASSIC AND CONNOISSEUR ITALY AND SICILY AN APPENDIX, CONTAINING AN translation of Hanoi's Sbtorfa Pttorica. REV. G. W. D. EVANS. Apis Matin* More modoque HOR. VOL. I. LONDON: LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMAN. 1835. LONDON: w. M'UOWALL, PRINTER, PP.MBERTON-ROW, COUGH-SQUARE. PREFACE. " ITALY," observes Dean Berkley, in a letter to Pope, " is such an exhausted subject, that, I dare say, you would easily forgive my saying nothing about it." If such a remark was ap- plicable in 1717, how much more must it be so now, when, as d'Israeli expresses it, " Travels and Voyages have become a class of literature so fashionable, that we begin to dread the arrival of certain persons from the Continent!" but more especially from Italy. That a country so celebrated both in ancient and modern times, a country equally attractive to the antiquary, the painter, and the poet, would meet with many willing to undertake the task of describing it, rather than able to execute it pro- perly, might well have been imagined. That some would fail from mere carelessness and inat- IV PREFACE. tention, and others from a too great fear of imi- tation, might also be expected. To the first ad- venturers, the very novelty of the subject would be sufficient to insure success, without much depth of observation or accuracy of description; while later writers, too studious of avoiding repe- tition, would seek to recommend by paradoxical assertion, and the artificial embellishments of style, that which no longer possessed the grace of novelty. Accordingly, though of late years scarcely any one has ventured upon the task, without first apologizing, like Dean Berkley, for attempting to do what had so often been attempt- ed before, each succeeding tourist seems to have been more disposed to carp at the observations of his predecessors than to turn them to account; while, scared at the bugbear of plagiarism, not a few have occasionally fallen into the most ludi- crous inconsistencies. Hence it sometimes happens that the very mul- tiplicity of works upon a given subject affords a plausible pretext for the addition of another. When once such works become so numerous, that they can neither all be collected without much waste of money, nor all read without much waste of time, nor reconciled with each other when read ; then a question arises, whether a condensation of PREFACE. V their contents might not be advisable. And, in- deed, as regards Italy, any one who should be dis- posed to abide by the decision of travel-writers themselves would be apt to think the question answered in the affirmative so frequently have succeeding tourists taken the liberty of depreciat- ing the labours of their predecessors. Eustace's book, as one of the earliest and most voluminous that has appeared upon the subject during the present century, though applauded at first, has of late years been exposed to a larger share of censure than any other; indeed not- withstanding its " cloggy and cumbrous" style, notwithstanding its admitted verbiage a larger share than it deserves. In the Notes to the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold, its author has been char- acterized as " one of the most inaccurate and un- satisfactory writers that have in our times attained a temporary reputation," and as " very seldom to be trusted, even when he speaks of objects which he must be presumed to have seen. His errors, (continues the writer of the note), from the simple exaggeration to the downright mistatement, are so frequent as to induce a suspicion that he had either never visited the spots described, or had trusted to the fidelity of former writers. Indeed, the Classical Tour has every characteristic of a VI PREFACE. mere compilation of former notices, strung toge- ther upon a very slender thread of personal obser- vation, and swelled out by those decorations which are so easily supplied by a systematic adoption of all the common-places of praise, applied to every thing, and therefore signifying nothing." A sub- sequent passage of this note, however, which con- demns the frequent introduction of " the same Gallic Helot to reel and bluster before the rising generation, and terrify it into decency by the display of all the excesses of the Revolution," seems to afford a sufficient clue to the severity of the above critique. They, who can talk with so much complacency of the "hyaena bigots*" of Certaldo, were not likely to shew much lenity to- wards one who ventured to raise his voice against their brother liberals, the French revolutionists. But the most amusing part of the matter is, that most of those who evince so much tenderness for the French, are themselves to the full as vehe- ment in their invectives against the Austrians; as though, forsooth, they were to enjoy a mono- poly of abuse. After all, however, it must be ad- mitted that Eustace would have adopted a wiser course, had he indulged less frequently in his * Childe Harold, Canto IV. Note 33. PREFACE. Vll " antigallican philippics;" mindful of the pro- verb, that it is possible to overcharge with shadow even the portrait of a fiend: Poi quel proverbio del Diavolo e vero, Che non e come si dipigne nero. No such defects as those above mentioned can be imputed to Forsyth, whose book deservedly passes for the best that has yet appeared on the subject of Italy, whether we take into considera- tion the depth and originality of the remarks, or the terseness and nervousness of the language. In a more recent work, however, intitled " Two Hundred and Nine Days; or, the Journal of a Traveller on the Continent," indited by a Mr. Thomas Jefferson Hogg a work, to say the least of it, as shallow as it is flippant we find the following character of Forsyth's performance. "We took Forsyth with us to Paestum; I was disappointed, when I first read this book, which, like many of the works of his countrymen, has been industriously praised and extolled more than it deserves; and, in looking over it again, I was even less satisfied with it. He certainly has the merit of sometimes thinking and speak- ing for himself; but the style is clumsy and heavy : it is the book of a schoolmaster, not of a Vlll PREFACE. gentleman." Thanks to Mr. Thomas Jefferson Hogg, we now know what the work of a school- master is; but that ingenious personage would have laid us under still greater obligations had he been pleased to indicate the marks by which we might ascertain the work of a gentleman; unless, indeed, we suppose, that, for such marks, it was his intention tacitly to refer us to his own performance. In the opinion of most of those who have made the tour of Italy, Mathews ranks next to For- syth. It cannot, certainly, be said of his book, as it has been justly said by himself with regard to Forsyth's, that " it is a mine of original re- marks." It professes to be but the " Diary of an Invalid ; " to give merely a record of first im- pressions; and so admirably has its author per- formed his task, that never was the " nihil non tetigit quod non ornavit" more strictly applicable than in his case; applicable, indeed, to every portion of the book, but most of all to those por- tions of it which treat of the different works of art ; where he rivals, if he does not even surpass, Forsyth himself. And yet it is of this Prince of Journalists, that Mr. Conder, the author of the " Modern Traveller" who has recently put forth a compilation on Italy asserts, that " he is never PREFACE IX enough in earnest to be trusted ; and his strange caprice and dogmatism, on subjects on which he appears to have been profoundly ignorant, ob- scure the good feeling and strong sense which break out in some of his observations. He well deserves to be read, but can rarely be cited as authority." It would seem that Mr. Conder had not himself visited Italy, and that may account for his cold appreciation of a work, which Rogers's and Forsyth's always excepted bears the stamp of genius more evidently impressed upon it, than any other that has been published on the same subject during the present century. Among the charges brought against Eustace, the principal are, as we have seen the want of accuracy the systematic adoption of all the common-places of praise, applied to every thing, and therefore signifying nothing and the being but a mere compilation of former notices. The first of these charges has, in some instances, been successfully rebutted in the Editor's Preface to the sixth edition of the work; and, to say the truth, most of the specimens of inaccuracy ad- duced are not of a very important character. In a book of travels, an approximation to ac- curacy is all that can be expected; nor are Eustace's deviations from it either more fre- PREFACE. quent or more palpable than those of his fellow- labourers*. The second charge relates to a mere matter of taste. Eustace seems to have belonged to that school which thinks that " there is more true taste in drawing forth one latent beauty, than in observing a hundred obvious imperfections." And surely, a systematic adoption of the common- places of praise is to the full as agreeable, and rather more consistent with itself, than the plan pursued by Simond. That tourist, to whom censure is " as the cloak that he hath upon him, and as the girdle that he is alway girded withal," * Take the following curious example from Simond's Travels in Italy and Sicily; a work which, according to Mr. Conder, has " the merit of general, though not infallible, accuracy." " Soon after leaving Syracuse (says Simond), and travelling over the sands of the sea-shore, we beheld the extensive ruins of Epipolae; its walls and towers crowning inaccessible heights on our left, and its sepulchres, on the face of perpendicular rocks, appearing like rows of pigeon-holes. We should have liked a nearer view, but it would have taken many hours to reach the place and return; and we had a long day's journey before us Epipolae was once a powerful rival of Sy- racuse, and contained a numerous population!!" Who could have supposed that Epipolae was the most impregnable part of that very town of which it is here said to have been the rival the part by which Marcellus entered with his legions on the night of Diana's festival? Yet such is the fact. PREFACE. XI hesitates not to condemn the most celebrated of Raphael's performances in the Vatican ; and yet observes in another place, that " the change in Raphael's manner seems to have been as sudden as it was complete, uniting the best qualities of the best artists, whether contemporary or subsequent to him." We now come to the third charge brought against the Classical Tour that it is merely " a compilation of former notices." What Eus- tace is here accused of having done (without any proof adduced in support of the charge), that it is the professed object of the present work to do. It has been observed already, that the very mul- tiplicity of works on the subject of Italy affords a plausible pretext for a compilation. Such ap- pears to have been Mr. Conder's opinion; whose performance, justly characterized by himself as ,/> , ; 184 195 CHAP. XL Journey from Siena to Rome Maremma; Montepulcian Wine; Baths of St. Philip ; Ricorsi ; Radicofani ; Dress of the Shepherds; Acquapendente ; Lake of Bolsena; Montefias- cone ; Viterbo ; Soracte ; Desolate State of the Campagna ; Reasons for supposing it to be nearly in the same State now as formerly ..... 196 210 CHAP. XII. Malaria Its supposed Causes; not confined to Low Situations; Brocchi's Hypothesis ; Woods productive of it ; Period of its Continuance 211 216 CHAP. XIII. Rome Topography; Capitoline Hill ; Tarpeian Rock ; Forum; Palatine Hill 217224 CHAP. XIV. Works of the Republic Tullian Prison; Cloaca Maxima; Mili- tary Ways; Aqueducts; Pantheon; Tombs; Tomb of the Scipios, of C. Poblicius Bibulus, of Caius Cestius, of VOL. i. b XVIII CONTENTS. Cascilia Metella; Temple of Rediculus; Temple of Honour and Virtue ; Fountain and Valley of Egeria . 225 255 CHAP. XV. Works of the Empire Imperial Palace; Temples; Temple of Jupiter Tonans, Concord or Fortune, Jupiter Stator, Peace, Antoninus and Faustina, Peace, Venus and Rome, Vesta, and Fortuna Virilis; Triumphal Arches; Arch of Titus, Septimius Severus, Constantino, Gallienus, and Drusus; Janus Quadrifrons ; Trajan's Pillar; M. Aurelius's Pillar; Tombs of Augustus and Hadrian ; Coliseum ; Circus of Romulus; Scuderie del Circo di Romolo; Theatre of Mar- cellus; Portico of Octavia; Baths and Palace of Titus; Caracalla's Baths; Diocletian's Baths; Bridges, &c. 256 304 CHAP. XVI. Works of the Middle Ages Basilicas ; St. John Lateran ; San Stefano Rotondo; S. Constantia; San Lorenzo; St. Clement; St. Agnes; S. Maria in Trastevere; S. Croce; S. Maria Maggiore; Catacombs of St. Sebastian 305 313 CHAP. XVII. Modern Architecture Algarotti's Theory; Churches; Palaces; Villas; Fountains 314 324 CHAP. XVIII. St. Peter's; Jesus and St. Ignatius; San Pietro in Vincoli; St. Gregory; San Pietro in Montorio; Capuchin Church; S.Andrea della Valle; S. Maria Sopra Minerva; S. Agos- CONTENTS. XIX tino; S. Maria della Pace; S. Maria del Popolo; S. Maria in Araceli . . . 325353 CHAP. XIX. Palaces Colonna, Barberini, Sciarra, Doria, and Corsini Pa- laces; Farnesina; Spada, Falconieri, and Borghese Palaces ; Monte Cavallo: Rospigliosi Pavilion; Farnese Palace 354379 CHAP. XX. The Vatican Museum Galleries of Raphael ; Museo Pio Cle- mentine ; Octagonal Court, containing the Apollo Belvedere and the Laocoon &c. ; Hall of Animals; Saloon of the Jupi- ter; Stanza delle Maschere; Salle Ronde; Hall of the Greek Cross; Stanza della Biga; Library; Sacred and Pro- fane Cabinets; Papyrus Chamber; Pauline and Sistine Cha- pels ; Chambers of Raphael ; Picture Gallery . 380 435 CHAP. XXI. The Capitoline Museum Equestrian Statue of M. Aurelius; Marforio; Cabinet of Egyptian Gods; Cabinet of Inscrip- tions ; Plan of Old Rome ; Gallery ; Stanza del Vaso, con- taining the Iliac Table, Diana Triformis, Ephesian Diana, Furietti Mosaic, Sarcophagi, &c. ; Stanza degli Imperatori ; Stanza de' Philosophi; Great Hall, containing the Furietti Centaurs, the Amazons, the Prasfica, the Harpocrates; Hall containing Relievos representing the Battle of the Amazons, the Sleeping Endymion, &c. ; Hall of the Dying Gladiator, Venus, Antinous, &c. ; Palace of the Conservators ; Rostral Column; Consular Fasti; Bronze Geese; She Wolf; Pic- ture Gallery 436466 ERRATA. Page 77, line 20, for influence read influenced. 1 07 11 that characterizes read than characterize. 149 7 low phrases read law phrases. 220 14 rendered read render. 246 10 pcene read pene. 350 1 its credit read his credit. 420 24 advanced read advances. 424 26 of air read of the air. THE CLASSIC AND CONNOISSEUR IN ITALY AND SICILY. PASSAGE OF THE MONT CENTS TURIN. Tho' sluggards deem it but a foolish chase, And marvel men should quit their easy chair, The toilsome way, and long, long league to trace, Oh ! there is sweetness in the mountain air, And life, that bloated ease may never hope to share! BYRON. IT was on the evening of the 16th of February, 1826, that a party of four of us set out in the Lyons' diligence for the passage of the Mont Cenis. We travelled all night, and early on the following day reached Pont de Beauvoisin, the frontier town between France and Savoy. Savoy for the most part consists of mountain; and we had not long bid adieu to France, before the face of Na- ture began to wear the character of interest peculiar to a mountainous country. The villages, more perhaps from chance than design, are placed in the most pictur- esque situations some surrounded by stately walnut- trees, or seated by the side of babbling brooks others VOL. i. B 2 PASSAGE OF THE MONT CENIS. on the verge of precipices, or half-concealed among the mountains. For several miles, indeed, the road follows the course of the rapid Guiers, Thro' a vale, Such as in Arcady, where many a thatch Gleams thro' the trees, half-seen and half-emhowered. But though Savoy confessedly abounds in every ele- ment of the picturesque, presenting all the charms and ever-varying features of a wild and romantic country, yet can it boast but little else to make the traveller envy its inhabitants. " Romance and poetry may assign joy and gaiety to what they call the happy valleys of Savoy, and speak of it as another Arcadia, where gladsome shep- herds and lovely shepherdesses make the hills re-echo with their music: but, in sober reality, rarely, either in summer or winter, will rustic dance or song here be found to enliven morning or evening; rarely will the sound of pipe or tabor be found to greet the traveller's ear, or the voice of merriment be heard to issue from cabin or cot- tage to invite his stay *." During the winter months, the condition of this peasantry must be pitiable indeed. In the windows of their humble dwellings oiled paper usually supplies the place of glass, and the smoke, instead of being carried off by a chimney, is suffered to make its escape through a hole in the roof or wall; while the in- mates must of course be exposed to all the inclemency of * Gilly's Vaudois. PASSAGE OF THE MONT CENIS. 3 the weather. Their clothing, too, is upon a par with their shelter; and their squalid and sickly looks, the loathsome appendage of the goitre, the number of idiots, and the swarms of beggars, that meet the eye at every turn, are calculated to leave no very pleasing impression upon the mind. And yet these are the people whom Sterne, in his Sentimental Journey, thus apostrophizes: " Poor, quiet, patient, honest people ! fear not ! your poverty, the treasury of your simple virtues, will not be envied you by the world, nor will your valleys be invaded by it. Sweet are the dwellings that stand so sheltered !" This may be very sentimental, but certainly it is not very true. In point of fact, experience has ever shewn that the poor Savoyard is as little sheltered by his mountains from the inroads of his more powerful neighbours, as he is from the rough visitings of the weather. The further we went, the wilder became the scenery. We kept ascending and ascending, Higher and higher still, as by a stair Let down from heaven itself. At length we reached the wild and beautiful defile known by the name of the pass of La Chaille. On our right, at a great depth beneath us, rolled the Guiers, foaming and thundering along in its straitened channel, The mountains closing and the road, the river, Filling the narrow pass. On our left, a wall of almost perpendicular rocks soared as high above us as we were above the bed of the tor- B2 4 PASSAGE OF THE MONT CENIS. rent. Two carriages could hardly pass each other on this formidable road here, stretching along a ledge of rock, and there, hollowed out of it with nothing but a slight parapet, by way of protection, on the side of the precipice. A projecting crag, too, here and there over- hanging the pass, and every moment threatening a fall, "jamjam lapsura, cadentique adsimilis," could hardly fail to inspire something like a sensation of fear. But the appearance of danger is said to add to the interest of an excursion; and if it be so, this defile may boast of being one of the most interesting on the route, as it is unques- tionably one of the most magnificent. It was here that Rousseau, as he tells us in his " Confessions," while on his way to Les Charmettes, near Chambery, "amused himself by rolling stones from the road into the roaring torrent, and watching them as they bounded from ledge to ledge before they were lost in the abyss below." The Montagna della Grotta, or mountain and gallery known by the name of Les Echelles, forms the next grand feature upon this route. After following, for some distance, a new line of road, (begun in 1803, under the auspices of Buonaparte, but not finished till 1817), which winds with a gradual ascent round the little valley above Les Echelles *, you reach a perpendicular rampart * " This village owes its name to the mode resorted to formerly of passing a cavern in its vicinity, through which lay the only road to Chambery. Those who travelled by this old road ascended lad- ders placed on the face of the rock, to the height of a hundred feet: they then entered the cavern, and, after climbing more than eighty PASSAGE OF THE MONT CENIS. 5 of rocks which seem to say, " Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther !" These rocks stand directly at right angles with the road, and shoot up abruptly, like a screen, before it; opposing, to all appearance, an insu- perable barrier. Yet even here the persevering enter- prise of man has triumphed; a magnificent tunnel, of nearly a thousand feet in length, having been cut through the very bowels of the mountain. On emerging from this gallery, we passed through a barren and uninteresting tract till we approached Cham- bery, the capital of Savoy, where the mountains recede a little, and the country again wears a more smiling as- pect. A few miles farther on we passed under the fort and through the town of Montmelian, famed for its vine- yards which produce the white wine of that name; as well as for its mulberry groves, the leaves of which are stripped off to furnish food for the silk-worms, which supply the manufactories of Chambery. Shortly after- wards we crossed the Isere, and began to ascend, on the left bank of that river, by a road which commands de- feet through it, regained the day in a deep cleft of the mountain ; and a path, of which some vestiges remain, like a Roman pavement, en- abled the traveller with comparative ease, and freedom from danger, to attain the summit of this extraordinary passage. By lowering the cleft in the mountain, and terracing a descent to Les Echelles, Charles Emmanuel II, made a road practicable for carriages, called the Route of the Grotto, long considered as one of the most extraor- dinary productions of human effort. Tn 1803, this road was con- demned by the French engineers, and the new one undertaken." Brockedons Route from Paris to Turin. 6 PASSAGE OF THE MONT CENIS. lightful views over the fort and town of Montmelian and the valley of the Isere. It has been justly observed, that the usual time re- quired by an Alpine pass, is " a day's walk up a valley, which gradually becomes narrower; a day's walk across the mountain itself; and a day's walk down a valley which gradually widens." Accordingly, on this road, the pas- sage of the Alps can hardly be said to commence till the traveller reaches the foot of those stupendous heights which close in upon the Arc, about twenty miles from Chambery, and about five above the confluence of that river with the Isere. The Arc rises in Mount Iseran, a few miles above Lans-le-bourg; and from its source to its junction with the Isere, winds between two chains of Alps, and, as its name indicates, literally takes the form of a bow. " In all our journey through the Alps," says Addison, " as well when we climbed as when we descend- ed them, we had still a river running along the road, which probably at first occasioned the discovery of the passage." This remark is strictly exemplified in the Arc; along which river, crossing and recrossing it at va- rious points, and never at any great distance from its banks, lies the great road to Italy. At Aiguebelle, a town seated in the very heart of the mountains, we enjoyed a magnificent view of the Alps, Those mighty hills, so shadowy, so sublime, As rather to belong to heaven than earth* ! * Nives ccelo prope immistse, is the expression of Livy. PASSAGE OF THE MONT CENTS. 7 Leaving that place, we entered another defile, (called, from the blackness of the soil, the Maurienne), through which the road winds, for several leagues, with an inclin- ation so gradual, that, but for the changing character of the Arc, and the slowness of our progress, we should hardly have been conscious of ascending a mountain. Where we first touched upon the Arc, we found it a broad, shallow, and limpid stream; but the nearer we drew to its source, the more impetuous became the cur- rent. At St. Jean de Maurienne, the chief town of the valley, it was no longer gliding "in aquas tenues;" and at St. Michel it was a furious torrent. Indeed the river, and the two chains of mountains through which it flows, seem to undergo a corresponding change. Where the river is no longer a mere torrent, there the sides of the hills admit of cultivation, and smile with the habitations of man. But where the Arc rushes forward with a head- long course, there you behold " montes concurrere mon- tibus altos," and enormous masses of rock heaped toge- ther in the wildest confusion. Ours has been truly styled a nation of travellers; and this "truant disposition" of our countrymen has given occasion to much animadversion and some ridicule. " * Make them like unto a wheel,' is (says Sterne, in his humorous way) a bitter sarcasm, as all the learned know, against the grand tour, and that restless spirit for mak- ing it, which David prophetically foresaw would haunt the children of men in the latter days; and therefore, as thinketh the great Bishop Hall, it is one of the severest 8 PASSAGE OF THE MONT CENIS. imprecations which David ever uttered as if he had said, * I wish them no worse luck than always to be rolling about.' So much motion, continues he for he was very corpulent is so much unquietness; and so much of rest, by the same analogy, is so much of heaven." A leaner personage would, probably, like Sterne, arrive at just the opposite conclusion. Admitting, however, that the plea- sures even of travelling are not to be had without their attendant inconveniences, yet who would not forget them all while contemplating the magnificent scenery of the Alps? Who would not willingly compound for a few annoyances on the road, to behold, "vertiginous, the rocks, the mountains, the cataracts, and all the hurry which Nature is in with all her great works about her?" The mountains become gradually more and more ste- rile, and the water-falls increase in frequency and volume, between St. Jean de Maurienne and St. Michel; while those rude substitutes for bridges, so often found among the Alps, consisting of fir-trees heedlessly thrown across the different water-courses, more frequently meet the eye, and add not a little to the variety and effect of the landscape. Even here, however, cultivation is not neg- lected: no patch of land, that can possibly be reclaimed is suffered to lie dormant: the vine itself is occasionally seen shooting up amidst the naked crags; while here and there, perched on the summit of almost inaccessible rocks, are seen little cabins, inhabited for two or three months in the year by those who gather in the scanty harvest or scantier vintage of the Maurienne. PASSAGE OF THE MONT CENIS. 9 ^t We set out from St. Michel about three o'clock on the morning of the 19th of February. The sky was perfectly clear; and when the sun arose we were gratified with one of the grandest and most sublime spectacles in nature. No words, indeed, can do justice to the splendour and variety of such a scene the pale, spectral appearance of the snowy peaks, at the first peep of dawn and the rosy tints with which they were suffused, when the glorious orb of day at length appeared above the horizon, " re- joicing like a giant to run his course." " There was scarcely a colour," says Gilly, describing this very scene, " which his rays did not throw upon the mountains. At one time, it was like a vast mantle of crimson, which gra- dually changed from one tint to another, till it mellowed down to the softest purple: it then brightened again, and irradiated the snow-clad tops of the extreme heights, till every crag looked like a flame of fire. The hard, bright glittering beds of snow, that lay upon the peaks, receiving and transmitting the rays of light the frozen sides of the cascades, and channel of the torrent, that sparkled under every ray that fell upon them the pen- dent icicles of a thousand forms and sizes the crisp and fringy flakes of snow that hung from the pines the enor- mous masses of ice, clear as crystal or diamond, and re- flecting as many colours the foaming Arc in the abyss below the glittering roofs of a village more than a hun- dred yards beneath us; all these objects, contrasting with the black and gloomy bank of firs in the shade, present- ed a picture surpassing the wildest dreams of the imagi- 10 PASSAGE OF THE MONT CENIS. nation." To add to the variety of the landscape, the formidable fort Lesseillon, built since the fall of Buona- parte to guard the defile, and planted, to the left of the road, on one of the wildest and most inaccessible spots of this wild region, amidst larches, firs, and mountain pines, kept breaking every now and then in imposing masses upon our view, till at length the whole structure stood before us. On nearing Lans-le-bourg, the road stretches by a zigzag ascent across one of the flanks of Mount Iseran, from which we caught the first view of Mont Cenis and its everlasting snows: Cuncta gelu canaque aeternum grandine tecta. SIL. ITAL. At Lans-le-bourg we quitted the diligence, and placed ourselves in a traineau a machine resembling the body of a tilted cart, placed on a sledge, and drawn by four horses. The day was still bright and clear, and the scenery singular and sublime ; though the great depth of snow, by filling up the different chasms, and here and there converting a steep precipice into a more gradual declivity, in some measure softened down the ruggedness of the landscape. The road winds gradually up the mountain; sometimes forming a sort of terrace, with parapets of great strength, composed of huge blocks of stone; with lofty poles placed at convenient distances, to mark the track, in case of any unusual drift of snow. At every turn or traverse, you necessarily take a direction nearly the reverse of the one you were following but a PASSAGE OF THE MONT CENIS. 11 minute before. Thus the line of road forms an alterna- tion of angles, by means of which all abruptness is avoid- ed, and the summit of the pass attained by a succession of easy ascents *. Having gained the most elevated point of the road, the traveller descends a little towards a plain of considerable extent, called the Plain of Mont Cenis; and here he finds the well-known Hospice, founded by Charlemagne. Of the whole of this pass, the Mont Cenis is perhaps the least dreary part. Its Hospice; its houses of refuge, each occupied by a cantonnier, and built for the reception of such as might otherwise be lost in the snow storms; the various other habitations that meet the eye; and the number of travellers who are continually passing and re- passing, take away all idea of desolation, notwithstanding the wildness of the scenery. We had now bid adieu to the waters which pay tribute to the Rhone, and here we beheld another stream, issu- ing from the little lake opposite the Hospice, and running on with equal eagerness to join the Po. This lake, though frozen over more than half the year, is said to abound with delicious trout. Addison calls it a beautiful lake, an epithet which, notwithstanding its rhododendrons and mountain myrtles, it scarcely merits; and adds, odd- ly enough, that it " would be a very extraordinary one, * The average inclination of the road is about one foot in fifteen. The highest point of it, near La Ramasse, is 6780 feet; and Rock St. Michel, the highest peak of Mont Cenis, 11,460 feet above the sea. 12 PASSAGE OF THE MONT CENIS. were there not several mountains in the neighbourhood rising over it !" and, therefore, sufficiently accounting for it. In the descent, only one horse was employed in drawing the traineau, while one of the others was fasten- ed by a rope to the hinder part of it, for the purpose of acting as a check upon it at those points where its mo- tion might otherwise have been too rapid. Beyond the Grande Croix, the road winds down in terraces to the plain of St. Nicholas. The grandest section of the mountain is that which overlooks this plain. Here the rocks shoot up abruptly, and to such a height, that even in the clearest weather their summits are not unfrequently lost in mist, " abeuntque in nu- bila montes." At this point, on looking down upon the line of road, you see it in some places hollowed out of the solid rock, in others resting upon arches, traversing ravines, carried along the edge of precipices, protected by parapets, and indicating at every step the arduous character of the struggle, before the enterprise and per- severance of man triumphed over the stubbornness of Nature : Thro' its fairy course, go where it will, The torrent stops it not, the rugged rock Opens and lets it in; and on it runs, Winning its easy way from clime to clime Thro' glens locked up before ! ROGERS. At the post-house on the Italian side of the mountain, we placed ourselves in another diligence., and arrived in the evening at Susa. The descent on the side of Lans- PASSAGE OF THE MONT CENIS. 13 le-bourg, from La Ramasse, the highest point of the pass, may be accomplished by those who have nerve enough for the task, in a sledge guided by one man, in about seven minutes. Mont Cenis presents a more imposing front on the side of Piedmont, where it rises abruptly from its base, than on that of Savoy, where it slopes more gradually towards the valley of the Arc: accordingly, the views on the south side are bolder and more romantic than those towards the north. But though the traveller is taught to look for the first sight of Italy from the Mont Cenis, and may perhaps in clear weather, and from the loftier summits, catch a distant glimpse of it, yet from the road itself he must not expect to see an unbounded horizon, or any thing like a panoramic view. Here, as in most other mountain passes, the prospect is confined by the windings of the valley along which the road runs. " It would be difficult," says Gilly, " to conceive where Poly- bius and Livy could have placed Hannibal, to give him and his army that sight of the plains of the Po, which had the effect of animating their drooping spirits *. The direction is all that could possibly have been pointed out, from whatever spot the Carthaginian harangued his troops; for, wherever there is a mountain pass, there must be intersections, and chains and ridges flanking and crossing each other, and effectually intercepting any dis- * Prsegressus signa Hannibal, in promontorio quodam unde longe ac latfe prospectus erat consistere jussis militibus, Italian! ostentat, subjectosque Alpinis montibus circumpadanos campos. 14 PASSAGE OF THE MONT CENTS. tant prospect." This is certainly true as regards the prospect from the Mont Cenis itself. But, after the traveller has followed the road in its sinuosities round the side of the mountain which overhangs the deep valley of Novalese, and has passed the Roche Melon an enor- mous mountain which rises on the opposite side of that valley then the vale of the Doria expands before him, and offers to his admiring eyes one of the most beautiful views in the Alps, bounded by Turin and the plains of the Po. Near the entrance of Susa is the dismantled fort of La Brunette, once the key of the passes by the Mont Genevre and the Mont Cenis, and, therefore, of this part of Italy. At Susa itself, in the garden of the go- vernor, are the remains of a triumphal arch, built in honour of Augustus by Cotys, a petty sovereign of this mountainous region: but the diligence started much too early in the morning to afford us an opportunity of visit- ing it. As we journeyed along the vale of Susa, we could not help contrasting its sunny hills, its well-watered and cultivated fields*, with the wilder scenery of the valley of the Arc. At Rivoli, where the gay Italian villa first meets the traveller's eye, we quitted the narrow vale of Susa, and entered that vast plain which stretches from * Apricos quosdam colles, according to the expression of Livy, rivosque prope sylvas, et jam humano cultu digniora loca. Livy has also hit off the general features of a transalpine valley happily enough : Nives ccelo prope immistae, tecta informia imposita rupi- bus, pecora, jumentaque torrida frigore, homines intonsi et inculti, animalia, inanimaque omnia rigentia gelu." Liv. xxi. TURIN. 15 the foot of the maritime Alps to the shores of the Adri- atic. During this day's journey we frequently met with the vine trained over trellises, so as to form successive avenues, but no where did we see it married to the poplar or the elm. From Rivoli, a straight road, bordered by a noble avenue of lofty trees, conducted us to Turin. Large patches of snow still lay scattered over the plain; and the Collina, a chain of hills rising to the south of the Po, was covered with it, " TURIN commands the sublimest prospects here a crescent of magnificent Alps there the snow-capped cone of Monte Viso in the middle, the * king of floods/ opening his way through a rich plain which gradually widens before him beyond him the Collina, studded with white villas, and crowned with the lofty dome of the Superga *." Turin itself is worthy of its beautiful site, and is de- servedly admired for the straightness of its streets, which cut each other at right angles the elegance of its buildings; though, from the holes which supported the scaffolding and are still left gaping, they have a some- what unfinished air and its general cleanliness. This latter peculiarity was noticed and accounted for by Ad- dison. " By the help of a river," says he, " that runs on the upper side of the town, they convey a little stream of water through all the most considerable streets, which * Forsyth. 16 TURIN. serves to cleanse the gutters, and carries away all the filth that is swept into it." This statement we saw ex- emplified; the snow, with which the streets were filled, being carried off in the manner here described. The royal palace is spacious, but more remarkable for richness of decoration* than for beauty. That of the dukes of Savoy occupies a conspicuous position in the middle of the principal square; too conspicuous, indeed, as only one of its fronts consisting of a Corinthian peri- style raised on a plain basement is worthy of such a site. The other three are not only ugly in themselves, but ap- pear still uglier by being contrasted with the fourth. The front of the Carignano palace, which is curved, is covered with whimsical decorations in such profusion that they become an incumbrance rather than ornament. In the interior is what they call a great curiosity, una cosa stupenda a staircase of Guarini's of which the chief merit is the attempt to give the idea of weight unsup- ported. It was unfortunate for Turin, that while there was no lack either of means or inclination to embellish it, the task should have devolved upon such men as Guarini and Guivarra, whose perverted taste preferred the puerile conceits of Boromini to purity and simplicity of design. In all their works they seem to have aimed at nothing * The collection of pictures in this palace consists principally of specimens of the Dutch, Flemish, and French schools, among which are several admired portraits by Vandyke. Among the productions of the Italian schools, Titian's Supper at Emmaus, and the Four Elements by Albani, are the most celebrated. TURIN. 17 so much as the novel and the singular. At one end of the old Gothic cathedral, and common to that and the palace to which latter, indeed, it serves as a sort of squire's pew is the Santo Sudario, a chapel so called as being the supposed depository of Christ's winding sheet, and built of slate-coloured marble. " Such materials," observes Forsyth, " were in themselves solemn and mo- numental; but, falling into the freakish hands of Guarini, they have been frittered away into a cupola full of trian- gular windows, which form the wildest lace-work that ever disgraced architecture." The museum is rich in Egyptian antiquities, and con- tains one relic that is interesting in more points of view than as a mere remnant of art the Tavola Isiaca a mas- sive slab of mixed metal resembling brass, inlaid with silver hieroglyphics, among which is a figure of Isis seated on a throne. This relic, which has given rise to so much dis-r cussion as to its meaning and age, contains, among its other symbols, a sort of fac-simile of the modern gondola, with this exception, that it wants the felze, or hutch; though this, by the way, makes no essential part of the boat, being removeable at pleasure*. The Superga a handsome church, embellished by a portico of eight marble columns, and surmounted by a * This museum has, within these few years, been enriched by the collection of Drovetti, the rival of Belzoni. Among the greatest curiosities of this splendid collection are a statue of Sesostris, and an ancient cubic measure, divided and marked. This latter was found at Memphis. VOL. I. C 18 TURIN. cupola, erected by Victor Amadeus II. to commemorate the raising of the famous siege of Turin in 1706, on the very spot from whence Prince Eugene reconnoitred the position of the French army is about five miles from Turin, on the summit of a lofty hill on the south side of the river. It commands delightful views over the city, the suburbs, the Po, and the surrounding country. The ascent to it is long and steep; and it is mentioned as a proof of the obliging temper of some good-natured indi- vidual, that, just as he had reached the foot of the hill on his return from a visit to the Superga, having been met by a stranger, who inquired of him the way to that edifice, he was kind enough to retrace his steps to the top for the purpose of pointing it out. In this costly mausoleum, together with the bones of several other princes of the house of Savoy, repose those of Victor Amadeus II., whose name figures in the page of history with those of Eugene and Marlborough. It was in a meadow near Carmagnola that Eugene and the Duke of Savoy met for the first time. To bring about this meeting the former had descended from the Tyrol, and traversed the plains of Lombardy; the latter had contrived to steal away from the recesses at the foot of Monte Viso, where he had found shelter among the Vaudois *. They ascended the heights of the Superga * These Vaudois, who dwell among the most secluded o( the Al- pine fastnesses, which lie between the Clusone and the Felice two mountain torrents that fall into the Po are a small community of TURIN. 19 together; and such was the exultation of the fugitive duke on being made acquainted with Eugene's plan for the relief of his capital, that when he was asked where he would be pleased to dine " a Torino, a Torino ! " was the confident reply. hardy men, who have continued to maintain their religious inde- pendence against the supremacy of the church of Rome for more than a thousand years. Their situation in the heart of the wild and romantic valleys, which stretch along the eastern foot of the Cottian Alps and the Col de Sestrieres, first gave them the name of Val- lenses, Waldenses, or Vaudois. See Gilly's Vaudois. c'2 20 GENOA. Horridos tractus, Boreaeque linquens Regna Taurini fera, molliorem Advehor brumam, Genuaeque amantes Litora soles GRAY. IN our way from Turin to Genoa, we passed the night at Asti, celebrated as the birth-place of Alfieri, and still more, perhaps, for the wine to which it gives name. A fog, dense enough to compare with a November fog in London, accompanied us on the following morning till we reached the Tanaro, a considerable river, on the banks of which stands Alessandria*. The citadel is said to be of great strength, and this strength it owes, in some mea- sure, to the ease with which the waters of the Tanaro may be turned into the ditches by which it is sur- rounded. Not far from Alessandria we passed Marengo, an inconsiderable village. Our road lay across the very spot where the greatest slaughter took place: there was * The epithet Delia Paglia is frequently applied to Alessandria; some say because the emperor elect was usually crowned there with a diadem of straw; others, because the inhabitants, for want of wood, are obliged to heat their ovens with straw! The inhabitants attribute the epithet to the fertility of the soil. GENOA. 21 formerly a stone to mark the site where a vast number of the Austrians were buried. Since the fall of Buona- parte, however, the stone has been removed; but we thought we could still distinguish a sensible swell in this part of the plain. The road from Novi to Genoa no longer crosses the Bocchetta; a new line of road having been formed through Arquata and Ronca. After a long but gradual ascent, during which our attention was fre- quently diverted by the beauty of the scenery from the execrable state of the roads, we arrived at the summit of the mountain which overlooks the Gulf of Genoa. On descending by the steep traverses on the side towards the sea, we soon perceived a marked difference in the tem- perature of the air; which was further indicated by the total absence of snow, the appearance of the fig-tree, and the presence of a number of bare-legged children. During the whole of our journey we had seen but few people employed on the roads, nor any other implement made use of than the long-handled triangular spade, so common in Italy an implement which seemed generally to be wielded with a degree of listlessness worthy of its awkward form. Genoa is strongly fortified: it stands on a fine semi- circular basin, at the foot of an amphitheatre of lofty hills, which inclose it on all sides down to the sea-shore. Along the summit of the chain, and following it in all its undulations, runs the outer wall, several miles in length. Within this is another wall, inclosing the city toward the 22 GENOA. sea as well as toward the land, and opening to the har- bour by well-defended gates. Till within these few years, there was but one line of communication between Genoa and the rest of Italy the pass of the Bocchetta. The sea was her element, and by that channel was the wealth of the world poured into her harbour a harbour, how- ever, which, during the prevalence of the south-west wind, is far from being secure. Genoa seems to have been built only for foot passen- gers : the Strada Balbi, and the Strada Nuova, are the only two streets wide enough for a carriage of any sort. The rest of the city consists of narrow alleys, closely crowded together; a circumstance accounted for by the precipitous nature of the country; the mountains at the back running down in steep declivities to the very edge of the town. Thus, though nothing can be more splen- did than the two principal streets, lined as they are by the most magnificent palaces of the Genoese nobility; yet, on striking off from these into the narrower lanes, as a man must necessarily do to get at the more bustling parts of the city, he runs good risk of being knocked down by some laden mule, whose wine barrels or pan- niers, projecting far on either side, force him at least to take refuge under the first open door-way he can find. Bettinelli has well hit off the appearance of Genoa as seen from the sea: Ecco ! vediam la maestosa immensa Citta, che al mar le sponde, il dorso ai monti GENOA. 23 Occupa tutta, e tutta a cerchio adorna. Qui volanti barchette, ivi anchorate Navi contemplo, e a poco a poco in alto Infra i lucidi tetti, infra 1'eccelse Cupole e torri, il guardo ergendo a 1'ampie Girevol mura triplicate, i chiusi Monti da loro, e le munite rocche A luogo a luogo, e i ben posti ripari, Ammiro intorno: inusitata intanto Vaghezza a 1'occhio, e bell' intreccio fanno Col tremolar de le frondose cime, Col torreggiar de 1'appuntate moli. Our own Gray, too, has given a sketch equally graphic " Figure to yourself," says he, " a vast semicircular basin, full of fine blue sea, and vessels of all sorts and sizes, some sailing out, some coming in, and others at anchor; and all around it palaces and churches peeping over one another's heads gardens, and marble terraces full of orange and cypress trees fountains, and trellis- work covered with vines." Such is Genoa viewed from the sea; save that in Bettinelli's sketch, the palaces and villas figure, perhaps, too little; in that of Gray, "the vessels of all sorts and sizes," a good deal too much. The harbour now no longer exhibits the bustle and ani- mation which these words would lead one to expect. But the palaces, to which Genoa owed the epithet of Proud, the villas which occupy the most beautiful points of view on the slopes of the hills, still form the most pro- minent feature in the landscape. The palaces are no longer faced, as formerly, with black and white marble 24 GENOA. once a mark of the highest nobility but are generally covered with stucco, and decorated with frescos. The perishable nature of such decorations would be a suffi- cient objection to them*, even if there were no other. " If," says Addison, with reference to those of the Ge- noese palaces that are decorated with a mock represen- tation of painted pillars, " these were so many true co- lumns of marble set in their proper architecture, they would certainly very much adorn the places where they stand; but, as they are now, they only shew us that there is something wanting, and that the palace, which without these counterfeit pillars would be beautiful in its kind, might have been more perfect by the addition of such as are real." The Ducal palace, though it has a magnificent ap- pearance from the bay or the mole, owes its attractions more to its detached position by the sea side, and the historical recollections it recalls, than to any architec- tural merits. In front is a long inscription, detailing the titles of the immortal Andrew : they were effaced at "the Revolution, but have since been restored. The gardens, which stretch along the shore, command delightful views over the city and the sea; but in themselves they are stiff and formal, exhibiting colossal statues interspersed * Giorgione was the first to introduce them at Venice. " His works," says Lanzi, " consisted in great measure of frescos painted on the fa9ades of houses, especially at Venice, of which there now exist only some few relics, as if to make us regret the loss of the rest." GENOA. 25 among box and cypress, tortured into all sorts of shapes, in the taste of a Dutch villa. It was in the Piazza Doria, or Piazza San Matteo, as it is now called, that Andrea assembled the people when he gave them their liberty. On one side of the Piazza is the church in which he lies buried ; on the other, with an inscription to him as the deliverer of his country, the house in which he lived a house Less in length and breadth Than many a cabin in a ship of war; But 'tis of marble, and at once inspires The reverence due to ancient dignity. The Ducal palace is remarkable for its dimensions, even among the palaces of Genoa. The hall in which the senate used to assemble is one hundred and twenty- five feet in length. The judicious arrangement of the statues for the enemies of Genoa are chained on the Attic, while its benefactors are accommodated within has not escaped the observation of travellers. The two palaces of the Brignoli family now boast the finest collection of pictures in Genoa; and that of the Serra, the finest saloon in Europe. " This celebrated object is oval in plan, the elevation a rich Corinthian, the walls are covered with gold and looking-glass ; the floor consists of a polished mastic stained like oriental breccia. Surfaces so brilliant as these would deaden any pictures except those of a ceiling, which require a bright reflec- tion from the walls. Here then the ceiling alone is 26 GENOA. painted, and borrows and lends beauty to the splendour below*." The palace itself was built in 1552, but this saloon was not finished till the close of the last century, at a cost of 40,000 " a sum," says Simond, " expended to very little purpose. It is vastly gay, to be sure all looking-glass, gilding, rare marbles, and lapis lazuli ; but too small for effect (40 feet by 28), too gaudy, and wanting breadth of surface and colour for the eye to rest upon." The churches are numerous, and many of them as rich as gilding, and painting, and marble can make them. The cathedral is an odd-looking structure, composed of black and white marble arranged in horizontal stripes a piebald style of architecture too much in vogue in Italy. The Carigliano church boasts some colossal statues by Puget, and forms one of the most prominent objects in Genoa. It stands on a rising ground near a bridge of the same name, which connects two steep banks that con- stitute the highest part of the city near the sea passing with three giant strides over houses six stories high, which do not even come up to the springing of the arches. Dupaty long ago complained, that the churches of Genoa were so highly decorated that they resembled play-houses. This remark is, perhaps, most applicable to the church of the Annunziata, which is deemed the finest in the city; and such indeed it certainly is, as far as richness of decoration can make it so. San Filippo Forsyth. GENOA. 27 Neri, however, is remarkable for simplicity and grandeur of style. But the little church of San Stefano is one of the most attractive; and this attraction it owes to the famous martyrdom of St. Stephen, the joint, work of Raphael and Giulio Romano. The countenance of the saint is above all praise ; unless, indeed, we should think it excess of praise to apply the words of scripture, and say, in imitation of a certain fair tourist, that " they who look upon him, see his face as it were the face of an angel*." The hospitals of Genoa are on a scale of magnificence corresponding with its other edifices. The chief of these are, the Great Hospital, and the Albergo dei Poveri. In the chapel of the latter is a celebrated work of M. Angelo's, a medallion, representing a head of the Virgin and of a dead Christ, in high relief. This sculpture of M. Angelo's, like his painting of Eve in the Sistine Chapel, shews, that, when he was so disposed, he knew how to acquit himself with credit even in those softer branches of the art, in which he was usually thought to be deficient. " The life and death which he has thrown into this little thing, the breathing tenderness of the Virgin, and the heavenly composure of the corpse, appear beauties foreign to the tremendous genius of the artist f." The altar-piece, representing the Assumption, is an ad- mired performance of Puget's; though its effect is some- what impaired by the misplaced reverence which has en- * Sketches of Italy. t Forsyth. 28 GENOA. circled the head of the Virgin with a glory, in the sem- blance of gilt rays. Of the Hospital of Incurables, it has been aptly observed by Forsyth, that " the very name of such hospitals, forbidding the patient to hope, and the physician to struggle, cuts off at once two sources of re- covery." The head-dress of the women, on going abroad, is usually a white muslin shawl, called mezero, thrown over the head and shoulders, much after the fashion in which the Scotch women adjust their plaids. It is used by the women of all ranks, and has the reputation of being as favourable to intrigue, as we are led to believe the cu- cullus was of yore *. The Genoese are proverbial for cunning; resembling in that the Ligurians of old. " And indeed," says Ad- dison, " it is no wonder, while the barrenness of their country continues the same, that the manners of the in- habitants do not change; since there is nothing makes men sharper, or sets their hands and wits more at work, than want." So conscious are the Genoese merchants of the failings of their poorer countrymen, that, rather than trust them, they invariably employ Bergamasques in the Porto- Franco. On asking a laquais de place why there are so few Jews at Genoa, he assigned as the rea- son, that they rarely make a fortune there, the inhabit- ants being, to use his words, " plus Juifs que les Juifs." The well-known Italian proverb is equally severe upon Suniit nocturnes meretrix cucullos. Juv. GENOA. 29 the Genoese sea and territory, and upon its inhabitants; " Monti senza legno, mare senza pesce, gente senza fede, e donne senza vergogna;" " land without trees, sea without fish, men without faith, and women without virtue *." The nature of the country round Genoa brought to my mind the following remark of Addison: " If a man considers the face of Italy in general, one would think that Nature had laid it out in such a variety of states and governments as one finds in it. For as the Alps, at one end, and the long range of Apennines, that passes through the body of it, branch out on all sides into several differ- ent divisions; they serve as so many natural boundaries and fortifications to the little territories that lie among themf." It may, indeed, be affirmed with great truth, that . . . Nature's self detains the victor's car, And makes their land impregnable, if earth Could be so. " Accordingly," continues Addison, " we find the whole country cut into a multitude of particular kingdoms and * "Travellers," says Forsyth, "have often applied the 'Vane Ligus,' &c. to the Genoese character; but the ' Patrias tentasti lu- bricus artes' appears to me to be levelled rather at an individual, the fallaci Auno,' than against the nation at large." f- "Surrounded by the Alps and the sea, the natural limits of Italy are determined with the same precision as those of an island. 30 GENOA. commonwealths in the oldest accounts we have of it, until the power of the Romans, like a torrent that overflows its banks, bore down all before it, and spread itself into the remotest corners of the nation. But as this exorbi- tant power became unable to support itself, we find the government of Italy again broken into such a variety of subdivisions, as naturally suits with its situation." By these vast mountains, arranged in a huge crescent, one extre- mity of which reaches to the Adriatic Gulf, and the other to the sea of Genoa, it is separated from the continent ; while, throughout the greater part of its extent, it is bathed by the sea. It thus divides itself into two great parts the continental portion, and the Penin- sula the common boundary of which is the isthmus of Parma. For if from Parma, as a centre, a semicircle be traced to the north, with a radius of about sixty leagues, it will sweep along the higher chain of the Alps, and describe the territory of what is called the conti- nental part, formerly Cisalpine Gaul. The Peninsula, again, is a trapezium, comprehended between the continental part on the north, the Mediterranean on the west, the Adriatic on the east, and the Ionian sea on the south. The Apennines are mountains of the se- cond order, and, commencing where the Alps terminate, run through the Peninsula in a longitudinal direction, increasing in elevation by a progress inverse to that of the Alps ; and, extending to its southern extremity, divide the waters which discharge themselves into the Adriatic from those which flow into the Mediterranean." Edin. Review, No. 80. 31 PISA. E quasi fatale alle umane cose non durar lungamente in un medesimo stato ; e dopo la maggior elevazione dover fra non molto aspettarsi la decadenza. LANZI. I LEFT Genoa for Pisa in a felucca, and arrived at Leg- horn about the middle of the following day. This thriving town is said to contain upwards of sixty thou- sand inhabitants. Of these, a sixth part, and those the wealthiest, are Jews. The streets, which are clean and paved with large flag stones, are crowded with people of all nations, exhibiting a singular diversity of costume; for here may be seen, mingled in gay confu- sion, the Turk, the Armenian, and the Greek; the in- habitants of the Mediterranean isles, and those of the Barbary coast. Leghorn has the advantage of a secure harbour*, and * The pier commands a magnificent view the Monte Nero, which no Italian vessel sails by without saluting Our Lady of that name the whole extent of coast from the Gulf of Genoa to the Point of Piombino the little island of Gorgona, famed for its anchovies the light-house built by our Queen Anne, on a dangerous shoal not far from it and the isles of Elba and Corsica, the places of Buona- parte's birth and exile. 32 PISA. a lazaretto, said to be the best in Europe. The quay is decorated with a statue of Ferdinand of Medicis, with four bronze figures kneeling round the pedestal, some say to personify the four quarters of the globe; others, to re- present certain Turkish slaves who had attempted to steal a Tuscan galley, and were executed by order of that prince. With the exception of these statues, and the repositories of sculptured alabaster in the Via Grande, Leghorn has little to boast of in the way of art. The Protestant burying-ground, or Campo Inglese, as it is sometimes called, from the number of our country- men interred there, is a plot of ground without the walls, protected by an iron railing, and surrounded by cypresses after the oriental manner. It is chiefly interesting as the burial-place of Smollet. From Leghorn to, Pisa, our road lay across an exten- sive plain, bounded on the south-east by the chain of the Monte Nero, the favourite retreat of the wealthier Leghorn merchants during the heats of summer. The situation of Pisa is eminently beautiful. To the north it has the Apennines, to the south a fertile and extensive plain ; while the Arno, here a navigable stream, flows through the heart of the town, dividing it into two nearly equal parts. The quays on each side of the river are lined with stately edifices, and connected by three bridges, the middle one of which is built of marble. In its passage through the town the river describes a slight curve, and this is thought to add so much to the beauty of the effect, that the Lung* Arno of Pisa (the common PISA. 33 appellation of the quays) is usually preferred before that of Florence. PISA, while the capital of a republic, could boast a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants; but no sooner did it fall under the hated domination of Florence, than its population gradually dwindled away, and it now mus- ters scarcely more than a tenth part of that number. Its former splendour, however, is still discernible in the de- serted mansions that line its depopulated streets, as well as in the towers once the distinctive mark and the de- fence of its nobles which may still be traced in the walls of modernized houses. But the noblest monument of its magnificence is confined to one sacred corner, near the outskirts of the town : there stand clustered together all the wonders of Pisa the Cathedral the Baptistery the Leaning Tower and the Campo Santo; " all built of the same marble, all varieties of the same architecture, all venerable with years, and fortunate both in their so- ciety and their solitude*." The Cathedral, a work of the eleventh century, was built by a Greek. It stands on a platform, to which you ascend by a flight of five marble steps. The sides are divided into three stories, the front into five: the general decoration of the exterior consists of round arches resting on single columns or pilasters; and the whole is sur- mounted by a cupola. But notwithstanding the cupola, and the absence of pointed arches, clustered pillars, and * Forsyth. VOL. I. D 84 PISA. ribs and tracery in the ceiling the distinctive features of Gothic architecture it is still called Gothic by the Italians. To shew the fitness of the appellation, they instance certain irregularities in the front and sides in the former, the want of sufficient roundness in some of the arches under the angle of the roof; which, however, is accounted for by their situation in the latter, a few large arches, inclosing two or three smaller ones; a com- bination not unfrequent in Gothic and Saxon works. In both cases, however, the arches are round, or as nearly so as their situation would admit; in both cases they rest on columns or pilasters of the Greek order. As another mark of the Gothic, they point to the figures of men and animals introduced in the capitals of some of the columns ; but such ornaments, though common enough in Gothic churches', are of too old a date in those of Greece and Italy to be fairly attributable to a Gothic origin. The plan and elevation are basilical; the interior con- sisting of a nave and double aisles, with choir and tran- septs rounded like the tribune. These five aisles are formed by insulated pillars of oriental granite, taken from ancient temples, a circumstance which may partly account for the design, since materials, borrowed from such a source, would naturally lead back to something like the style for which they were first intended. " It is," says Forsyth, " a style too impure to be Greek, yet still more remote from the Gothic, and rather approaches the Saxon, a style which may here be called the Lombard, as it appeared in Italy first under the Lombard princes, PISA. 35 a style which includes whatever was grand or beautiful in the works of the middle ages, and this was perhaps the noblest of them all." As an idle decoration columns are seldom beautiful, but here they are not only necessary, supporting as they do the roof, but ornamental too, varying their combina- tions at every step, and by their colour heightening the effect of that " dim religious light" so pleasing in the eye of an Englishman, consecrated as it is to him by its as- sociations. The decorations of the interior are curious rather than beautiful. The admired marble pulpit is supported by a female figure of gross design and indifferent execution, in the act of suckling two children. The side altars are less rich, and therefore more beautiful than usual. One of these exhibits a singular group an Adam and Eve standing under the fatal tree, which is loaded with the forbidden fruit: the serpent, to whom the sculptor has given a human head, is entwined round its trunk. In this church the sacred and the profane are strangely jum- bled together. Bacchanals and Meleager's hunt figure on the walls, and heads of satyrs on a cardinal's tomb. Even the St. Potitus is said to be but a new christened statue of Mars. The bronze gates of this cathedral have been eulo- gised somewhat beyond their desert. " I will only men- tion," says Algarotti, " the so much lauded gates of the Duomo, which some go so far as to prefer before those of the Baptistery at Florence. They are principally from D2 36 PISA. the designs of John of Bologna, but are very inferior to those chaste and noble gates of Lorenzo Ghiberti's, which drew forth the encomiums of M. Angelo. Besides, in these relievos, Bologna aimed at the same effect which he has also aimed at in those which decorate the pedes- tal of the equestrian statue of Cosmo I. at Florence, an effect by no means compatible with relievos I mean that of giving indistinctness (sfondo) and distance to the com- position, by means of perspective. And what is the con- sequence? Not only does the sculptor fail in his attempt, but mar a considerable portion of his figures." The Baptistery., an isolated circular building, sur- mounted by a cupola, stands in front of the cathedral, and, like that, exhibits a multitude of useless columns, supporting mean and useless arches. The two upper stories, for there are three, shoot up into a number of acute pediments, each with a figure inscribed in it; and this, according to the Italians, is another indication of the Gothic. Eustace admires the inner elevation, consisting, on the basement story, of a tier of arches resting on eight granite pillars; this, again, supporting a second tier of smaller arches resting on twice that number of marble ones; and this latter supporting the dome. But Forsyth, a far better authority in such matters, unequivocally con- demns it. " Arches," says he, " are here perched upon arches, and pedestals are stilted on the capitals of columns, as a base to a hideous tunnel which screens the fine swell of the cupola." The statues and relievos have an evident PISA. 37 allusion to baptism, but, with the exception of the font, these are the only parts of the structure that would lead a man to divine its purpose. The Leaning Tmver may be described as a cylinder, surrounded on the basement story by a wall decorated with arches resting on half pillars; above which are six circles of slender columns supporting arches (which be- come smaller and more numerous as you ascend), and leaving an open gallery in each story between the co- lumns and the wall. The whole is crowned with an eighth story, which, being merely a continuation of the inner wall, and surrounded by an iron balustrade, is of smaller diameter than the rest. A spiral staircase, com- municating with the galleries, winds up within the wall *. Much difference of opinion exists among different tra- vellers as to the merits of this singular structure. One tourist f charges it with betraying " that poverty of effect which must ever result from small columns and a multi- tude of orders." Another | tells us, that it " would have small pretensions to architectural beauty, were it altoge- ther upright: at present it is quite as displeasing as it is wonderful." On the contrary, Eustace admires it for its graceful form and marble materials; and Mathews pro- * The cylinder is composed of two walls, each two feet thick, one within the other, with an interval of three feet for the stairs. The well in the centre is twenty-two feet in diameter, the projection of the galleries seven feet, the diameter of the tower fifty feet; and its height one hundred and ninety. t Forsyth. t Woods. 38 PISA. nounces it to be, " upon the whole, a very elegant struc- ture," and in its general effect " so pleasing, that, like Alexander's wry neck, it might well bring leaning into fashion among all the towers of Christendom." As to the obliquity of this tower, some ascribe its cause to accident, others to design; the latter affirming, from the diminished inclination of the upper tiers, that the German architect contrived this declination, which his Italian successors endeavoured to rectify. As, however, a neighbouring belfry, and the observatory in the adjoin- ing street, have been found to lean to the same side, there can be little doubt that the Campanile leans only from the same cause the softness of the soil on which it stands. But, whatever be the cause of its obliquity, the tower seems to be in no danger of falling. Notwith- standing its threatening appearance, it has now stood more than six hundred years without rent or decay, Ruituraque semper, Stat, mirum! moles. Campo Santo. This cloistered cemetery, constructed in the thirteenth century, is a vast rectangle three hun- dred and eighty-three feet in length by one hundred and twenty-seven in width, surrounded by arcades of white marble. The arches, like those met with in Roman ar- chitecture, are round, and the pillars faced with pilasters; but each arcade, with the exception of only four, includes an intersection of small arches, rising from slender shafts like the mullions of a Gothic window. This, however, is supposed to be an addition, the arcades having, to all PISA. 39 appearance, been open originally down to the pavement. In their present state they are not unlike so many Gothic windows stripped of their glass. Indeed, it is pity that they had not been glazed, for the frescos, with which the walls are covered, might thus perhaps have been protect- ed in some degree from the effects of damp. As it is, they are rapidly going to decay. In this Campo Santo it was, that, at the dawn of mo- dern painting, the more distinguished of the Tuscan ar- tists were taught to emulate each other's powers. Here Giotto executed certain historical pieces from the life of Job, which, though amongst his earliest performances, are not altogether devoid of merit. Here Gozzoli finish- ed, in the short space of two years, his Noah inebriated, his Building of the Tower of Babel, with other scriptural subjects which cover one entire wing of the cemetery a work that might, as Vasari well observed of it, appal a whole host of painters. Here, also, Andrea Orcagna gave a representation of the Last Judgment; and Bernardo Orcagna, another of the Inferno. In a painting in the corner of the rectangle to the right of the entrance, An- drea has taken occasion to represent the effects of the sacred soil of which the cemetery is composed *. First * It is said to have been filled, to the depth of nine feet, with earth brought by the Pisans from the Holy Land, on their return from the third crusade. This earth was thought to possess the pro- perty of decomposing animal substances in the space of four-and.- twenty-hours. Such, at least, is the prevailing notion, though Si- mond, on the contrary, asserts, that " bodies buried in it are said to be safe from decay." 40 PISA. you see the swelling, then the bursting, of the trunk, then its gradual decomposition, and, lastly, the bare ske- leton; all which you are required to believe was the work of only twenty-four hours. In this picture Orcagna has also represented the soul quitting the body, under the semblance of an infant. In some instances the devil is in the act of seizing this infant; in others, an angel is seen bearing it away to heaven. In one case, where the defunct seems, as Madame Sevigne says of herself, to have belonged " ni au Dieu, ni au diable," an angel takes this semblance of a soul by the hands, while the devil keeps fast hold of it by the legs. Had the various works executed here by the earlier painters been preserved in their pristine state, they would have afforded an admirable field for the study of the rise and progress of modern art. Retouched, however, as they have been, they still exhibit a sort of palseology of painting; they still serve to " shew the art growing, through several stages, from the simplicity of indigence, to the simplicity of strength." " The first pictures," continues Forsyth, " betray a thin, timid, ill-fed pencil; they present corpses rather than men, sticks rather than trees, inflexible forms, flat surfaces, long extremities, raw tints, any thing but nature. As you follow the chro- nology of the wall, you catch perspective entering into the pictures, deepening the back-ground, and then ad- justing the groups to the plans. You see the human figure first straight, or rather stretched; then foreshort- ened, then enlarged; rounded, salient, free, various, ex- pressive. Throughout this sacred ground Painting pre- PISA. 41 serves the austerity of the Tuscan school: she rises sometimes to its energy and movement, she is no where sparing of figures, and has produced much of the sin- gular, the terrible, the impressive; but nothing that is truly excellent. All the subjects are taken from scrip- ture, the legends, or Dante; but, in depicting the life of a patriarch or a saint, the artists have given us the dress, the furniture, and the humours of their own day." 42 LUCCA. L'uliva, in qualchc dolce piaggia aprica, Secondo il vento, par or verde, or bianca: Natura in questa tul serba, e nutrica, Quel verde, cbe nell' altre frondi manca. LORENZO DE' MEDICI. ABOUT four miles north of Pisa, the Lucca road ap- proaches the mountains whose marble quarries furnished the former city with the materials for its splendid edifices. At their foot stand the Baths of San Giuliano, once in considerable repute, but now less attractive than those of Lucca. After skirting the base of these mountains for a few miles, you come to the pretty village of Ripa Fratta the Tuscan boundary whose name " indicates how little the proudest embankments can resist the Ser- chio, when its floods are repelled by a south wind." LUCCA is seated in a rich and highly cultivated valley, watered by the above-mentioned river, and surrounded by a belt of lofty Apennines, which gradually sink down into " vine-clad hills, where the celebrated villas rise on such sites as court admiration from the city." In its broad ramparts, its stately palaces with their massive walls and barred windows, its historical statues, and monumental memorials of departed patriots, we may still trace the vestiges of its former prosperity, when, elate with the ad- LUCCA. 43 vantages of liberty and commerce, it had, like so many other petty Italian states, " a public soul too expansive for the body." The ramparts, useless as a defence, are now converted into a promenade planted with forest trees : hence it has been observed, not unaptly, that, to a spec- tator without the walls, the city wears the appearance of a fortified wood, with a watch-tower in the middle that watch-tower being the cathedral itself. This structure is of the same date, and the same ma- terial, as that of Pisa. Its chief peculiarities are the wide porch, consisting of three large semicircular arches, supported by piers with slender shafts and crowded with sculpture and the round temple of the Santo Volto in- sulated in the nave. The other churches decorated in a manner at once costly and fantastic, with variegated marbles, chequered or in stripes are all of them, more or less, imitations of the Pisan cathedral, though on a small scale. Of the city itself, taken as a whole, it has been remarked by Chateauvieux, that " its crooked streets, pointed roofs, and irregular edifices, give it somewhat the air of a Flemish town." This little state, comprising a territory scarcely ex- ceeding fifty-four square leagues, contains a population of about one hundred and forty-three thousand souls. It is, indeed, one of the best peopled, as well as one of the best cultivated districts in Italy; and, as regards the plain itself, may truly be said to exhibit " the economy and shew of a large kitchen garden." The hills are covered with vineyards and olive-groves, especially the latter, 44 LUCCA. whose pale foliage meets the eye at every turn; the Lucca oil being considered superior even to that produc- ed in the Florentine territory. Hence, notwithstanding the general poverty of the farmers attributable in some measure, as we shall hereafter see, to the nature of the tenure by which they hold their lands the advocates for small farms frequently adduce the Lucchese, and still more frequently the Lower Valdarno, where the peasan- try are in easier circumstances, in support of their fa- vourite system; triumphantly contrasting the smiling ap- pearance of these two districts with the forlorn plains of the Campagna di Roma, where the farms are so enor- mously large. The Baths of Lucca a delightful summer retreat are situated in the heart of the Apennines, about twelve miles from the town. The road, after quitting the ro- mantic valley of the Serchio, studded with convents, villas and villages, and remarkable for its three curious bridges, winds along the banks of a tributary stream, called the Lima. Passing a huge mass of overhanging rock, with a chapel hollowed out in its side, you enter a sequestered valley inclosed between high and fertile hills, and, following the course of the Lima, after a few miles, arrive at the baths. Never was watering-place more secluded. At the foot of the bridge which crosses the Lima is a little village, and on the hill above it are perched the Bagni Caldi; about a mile higher up the stream are the tepid baths, called Bagni della Villa, charmingly seated in an am- LUCCA. 45 phitheatre of hills. The surrounding scenery is highly pleasing and diversified verdant meadows " a brawling brook" groves of oak and chestnut, clothing the tops of the highest hills and, in the distance, the snowy summits and sparkling peaks of the towering Apennines. The waters here are of various degrees of heat to within four of the boiling point; and are said to be very salutary. According to Algarotti's account, the Lucchesi have shewn more tact than their Pisan neighbours in puffing and promoting the celebrity of their baths. " Se- condo il libro di Cocchi," says he, " i bagni di Pisa sono vma panacea. Meglio per avventura i Lucchesi, i quali asseriscono, per tale malattia esser buoni i lor bagni, ottimi per tale altra, per questa, quella, e quell' altra non se ne esser ancora provata la virtu. Un cosi fatto stile si acquista fede." 46 FLORENCE. Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps, Was modern Luxury of Commerce born, And buried Learning rose, redeemed to a new morn. BYRON. EXAGGERATION is said to be the besetting sin of travel- lers; but, with the exception of Rogers, who asserts roundly that, Of all the fairest cities of the earth None is so fair as Florence, they have hardly done justice to the capital of Tuscany, which may well be called "the fair." Its churches, notwithstanding the unfinished state of many of their facades, are magnificent; its palaces, though they have more of solidity than elegance, are noble structures; the private dwellings are in general handsome; the streets, though narrow, are clean, and paved with thick flag- stones, chiselled into grooves, to prevent the horses from slipping. The Arno divides the city into two unequal parts, and, being dammed up, has here the appearance of a large river, though it is in fact an inconsiderable stream. On each side, between the houses and the river, is the Lung' Arno, a broad quay serving for car- riages and foot passengers. Thus the Arno may be con- FLORENCE. 47 sidered as forming the principal street, the two sides of which are connected by four bridges at short intervals from each other. Of these, the Ponte della Trinita, consisting of three elliptic arches, and built of white marble, is deservedly the most admired. The views up and down the river are delightfully va- ried, presenting wood, and water, and mountain; the Arno, the Cascine, and the Apennines ; while in the im- mediate vicinity are villas without number, which, from the absence of smoke, and the purity of the air, are dis- tinctly seen from all parts of the town. Ariosto long ago remarked, that, if the villas in the environs of Florence, which seem to shoot up like so many off-sets and suckers from the ground, were all collected within one wall, they would form a city twice the size of Rome. The prospect from the neighbouring hills is yet more beautiful. Here you have Florence extended at your feet, "her groves and gardens, pinnacles and towers," and the river winding through the famed Valdarno a golden plain, abounding in corn and wine and oil till the scene is closed by the bold range of the Apennines. Such is the situation of Florence; and within her walls are palaces and museums rich in all the wonders of an- cient and modern art; abounding with every thing that can delight the fancy or gratify the taste : Search within, Without; all is enchantment! "Tis the past Contending with the present ; and, in turn, Each has the mastery. 48 FLORENCE. But the great object of attraction here is the cele- brated gallery. On entering the vestibule of this noble collection, you are met by the founders themselves. Here you may contemplate the features of Cosmo, " the fa- ther of his country," and of Lorenzo " the magnificent." Some of their busts are of porphyry. It seems that the art of carving in porphyry was lost, and one of the Medici is said to have restored it. After all, however, it is a substance but ill adapted to statuary. " A statue should be of one colour. That colour, too, seems best which least suggests the idea of colour, and is the freest from any gloss or radiance that may tend to shed false lightsj and confuse vision. Hence, white marble is preferable to black, black marble to bronze, bronze to gold, and any of them to a mottled surface like porphyry." (Forsyth). The gallery itself runs round the whole edifice, which forms the three sides of an oblong, and twenty different rooms or cabinets open into it. Of these, an octagonal cabinet, known by the name of the Tribune the walls of which are decorated with a few paintings of the great masters, and in the area of which are five of the most admired pieces of ancient sculpture claims our first attention. In the centre of this apartment stands " the statue that enchants the world" the matchless Medicean Venus. That this inimitable statue was found in Hadrian's villa, and that it is the work of a Greek sculptor, is all that is now known; for the name of Cleomenes, on the pedestal, is generally supposed to be a forgery. Some will have it THE ROYAL GALLERY. 49 that this modest-looking figure represents the abandoned Phryne, who, at the celebration of the Eleusinian myste- ries, on coming out of the bath, exposed her person to the gaze of all Athens. But though this would establish its identity with the famous Cnidian Venus of Praxiteles, of which that courtesan was the model, yet others have even doubted whether it ought to be called a Venus at all; seeing that it would be difficult to recognise, in this divine statue, any traits of the queen of love and pleasure. " It seems rather intended as a personification of all that is elegant, graceful, and beautiful; not only abstracted from all human infirmities, but elevated above all human feelings and affections; for though the form is female, the beauty is like the beauty of angels, who are of no sex." The majority of travellers, who are lavish in their praises of the Venus, would probably acquiesce in the justness of the above critique of Mathews; but there have been some, who, for the sake of singularity perhaps, have more than "questioned not only its supremacy in beauty, but even its delicacy. For its beauty a recent tourist of the softer sex complains of the insipidity of the face, and the thickness of the legs; and declares, moreover, that she has seen living women scarcely less beautiful, and far more interesting. And then, for its delicacy every body knows that this is the very statue of which, to use the words of Sterne, " Smollet falls foul, and uses worse than any strumpet." Venus is graceful in all her attitudes Illam, quicquid agat, quoquo vestigia vertat, Componit furtim, subsequiturque decor. TIBULLUS. VOL. I. E 50 FLORENCE. If she but move or look, her step, her face, By stealth adopt unmeditated grace. WAIPOLE. But in no attitude is she more so, as Spence observes, " than in that of the Venus of Medicis ; in which figure of her, if she is not really modest, she at least counter- feits modesty extremely well. Were one to describe ex- actly what that attitude is, one might do it in two verses of Ovid's:" Ipsa Venus pubem, quoties velamina ponit, Protegitur laeva semireducta manu. ART. AM. 2, 614*. Immediately behind this statue is the most famous of all the famous Venuses of Titian, voluptuously reclining on a couch, with flowers in her right hand: two females, who are busied in opening a chest in the back ground, seem to be introduced for no other purpose than to serve as a foil to the beauty of the principal figure; which Algarotti thought worthy to rival the Medicean statue. Not so Mathews. " In this picture," says he, " Titian has represented the goddess of pleasure in her true char- acter the Houri of a Mahometan paradise and a most * At the foot of the statue are two Cupids playing about a dol- phin. Hence it is that Venus is called by Ovid, " the mother of the two Cupids " Geminorum mater Amorum. One of these Cupids was looked upon as the cause of love ; and the other, as the cause of its ceasing. Accordingly, antiquarians usually call the two little Cupids at the foot of the Venus of Medicis, by the names Eros and Anteros; and there is something, not only in the air of their faces, but in their very make and attitudes, which agrees well enough with those names: the upper one being lighter and of a more pleasing look ; the lower one more heavy and sullen. Spence's Polymelis, Dial. 7. THE ROYAL GALLERY. 51 bewitching picture it is. But the triumph of the statue is complete. There is about it that mysterious some- thing, 'quod nequeo monstrare, et sentio tamen,' im- pressed by the master-touch, which is as inexplicable as the breath of life. The attention of the spectator is ri- vetted to it, and he turns from the picture like Hercules from the voluptuous blandishments of the goddess of pleasure to devote an exclusive adoration to the celes- tial purity of her rival." The Venus suffered considerably in her transport from Rome to Florence. The whole of the right arm is mo- dern, as is also the left from the elbow downward. The searching eyes of critics have also descried in her some faint traces of humanity: they have discovered that her ears, like those of the daughters of Niobe, are pierced for ear-rings, and that one arm looks as though it had been compressed by a bracelet. The arms, however, being modern, the bracelet must of course have been a modern decoration; but we can hardly believe this of the other " barbarous trinkets," as Mathews calls them. Though, with him, " one would wish to think they were not the work of the original sculptor, but added by some late proprietor, in the same taste that the squire in Smollet bestows full-curled periwigs, by the hand of an itinerant limner, at so much a head, on the portraits of his ances- tors painted by Vandyke;" yet, when we reflect that they were common to the Venus and the daughters of Niobe, we can hardly come to such a conclusion. Whether this statue is the work of Praxiteles or not, it may, as Addison has observed, very properly remind us E2 52 FLORENCE. of what Venus is made to say in one of the Greek epigrams: fv olSf Zlapic /it (cat Tot'f rpttg olSa fiovovg' Tlpa.%iTf\t]G Ss iroQtv; Anchises, Paris, and Adonis too Have seen me naked and exposed to view; All these I frankly own, without denying; But where has this Praxiteles been prying? ADDISON. The Apollino, the Arrotino, the Wrestlers, and the Faun, are the four satellites which surround the presiding deity of love. The Apollino is in the graceful style, what the Apollo Belvidere is in the sublime. He stands with one arm negligently thrown over his head; and perhaps his only defect is his diminutive stature, which, notwithstanding his acknowledged symmetry and grace, renders him after all but an insignificant representative of the far-darting Apollo. The Group of the Wrestlers has by some been thought, perhaps erroneously, to represent two of the sons of Niobe, not only because they were discovered nearly in the same spot with the Niobe, but because, as we learn from Ovid, two of the sons of Niobe were exercising themselves in wrestling at the moment they were trans- fixed by the arrows of Apollo. This group has the merit of being unique, and admirably displays the exertion of the two competitors, in the tension of the muscles and the swelling of the veins. The head of the vanquished is antique; that of the other, if not modern, has at any THE ROYAL GALLERY. 53 rate been retouched. Both are admired for their ex- pression: the victor seems to glory in his success, while the vanquished appears to be torn with the contending passions of rage and despair at his defeat. His head is turned toward his successful opponent, who still keeps him down; and one of his legs is uplifted, as if he were meditating an effort to extricate himself and give his ad- versary a fall. One of his arms seems out of joint. The Arrotino, or Whetter, or Remouleur, or Spy a statue of a crouching slave whetting a knife has opened a wide field for the conjecture of connoisseurs; who are hardly yet agreed upon the subject. He is represented in the act of suspending his employment, and looking up as if to listen to something that is said. Hence with some it passes for the slave who, while whetting his knife, overheard Catiline's conspiracy. But they who reject this hypothesis will not admit that the countenance be- trays any indication of that surprise and curiosity, which a person so circumstanced might naturally be expected to feel. Others are of opinion, that it represents the peasant who discovered the plot into which the two sons of Junius Brutus entered for the restoration of Tarquin. Others, again, will have it that it is meant for Accius Navius, that ingenious soothsayer, who said, " he could do what the king was thinking of;" and when Tarquin, with a sneer, replied, " I was just thinking whether you could cut that whetstone with a razor," immediately severed it in two. In fact, no satisfactory suggestion has yet been hit upon. The favourite conjecture, at present, is, that it represents the Scythian whom Apollo com- 54 FLORENCE. manded to flay Marsyas. " It seems strange," says Hobhouse, in his notes to the fourth canto of Childe Harold, "that the character of that disputed statue (the Whetter) should not be entirely decided, at least in the mind of any one who has seen a sarcophagus in the vestibule of the Basilica of St. Paul without the walls*, at Rome, where the whole group of the fable of Marsyas is seen in tolerable preservation; and the Scythian slave, whetting the knife, is represented exactly in the same position as this celebrated master-piece. The slave is not naked; but it is easier to get rid of this difficulty, than to suppose the knife in the hand of the Florentine statue an instrument for shaving; which it must be, if, as Lanzi supposes, the man is no other than the barber of Julius Caesar." The Danciny Faun, playing on the cymbals, has been attributed to Praxiteles, though more from the excellence of the work than from any direct proof. The head and arms are modern the workmanship of M. Angelo who, in the opinion of Mathews, has here shewn so much skill in restoration, that it may be doubted whether the ori- ginal could have excelled the substitute. Bell, however, in his " Observations on Italy," tells us that M. Angelo has given " too fresh and full a face for the shrunk, mea- gre, and dried up body;" and that he has "evidently mistaken the design, which is assuredly that of a drunken old faun, balancing with inebriety, rather than dancing The Basilica was destroyed by fire in 1824: the Sarcophagus may perhaps have escaped. THE ROYAL GALLERY. 55 with glee. The limbs are all in a strained and stagger- ing attitude; and the action arises, not from the exertion of dancing, but from the loss of balance, and the desire to preserve it. The whole body inclines forward in a re- clining posture; and there must have been a proportion- ate bend of the head backwards to counterbalance the inclination of the trunk." This latter, considered by it- self, he looks upon as " perhaps the most exquisite piece of art of all that remains of the ancients." The group of the Niobe, supposed by some to have been designed for the pediment of a temple, gives name to the cabinet in which it is placed. This group if such a term may be applied to figures placed at equal distances round a room consists of sixteen statues of va- rious sizes, and very unequal merit, and thought, too, to be by different hands. The agony of maternal affection, in the figure of Niobe herself, clasped by the arm of her youngest child, is admirably expressed; and whether this group suggested Ovid's affecting description, or whether the sculptor did but embody the conceptions of the poet, the statue and the description, it must be admitted, form no bad commentary on each other: Ultima restabat, quam toto corpore mater, Tota veste tegens, unam, minimamque relinque; De multis minimam posco, clamavit, et unam. The last, with eager care, the mother veiled, Behind her spreading mantle close concealed, And with her body guarded, as a shield. " Only this least, this youngest, I implore, " Grant me this one request, I ask no more," GARTH. 56 FLORENCE. Some critics object to the dress of the other daughters as too thin and meretricious for dying princesses; others think there is too much attitudinizing in the figures of the sons; while most are of opinion that the taste of the whole is somewhat too theatrical. In this chamber of the Niobe is the Head of Alexan- der; a head worthy of the son of Ammon and the con- queror of the world. But here again the virtuosi are at fault; not, indeed, as to the identity of the head, but as to the circumstance in which the sculptor meant to repre- sent the hero; whether in a state of bodily pain or lan- guor, or of sorrow and remorse for the murder of his friend Clitus, or lastly, according to the conjecture of Addison, as weeping for new worlds to conquer. The Hermaphrodite, asleep upon a lion's skin, affords a striking example of the happy knack of the ancients in hitting off the ease and simplicity of nature *. So na- tural is the posture of the recumbent figure, that one hesitates to approach it, lest one should disturb its repose. But though we admire the excellence of the work, we may well be surprised at that perversion of taste, which could lead the ancients to delight in such monstrous re- presentations. " The heathen sculpture," observes Gray, " was generally filthy and abominable; for though it be allowed that the Venus is but the display of female charms, and that she rather enchants us by the modest * The Shepherd extracting a thorn from his foot, in one of the ante-rooms of the Tribune, exhibits another remarkable instance of the same happy faculty. THE ROYAL GALLERY. 57 and retiring decency of her manner, than awakens any unchaste sentiments; yet the Fauns, and Satyrs, and im- personated objects of lewdness, prejudice morality by suggesting ludicrous ideas to mingle with our disgust. The Hermaphrodite is sculptured with such elegance as cannot but arrest attention to a subject little beneficial to delicacy; and I know of no moral effect to be derived from contemplating Zephyrs, Ledas, and Cupids; drunken gods, gladiators, and heroes." One of the most interesting parts of this celebrated collection is the series of imperial statues and busts ranged along the gallery, shewing, as it does, the state of sculpture from Julius Caesar down to Constantino. What Addison says of medals holds still more strongly of these busts and statues. Here we have "the faces of all the great persons of antiquity." Here we see " the Alexanders, Caesars, Pompeys, Trajans, and the whole catalogue of heroes, who have many of them so distin- guished themselves from the rest of mankind, that we almost look upon them as another species." Here, too, "we find the representations of ladies that have given occasion to whole volumes, on account only of a face. We have here the pleasure to examine their looks and dresses, and to survey at leisure those beauties that have sometimes been the happiness or misery of whole king- doms." It has been found that the heads which are rare in medals are also rare in marble. There are, however, some exceptions. Tiberius, for instance, is a rare medal, but a common bust; and the contrary holds good of 58 FLORENCE. Agrippa and Caligula, of whom there are many medals and but few busts. The Julius Csesar in bronze, which begins this series, closely resembles his effigy on the most authentic medals: it wants the laurel crown, and is there- fore thought to have been cast before the Senate granted him the privilege of wearing it. The same remark ap- plies to another bust of his in marble. In some instances we meet with several busts of the same individual: thus, there are three of Nero, three of Trajan, four of M. Aurelius Antoninus, three of Lucius Verus, and three of Julia, the daughter of Titus: but in this latter case the three are so unlike each other, that scarcely any differ- ence of age can reconcile them. Physiognomists, "who can read sermons in stones," affect to trace the history of their prototypes in these imperial heads. Thus they tell you that " Caligula had an habitual paleness, which is indicated by the very mar- ble;" that Claudius's bust betrays "that stolidity and heaviness which, in all his actions, characterized the man, in whom the least application produced an involuntary shaking of the head; and that the mouth, too, is treated in such a manner, as to point out another organic defect of that weak-minded prince, recorded by Juvenal;" while, with regard to Nero's, " the character under which he is represented, evidently seems to be put on with a view to mask his cruelty*." In all this there is perhaps a little * In the " Galerie Royale et Imperiale," it is observed of Cali- gula " II avait unc paleur habituelle, quc le marbre scmble in- diqucr." Of Claudius it is said " La bouche est traitee de faon a THE ROYAL GALLERY. 59 too much of the fanciful; for though "it is no doubt an agreeable amusement to compare in our own thoughts the face of a great man with the character that authors have given us of him, and to try if we can find ouHn his looks and features either the haughty, cruel, or merciful temper that discovers itself in the history of his actions;" yet we should be cautious how we carry this amusement too far. In some few instances Nature may have stamp- ed the characters of the individuals upon their counte- nances too plainly to be mistaken, yet in many others such characteristic marks would be sought for in vain. Few either of the statues or busts have escaped unin- jured; and, but for modern restoration, we should meet with the same mutilated statues and the same disfigured heads that Juvenal mentions as not uncommon in the collections even of his day: Et Curios jam dimidios, humeroque minorem Corvinum, et Galbam auriculis nasoque carentem. Curius, half wasted by the teeth of time, Corvinus dwindled to a shapeless bust, And high-born Galba crumbling into dust. GIFFORD. Among these busts there are several in which the flesh is of white marble and the drapery of coloured. High authority may be quoted for this mixture. Homer and Virgil seem to have approved of it. The former intro- faire reconnoitre un autre defaut naturel de ce foible prince, dont parle Juvenal (Sat. 6)." And of Nero " L'air sous lequel il est re- presente, semble 6tre affecte et cacher de la cruaute." 60 FLORENCE. duces gold and silver and tin into the sculpture of Achilles' shield; the latter talks with complacency of the union of gold and marble : " Pariusve lapis circumdatur auro." The materials both of the Jupiter and the Mi- nerva of Phidias were ivory and gold; and metal bits were found to be inserted in the mouths of the marble horses taken from the frieze of the Parthenon*. After all, however, no authority can defend such a mixture. " Sculpture," as Forsyth justly observes, " admits no di- versity of materials; it knows no colour; it knows nothing but shape. Its purpose is not to cheat the eye, but to represent to the mind all the truth and beauty and grace and sublimity of forms. Did the expression of a statue depend on the illusion produced, or on the number of idiots who mistake it for life, the Medicean Venus would then yield to every wax-work that travels from fair to fair." At the extremity of the gallery is an antique Morpheus in touchstone. " I have always observed," says Addison, " that this god is represented by the ancient statuaries under the figure of a boy asleep, with a bundle of poppy in his hand. At first I took it for a Cupid, till I noticed that it had neither bow nor quiver." Qualia namque Corpora nudorum tabula pinguntur Amorum, Talis erat; sed ni facial discrimina cultus, Aut huic adde leves aut illis deme pharetras. * This practice was not peculiar to Phidias. In the Museo Bor- bonico, at Naples, there is a horse's head of bronze with a bright me- tal bit inserted in it. THE ROYAL GALLERY. 61 Such are the Cupids that in paint we view; But that the likeness may be nicely true, A loaden quiver to his shoulders tie, Or bid the Cupids lay their quivers by. ADDISON. It is probable that the ancients chose to represent the God of Sleep under the figure of a boy, contrary to the practice of modern artists, because it is the age which has its repose the least broken by 'care and anxiety. Statius, in his celebrated invocation of Sleep, addresses him under the same figure: Crimine quo menii, juvenis placidissime divum*, Quove errore miser, donis ut solus egerem, Somne, tuis ? Tacet omne pecus, volucresque ferseque. STLV. 4, lib. 5. Tell me, thou best of gods, thou gentle youth, Tell me my sad offence ; that only I, While hushed at ease thy drowsy subjects lie, In the dead silence of the night complain, Nor taste the blessings of thy peaceful reign. ADDISON. It was also probably with reference to night, as the proper season for rest, that the God of Sleep was always formed out of black marble. That sculptors in the * "We," says the Quarterly Review, No. 19, "have always read the passage thus: Crimine quo merui juvenis, placidissime divum. By this punctuation, juvenis acquires a very peculiar force, and the spirit of the passage is greatly improved. ' What have I done, that I, though still young, at the season of life when cares are least likely to obstruct repose, am denied the gifts of sleep?' " 62 FLORENCE. choice of their marble had sometimes an eye to the per- son they were to represent, we learn from the ancients themselves, who tell us that the Nile was generally re- presented in stone of that colour, because it flows from the country of the ^Ethiopians : Usque coloratis amnis devexus ab Indis. GEORO. 4, 293. Rolling its tide from ^Ethiopian lands. Among the modern statues there are but few that have any great merit. Michael Angelo's Bacchus has received quite as much incense as it deserves. The sculptor has here given the jolly god a meagreness of frame somewhat at variance with the usual representations of him, toge- ther with a stolidity of look that ought, one should think, to procure him but few votaries. Some, however, will have it that M. Angelo did this designedly, and that it was his intention, in this instance, to play the moralist, by exhibiting the disgusting effects of intemperance. A curious story is told of this statue. It is said that M. Angelo, stung by the envious critiques of his contem- poraries, executed it with great secrecy, and buried it where he knew it must soon be dug up again ; first taking the precaution to break off one of the arms. The event turned out as he expected. The wiseacres of the day fell at once into the snare, and, pronouncing it a master- piece of ancient art, tauntingly challenged M. Angelo to equal it. We may imagine with what satisfaction he an- swered the challenge, by producing the broken arm, and thus vindicating his claim to the work. The unfinished Brutus, which used to pass for Marcus THE ROYAL GALLERY. 63 Brutus*, now passes for one of the Medici who murdered his uncle, and who on that account was styled the Flo- rentine Brutus; but proving afterwards the oppressor, and not the liberator of his country, M. Angelo left his bust unfinished. Here, too, we have this great artist's first essay in sculpture the Head of a Satyr a singular per- formance, said to have been executed when he was only fifteen years of age. But among all the modern statues there is nothing worthy to be compared with the bronze Mercury of John of Bologna, who is represented " stand- ing on one leg, upborne by the breath of a Zephyr. It is a figure of ethereal lightness the veritable son of Maia and might * bestride the gossamer that idles in the wanton summer air f .' " So much for the sculpture of the gallery: nor is it less rich in paintings. Besides the celebrated Venus of Titian already noticed, and another by the same master, inferior only to the former, the Tribune exhibits a speci- men of each of the three different styles of Raphael. To his first manner may be referred the portrait of a Floren- tine lady, named Magdalene Doni; a work far more stiff and formal than the contiguous Holy Family, by his master Perugino. To his second manner may be refer- red a Madonna and Child, with an infantine figure of * Such at least was the opinion of Cardinal Bembo, to whom we owe the following distich which is placed beneath it: Dum Bruti effigiem Michael de marmore fingit, In mentem sceleris venit, et abstinuit. t Mathews. 64 FLORENCE. St. John holding in his hand a bird, to which the atten- tion of the Saviour seems directed a picture in which the painter evidently improves in expression, while his simplicity remains unimpaired. The St. John in the Wilderness; the portrait of Julius II., the colouring of which is as fresh, after the lapse of three hundred years, as if it had been painted yesterday; and the Fornarina, the mistress of Raphael, who received the name of For- narina from being the wife of a baker; all these are in his last and happiest manner, without any trace of that hard dry style which disfigures his earlier performances. In the same apartment is a circular Holy Family in water colours, with naked figures in the back-ground, by M. Angelo. Richardson and others have extolled it for the vigour of its tints; but Lanzi, without suffering him- self to be swayed by the great name of the author, has given a more correct estimate of its merits. " Placed," says he, " beside the works of the best masters of every school, who, in that theatre of art, (the Tribune), seem, as it were, to stand in awe of each other, it offers itself to us as the most scientific, but the least beautiful picture; its author stands before us the most accomplished draughtsman, but the feeblest colourist among them all. In it, too, the aerial perspective is somewhat neglected; for while the figures in the distance are duly diminished, the light is not so managed as to render them proportion- ably indistinct." Among the other treasures of the Tribune, the most remarkable for their beauty are the Endymion, and the Samian Sibyl, by Guercino, especially the latter, which THE ROYAL GALLERY. 65 exhibits a striking instance of that master's exquisite skill in the management of light and shade a Holy Family by Andrea del Sarto, which might of itself suffice to vindicate his claim to the title of painter, notwith- standing the cutting critique of Forsyth, that "he has neither poetry in his head, nor pathos in his heart," a beautiful half-figure of the Virgin in contemplation, by Guide; in which connoisseurs affect to recognise that close imitation of the antique, which might naturally be looked for in the works of one whose favourite study, by his own admission, was the group of the Niobe a por- trait of Cardinal Agucchi, by Domenichino, worthy of being compared with Vandyke's noble picture of Charles V. on horseback, over against which it is placed a much lauded Bacchanal, by Annibal Caracci a no less extoll- ed Herodias, by Da Vinci and two Madonnas, with the Infant Saviour, by Coreggio, together with a Holy Fa- mily by Parmigianino ; of which two painters it has been well said, that the former, in his pictures of the Virgin, carries beauty to its highest pitch, while the latter not unfrequently goes beyond the mark, and runs into the affected. In the ante-rooms of the Tribune, amidst an almost endless variety of other paintings, are a few bold sketches by Salvator Rosa, and the famous Medusa's Head by Da Vinci, " with its gloomy brow, watery eyes, and looks full of agony." Among the more striking objects in the gallery itself are some glaring Madonnas painted on wood by Greek artists in the tenth and eleventh centuries. " These VOL. I. F 66 FLORENCE. pictures," observes Forsyth, "are uniform; the drapery of the Virgin is dark, but bespangled with stars; the posture of the child the same in all; for when the divine maternity was acknowledged at Ephesus, the child was then first coupled with the Madonna, but the mode of painting both was fixed by the ritual. Painting in that age was satisfied with producing mere forms, and did not aspire at expression. Conscious of her own weakness, she called in the aid of gold, and azure, and labels, and even relief; for these pictures are raised like japan-work. They present all the meagreness, the angular and dis- tinct contours, the straight, stiff parallelism of attitude, the vacant, yet pretty little features, which are common to the productions of unenlightened art; and more or less perceptible in the Egyptian idol, the Gothic statue, the Indian screen, and the Chinese jar." In a collection of such vast extent classification be- comes absolutely necessary: hence different rooms are appropriated to the productions of different schools, the Tuscan, the Venetian, the French, and Flemish schools. To the same cause must we attribute the various other series into which the paintings of this gallery are divided; such as a series of Florentine portraits, a series of illus- trious foreigners, a series of painters. Here, however, we must admit, classification is pushed a little too far, and made to degenerate into a degree of uniformity betraying something like "the furnishing taste of a tradesman." How different this from the principle which usually pre- vails in the formation of a choice collection, in which, as method and multitude can hardlv consist with excellence, THE ROYAL GALLERY. 67 each picture is prized only for its own sake, without refer- ence to the rest. Of these series, the most interesting is that of the great painters of the three last centuries, all executed by their own hands. Those of Rubens, Vandyke, Rem- brandt, and Guido, are among the more esteemed. Ra- phael's portrait, which is inferior to any of the above, seems to have been painted while he was yet very young. One of the rooms which opens into the gallery con- tains a collection of Etruscan, or, as they are otherwise called, Grecian vases, in terra cotta and marble. Among the latter is the famous Medicean vase, representing the sacrifice of Iphigenia; for its form, its size, and sculpture, the finest in existence. In one of the cabinets is a number of small idols and penates, with their implements of worship, both earthen and bronze. These little images, from their rudeness, their long faces, pointed chins, flat eyes, and simper- ing mouths, pass for Etruscan, and lead us back to the very infancy of art*. In the same cabinet is a little image of Juno Sospita, clothed in a goat skin, with the horns sticking out above her head. The right arm, which probably bore a shield, is broken, and the left, which also seems to have held something in its grasp, is a little injured. The feet are baref. Here, too, is an antique * Since Etruria received its gods, and consequently its statuary, from Egypt and Greece, these little images may, perhaps, with as much propriety, be referred to the later Egyptian, or earlier Greek, as to the Etruscan sculpture. t Cicero gives the following description of this goddess : Hercle, F2 68 FLORENCE. model of the Laocoon, from which Bandinelli finished his admired copy which stands at the extremity of the gallery : it is entire in those parts in which the original is defective. Here also is an Apollo or an Amphion, holding an instrument resembling a violin; and a Corona Radialis, with only eight spikes. The usual number was twelve; in allusion either to the signs of the Zodiac, or the labours of Hercules : Ingenti mole Latinus, Quadrijugo vehitur curru; cui tempora circum Aurati bis sex radii fulgentia cingunt, Solis avi specimen. ./EN. xii. 61. Four steeds the chariot of Latinus bear: Twelve golden rays around his temples play, To mark his lineage from the God of day. DRYDEN. Another cabinet, near the Tribune, is filled with costly and fanciful works in precious stones. " Here are heads and figures of Roman emperors and Catholic saints, of princely sinners and pious popes of the house of Medici; who have hats of jet, faces of agate, eyes of opal, coats and petticoats of lapis lazuli, legs of jasper, and shoes of porphyry. The eye is dazzled with a profu- sion of crystal vases; with candlesticks and crucifixes composed of gems of every colour; with diminutive co- lumns, and mimic temples; goblets that might serve for inquit, quain tibi illam nostram Sospitam, quani tu nunquam ne in somniis vides, nisi cum pelle caprina, cum hasta, cum scutulo, cum calceolis repandis. LIBRARIES. 09 the banquets of gods, cups fit for fairies, and jewels worth the eye of an emperor*." Gabinetto Fisico. This museum, originally an as- semblage of various scattered collections in natural his- tory, is another favourite lounge at Florence. It is rich in fossils, corals, shells, and insects; but owes its cele- brity principally to the anatomical imitations of dissected subjects in wax. Such an exhibition, one would imagine, must be too disgusting and indelicate for general admis- sion. Here, however, may constantly be seen crowds of idlers of either sex; though the gravid uterus and its processes, together with all that is revolting in disease and deformity, lie exposed with a nakedness that can only be grateful to the eye of science. Zumbo, a Sicilian, is said to have been the first to ap- ply wax to the purposes of imitative anatomy. Among those of his works preserved in this museum, is a minia- ture representation of the commencement and progress of the fatal plague of Florence; and from the effect pro- duced by this diminutive performance, we may readily imagine, that, had it been as large as life, it would have been too revolting for exhibition. Here we behold " the decomposition of bodies through every stage of putrefac- tion the blackening, the swelling, the bursting of the , trunk the worm, the rat, and the tarantula at work and the mushroom springing fresh out of the midst of corruption f." Libraries. The Laurentian library is appropriated to * Rome in the 19th century. t Forsyth. 70 FLORENCE. the public manuscripts, which, as their loss would be irreparable, are properly enough chained to the desks. The oldest manuscript in this library is a Virgil, which disputes the palm of antiquity with the Virgil of the Vatican. It wants the " Hie ego qui quondam, &c.," and the two-and-twenty lines of the Second ^Eneid, begin- ning at " Jamque adeo super unus eram, &c." This celebrated book, after having previously gone through a chapter of accidents, and been carried into France dur- ing the late war, has once more been restored to Florence. The Pandects of Justinian, which are also deposited in this library, were sent to Palermo for safety, and thus escaped the rapacity of the French. This famous code, as the story goes, was found in a barrel at Amalfi, on the capture of that town by the Pisans; and to this discovery Hume attributes the revival of the Roman law. As, however, Irnerius had been lecturing on the Pandects at Bologna, previous to the fall of Amalfi, it seems more probable that the Pisans brought them from Constanti- nople, during their intercourse with the Levant. Next to these, the earliest works, that now remain here, are a few Greek and Latin classics of the eleventh century, of which the writing is far more legible than that of the illuminated manuscripts that followed. The older illuminations are remarkable for nothing so much as the brilliancy of their colours, a circumstance attributable to their having been laid on in the virgin state. Some of these illuminations are the work of Oderisi, whom Dante styles the " honour of Agubbio," from the skill he acquired in this art; an art which, in the sequel, became prejudicial to learning, by rendering books scarce. LIBRARIES. 71 " Every copyist," says Forsyth, " became a painter, and wasting his time in the embellishment of books, rendered books in general rare. Early in the fifteenth century this art made a most rapid progress, as appears plainly from some of these manuscripts; and Attavente, who wrought for the magnificent founder of this library, had brought it near to perfection, when the discovery of the art of printing gave a check to its importance." The works usually shewn here as distinguished for their beau- ty, such as the Pliny, the Homer, the Ptolemy, the Missal of the Florentine Republic, all belong to the fif- teenth century, and contain portraits of the Medici in the initials and margins. The art of illuminating books is now confined to the few who are employed upon the repair of such libraries as this, whose business it is to supply such leaves as happen to be damaged or lost, to imitate the writing of every age, and to give to such interpolations the due tinge of antiquity. Among the more curious manuscripts is a narrative of a tour in France, England, Holland, and Spain, by Cos- mo the First; illustrated by views of the principal towns through which he passed. There is also a Petrarch, with portraits of the poet and his mistress, taken, as the story goes, from the life. The finger of Galileo is preserved in this library under a glass case " pointing, with a triumphant expression, to those heavens, which he was condemned to a dungeon for having explored." It has, indeed, been said, that the Inquisition condemned Galileo, not for maintaining the 72 FLORENCE. theory of the earth's motion round the sun, but for call- ing in the authority of scripture to support it. And yet had we nothing else to argue from than the well-known exclamation, " E pur si move," which escaped from Galileo at the very moment of his recantation, it would of itself be enough to prove, that it was the doctrine and not the authority for it, the theory, and not the founda- tion of the theory, which the Inquisition compelled him to renounce. The Magliabecchian Library is the great repository of printed books, as the Laurentian is of manuscripts. It is also the seat of the Florentine academy; a name in which the Delia Crusca*, as well as two others, have now merged. Churches. The edifice most deserving of notice among the churches of Florence is the cathedral, founded by Lapo in 1298, and surmounted, in the following century, by the cupola of Brunelleschi. This church, which forms a new epoch in the history of architecture, has sometimes been considered as a mean between the Gothic and the Greek, and is the first that was built in Italy in the present proportions of the arcade. Forsyth, however, will not admit that it has any thing in common with either the Gothic or the Greek. " In opposition to the fretted surfaces and spiry flights of the Gothic, here is the most naked simplicity and * The Academy della Crusca took its name of Crusca (bran), and a mill for its device, to mark the object of its institution that of se- parating the precious from the vile. CHURCHES. 73 strength unconcealed. Of the Greek, on the other hand, not a particle entered into the original idea. Instead of columns, the exterior decoration consists of three kinds of marbles composed into panels, and the interior in pil- lars and round arches; but no arches were known in Greek architecture, nor can be traced in the ruins of free Greece. What architecture then is this, but the ancient Roman, revived as completely as the purposes of the church would admit?" In conformity with this remark, the Guide to Florence observes, " that the admirable ar- chitecture of this sublime structure recedes from the Gothic, which prevailed at the time of its erection, and approaches rather to the Roman." This cupola*, which is wider than that of the Pan- theon, and consequently wider than that of St. Peter's, was the first double cupola ever raised in Europe. Un- like St. Peter's, it is not in pendentive, but polygonal, and bears on the perpendicular, but it may fairly be con- sidered as the prototype of that celebrated work. Mi- chael Angelo boasted that he would hang the dome of the Pantheon in the air, but it was this noble work of Brunelleschi's that gave him the assurance of executing his boast. How much it had excited his admiration, may be inferred from the story which tells us, that, on setting out to superintend the building of St. Peter's, he turned his horse's head for the purpose of contemplating * The cupola, being polygonal, is of course something wider from angle to angle than from side to side. Measured on the angles it is 149 feet in width; measured on the sides, only 138. 74 FLORENCE. once more the cupola of the cathedral, as it towered above the pines and cypresses of the city, and that, after a pause, he exclaimed, " Come te non voglio ! meglio di te non posso * ! " The choir is directly under the cupola, and, like the cupola, is polygonal. It is of the Ionic order, and, con- sidered by itself, is a fine object; but it is as little in keeping with the edifice to which it belongs, as the Gre- cian screen is with the Gothic structures of our own island. " Cathedrals in general," as Forsyth observes, " lying under the control of tasteless or interested men, have lost their original unity, and become mere galleries of architecture; in which specimens of every style are built side by side, just as pictures of every school are hung upon the same wall. A choir thus inclosed is ne- cessarily darker than the nave. Here is just that ' dim religious light ' which pleases poetical and devout minds a light which heightens the effect of the lamps and can- dles, of the gold, silver, and brocade of Catholic worship, while it shades the mediocrity of the paintings and sculpture." This cathedral contains very few pictures, and none of any value, though Eustace affirms that " its paintings are in general master-pieces of art." Among the more re- markable is Paolo Uccello's portrait of Giovanni Aguto, an English adventurer, who fought in the pay of the Pisans, and afterwards betrayed them. Close to the above picture is an old portrait of Dante, executed by * Like thec I will not build one: better than thee I cannot. CHURCHES. 75 Orcagna several years after the poet's death, and honour- ed with a place in this cathedral by the very republic which had condemned him to the stake. The Floren- tines, it appears, would gladly have recovered the bones of Dante, whom they suffered to die in exile at Ravenna; but, being baffled in their attempts, they voted a cenotaph to be erected in the cathedral. Yet this vote also prov- ed unavailing, and Orcagna's picture is all that the Flo- rentines can shew in honour of the man who made their dialect the standard of Italy. Well might he call them, Quello 'ngrato popolo maligno Che discese di Fiesole ab antico, E tien' ancor del monte e del macigno. This, and all the other portraits of Dante that have come down to us, are said, like those of our own Shak- speare, to be posthumous. But as they are all said to bear a strong resemblance to this picture of Orcagna's, they have, at least, what Shakspeare's have not the sanction of uniformity to recommend them. " Dante and Shakspeare form a striking parallel as the master-bards of Italy and England oppressed with praise and annotation at home, and ridiculed as barba- rians by foreign critics*. Dante rose before the dawn of * Not, however, by all foreign critics: Madame de Stael and Baron Grimm may be noticed as two brilliant exceptions. " In England (says the former) all classes are equally attracted by Shakspeare's plays; whereas, in France, our best tragedies fail to interest the multitude." " Let any one (says the latter, in his Lite- 76 FLORENCE. letters in Italy; and Shakspeare soon after they had spread in England. Finding their native tongues without system or limit, each formed another language within his own ; a language peculiar as their creators, and entering only like authorities into common Italian and English, to add nerve and spirit, and dignity and beauty. Both have stood the obliterating waste of ages, have seen younger styles grow old and disappear, have survived all the short- lived fopperies of literature, and flourish now in unabated fashion, inviting and resisting ten thousand imitations*." Altri Danteggia, Fra duri versi brancola, e s'avvolge E si perde d'Averno tra le bolge. PIONOTTI. rary Correspondence) read the more finished of Racine's verses; how they fill and charm the ear ! But they are mere sing-song after all : they are not the genuine accents of Nature. There is, in the finest of Shakspeare's plays, though they are less polished and less regular, a something of the wild and the sublime, which I look for in vain in our tragic poets. A celebrated artist, of German extrac- tion, but one who passed great part of his life in London, where he but lately died the famous Hogarth well known for the genius and wit evinced by his compositions, wrote a work on the beautiful, full of extraordinary ideas. Among other prints, we there find one in which a French dancing-master is seen standing before the beau- tiful statue of Antinoiis busily employed in raising the head, lower- ing the shoulders, and placing the arms and legs of the latter; in a word, in transforming him into an elegant and agreeable petit- maitre. This stroke of satire is as ingenious as it is original. I doubt, however, whether our celebrated Marcel would have ventured to meddle with the Antinoiis; but substitute the statue of Melpo- mene for that of Antinous, and make Cornetlle and Racine the dan- cing-masters, and the allegory will not be very wide of the truth." * Forsyth. DANTE. 77 The Divina Commedia may be ascribed almost ex- clusively to Dante's own creative genius. It is a work of which there existed no model in any language. Some hints may perhaps have been supplied by the popular su- perstition of the age. The Franciscan and Dominican orders, instituted during the preceding century, had re- kindled the flames of fanaticism, of which the festivals and pageants of the day afford sufficient indication. On one of these occasions*, as we learn from Sismondi, ( Hist. Lit. I, 356), was exhibited at Florence, in the bed of the Arno, a representation of Hell, " with all the varied tor- ments which the imagination of the monks had called up its rivers of boiling pitch, its gulfs of fire, its mountains of ice, and its serpents all which were brought to act upon real persons, who, by their shrieks and groans, ren- dered the illusion complete." Whether we are indebted for the Inferno to this incident, or whether, as Sismondi supposes, the Inferno itself gave rise to the spectacle, we have here a singular specimen of the spirit of the times, which influence alike the poet and the contrivers of the infernal pastime. It is in the year 1300, that Dante, having lost his way in a desert near Jerusalem, supposes himself to be intro- duced into the infernal regions, under the guidance of his favourite Virgil. Dante's Hell is a vast abyss, in shape like a funnel or hollow cone, occupying the interior of the earth, and divided into eight concentric circles for the sides of the funnel, instead of forming a gradual * The 1st of May, 1304. 78 FLORENCE. slope, are supposed to be cut into terraces or galleries. From the lowest depth of this abyss the abode of Lucifer himself which terminates in the centre of the earth, a long cavern extends through the opposite hemisphere, opening at the foot of a mountain placed among our antipodes. The form of the mountain is that of an enormous cone *, also cut into terraces for the dif- ferent abodes of those who are doomed to undergo the pains of purgatory, Till the foul crimes done in their days of nature Are burnt and purged away. The summit of the mountain is the seat of the terres- trial paradise, forming a sort of connecting link between heaven and earth. From thence a third spiral conducts to the throne of the Most High. " Thus," observes Sismondi, " the infernal regions and the empyrean are conceived upon the same plan, and the world of spirits has been invested, by the genius of Dante, with that kind of varied harmony, always consistent with itself, yet always new, which seems to belong exclusively to the works of the Deity." It is not, however, merely in the conception of the poem that Dante's originality consists; his style and sen- timents are equally original; and vainly shall we search the works of preceding or contemporary versifiers f for any * Le relief de celle de 1'Enfer, as Sismondi expressively calls it. t Gingu^ne thus characterizes the early poets of Italy and Sicily : Un seul sujet les occupe, c'est 1'amour; non tel que 1'inspire la nature, mais tel qu'il tait devenu dans les froides exstases des che- DANTE. 79 traces of that severe, yet energetic tone, the voice of Na- ture herself, by which we are so forcibly struck at the very outset of his immortal poem. It is in language like this that he apostrophizes his ' mighty master:' Oh! sei tu quel Virgilio, e quella fonte Che spande di parlar si largo fiume? &c. Art thou that Virgil then? the fountain head, Whence roll the streams of eloquence along? Thus with a bashful front I humbly said Oh ! light and glory of the sons of song! So favour me, as I thy page have sought With unremitting love and study long! Thou art the guide and master of my thought; Sole author thou, from whom the inspired strain, That crowns my name with deathless praise, I brought*. valiers, passionns pour des beautes imaginaires, et dans les galantes futilites des cours d'amour. Chanter est une tache qu'il remplissent; toujours force leur est de chanter, c'est leur dame qui 1'exige, ou c'est 1'amour qui 1'ordonne, et ils doivent dire prolixement et en canzoni bien longues et bien trainantes, ou en sonnets rafines et souvent obscurs, les incomparables beautes de la dame et leur into- lerable martyre. Ce sont des ravissemens ou des plaintes a ne point finir, et des recherches amoureuses et platoniques, a degouter de Platon et de 1'amour. Ils ont sous les yeux les mers et les vol- cans, une vegetation abondante et variee, les majestueux et melan- choliques debris de 1'antiquite, 1'eclat d'un jour brulant, des nuits fraiches et magnifiques; leur siecle est feconde en guerres, en revo- lutions, en faits d'armes; les mceurs de leur temps provoquent les traits de la satire ; et ils chantent comme au milieu d'un desert, ne peignent rien de ce qui les entoure ; ne paraissent rien sentir, ni rien voir. Hist. Lit. d 1 Italic. * Quarterly Review, No. XXI. 80 FLORENCE. Another passage, remarkable for the austere sublimity of its style, is the terrible inscription over the portal of Hell: Per me si va nella citta dolente, &c. Thro' me ye pass to mourning's dark domain ; Thro' me to scenes where grief must ever pine; Thro' me to misery's devoted train Justice and power in my great Founder join, And love and wisdom all his fabrics rear Wisdom above control, and love divine Before me Nature saw no work appear Save works eternal; such was I ordain 'd Quit every hope ye who enter here! HAYLEY. The total exclusion of hope from hell, so finely in- troduced in this passage, may perhaps have suggested Milton's Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace Nor rest can never dwell, hope never comes That comes to all ! Dante possessed m an eminent degree the power " of painting in words; of representing objects which are the pure creations of fancy, with so much truth and force, that the reader thinks he sees them before him, and be- lieves ever after that he has actually beheld them." " Not less," says the Quarterly Reviewer, " is he distinguished by beauties generally considered as the growth of an age of excessive sensibility the delineation of the calm and peaceful scenes of inanimate nature, of picturesque ob- jects, and pastoral images. The very nature of the poem DANTE. 81 seems to exclude ornaments of this description, and, from expecting only the supernaturally terrible and sublime, the reader is astonished to find the frequent opportunities embraced by the poet of introducing into passages, seem- ingly the most inauspicious for his purpose, such exqui- site representations of natural objects, and of the feelings which they are calculated to inspire, as can hardly be equalled by those of any poet in the most advanced pe- riod of mental luxury and refinement. " Thus the cloud of anger and indignation that for a moment obscures the philosophical serenity of his im- mortal guide, is illustrated by a comparison with the vi- cissitudes incident to the face of Nature in early spring, which conveys to our senses all the freshness, together with all the uncertainty of the season. The miser, who is tormented with the thirst of Tantalus, is thus made perpetually to behold, without tasting, not water only, but Rivulets, that from the verdant hills Of Casentin into the Arno flow, Freshening its current with their cooler rills. So the flames, which illuminate the eighth circle of his infernal regions, are Lights numberless, as by some fountain side The silly swain reposing at the hour When beams the day-star with diminished pride, When the sunned bee deserts ea^h rifled flower, And leaves to humming gnats the populous void Beholds in grassy lawn, or leafy bower, Or orchard-plot, of glow-worms emerald bright. VOL. I. G 8'2 FLORENCE. So the evening hour is attended with all the circumstances of soothing melancholy, with which it is wont to inspire a poetical imagination, in a passage of which the last line probably suggested to Gray the opening of his elegy: 'Twas now the hour when fond desire renews To him who wanders o'er the pathless main, Raising unbidden tears, the last adieus Of tender friends, whom fancy shapes again ; When the late parted pilgrim thrills with thought Of his loved home, if o'er the distant plain Perchance his ears the village chimes have caught, Seeming to mourn the close of dying day*." QUARTERLY REV. xxi. Never were poet's strains more truly inspired than those which Dante pours forth on quitting the infernal regions for a less horrible abode, where hope at least accompa- nies and mitigates torment whether we regard the splen- dour of the diction, or the many descriptions and dramatic scenes with which the first portion of the Purgatorio abounds. " Among the most beautiful of the episodes in this admirable part of the poem, are the meeting of Dante with his friend, the musician Casella, and that with the painter Oderisi da Gubbio, who is condemned to purgatory for having indulged the overweening pride of art. It is into his mouth that the poet puts those ce- lebrated reflections on the vanity of human endowments, in which he is suspected of having intended to introduce * Che paja'l giorno pianger che si muore. DANTE. 83 a boast of his own poetical excellence, somewhat at va- riance with the moral of humility which it is his object to impress: Oh empty pride of human power and skill! How soon the verdure on thy summit dies, If no dark following years sustain it still ! Thus Cimabue the painter's honoured prize To Giotto yields ; a happier rival's fame Hath veiled his glory from all mortal eyes Who now repeats that elder Guide's name? Another wears the poet's envied crown. Perhaps this fleeting present hour may claim One who shall bear from both their vain renown." QUARTERLY REV. xxi. The six planets of the solar system (for the earth is of course excepted), together with the sun itself, are by Dante supposed to form the abodes of different classes of the blessed. In the eighth heaven the poet witnesses the triumph of the Saviour; in the ninth the Divine Es- sence is revealed to him, veiled, however, by three sur- rounding legions of the heavenly host; in the tenth, or empyrean, he beholds the Virgin, together with the saints of the Old and New Testaments. " Few, even of the warmest admirers of Dante, have had the enthusiasm to follow him step by step, through this last division of his stupendous edifice. In the Inferno, the imagination is constantly kept on the stretch by that terrible machinery which the poet sets in motion and supports with une- qualled powers. In the Purgatorio, hope is every thing and everywhere about us; in both alike, the number of interesting episodes, the pictures of human character, o2 84 FLORENCE. and of objects both real and fantastic, but ' which we fancy real, because they invest ideal beauties with the qualities perceptible to sense,' employ by turns the feel- ing, the judgment, and the fancy." The Paradiso offers scarcely any of these resources: the poet here deals but little in description ; and we quit the different mansions of the elect, into which he intro- duces us, without being able to carry away with us any precise notion of them. " Yet," continues the Quarterly Review, " it must not be thought that even the ineffable and fatiguing splendours, or the mystical theology of the Paradiso, do not occasionally admit the introduction of such natural pictures, and such moral reflections, as con- stitute some of the highest claims of the poet. Nor must we forget either the exquisitely graceful and simple deli- neation of the ancient manners of Florence, intended by him as the vehicle of censure upon those of the age then present; or the melancholy and affecting colours in which he has displayed the miseries of exile; or the poetical prediction of his own banishment :"- .... His, alas, to lead A life of trouble, and ere long to leave All things most dear to him, ere long to know How salt another's bread is, and the toil Of going up and down another's stairs*! ROGERS. * Tu lascerai ogni cosa diletta Piu caramente : e questo e quello strale Che 1'arco dell' esilio pria saetta: Tu proverai si come sa di sale Lo pane altrui, e come e duro calle Lo scendere e'l salir per 1'altrui scale. DANTE. 85 The want of a leading point of interest for Dante is not so much the hero of the poem as the spectator of the objects which his imagination has called forth the frequent intermixture of images sacred and profane, an- cient and modern, as well as the admission of such as are low and vulgar, or even indecent and disgusting the oc- casional recurrence of puerile reasoning, enigmatical dic- tion and literal quibbling these are defects from which the warmest admirers of the poet cannot exculpate him. But, after all, they are venial sins in one of whom Gin- guene has truly said, that he " starts up a giant among pigmies, not only effacing all that had preceded him, but filling alone a rank of which none can hope to dispossess him. Even Petrarch, the tender, the elegant, the divine? does not surpass him in the graceful, and has nothing that approaches him in the sublime and terrible." But it is high time to return from this long digression, nor longer forget, that, besides the portrait of Dante, which gave rise to it. this same Florentine cathedral con- tains the ashes of Giotto and Brunelleschi; that the Campanile or Belfry a lofty square tower incrusted with variegated marbles stands detached from the church; and that near the principal entrance of the latter is the Baptistery, an octangular edifice, chiefly celebrated for the relievos of its three bronze gates, .... The gates so marvellously wrought That they might serve to be the gates of heaven*! * Such is Rogers's version of the saying ascribed to Michael Angelo. 86 FLORENCE. The relievos of these doors, which are of the fourteenth century, represent various scriptural subjects, beginning with the creation. An attempt has here been made to sustain the perspective; the more distant objects being executed in flat, the nearer ones in mezzo, and the near- est in high relief. Perhaps the most interesting church here is the Santa Croce the Westminster Abbey of Florence within whose Holy precincts lie Ashes that make it holier; for here are the ashes and the tombs of Galileo, Macchi- avelli, Michael Angelo*, Guicciardini, Boccacio, and Alfierif. Macchiavelli's epitaph is a happy instance of that brevity which, when well managed, makes an epitaph so impressive: Tanto nomini nullum par elogium. Nicolaus Macchiavelli. In the church of Santa Maria Novella is preserved one of the few remaining works of Cimabue a Madonna * According to tradition, Michael Angelo's tomb was, by his own express desire, so placed, that when the doors of the church were thrown open, the cupola of the cathedral might be seen from it. t Alfieri's monument is surmounted by a figure of Italy clad in long flowing drapery: hence the following jeu < esprit in allusion to the rapacity of the French : Canova questa volta s' ha sbagliata, Fe 1'Italia vestita ed e spogliata. SANTA CROCK. 87 above the size of life. According to Vasari, it was exe- cuted in a garden near the Porta San Piero, and, when finished, carried to the church in solemn procession pre- ceded by trumpets. The garden lay without the walls; and such was the rejoicing there on the occasion, that the suburb received the name of Borgo Allegri, a name which it still retains, though now comprised within the city. This church is also interesting as being the spot where, as Boccacio feigns, was formed the party that constitute the heroes and heroines of the Decameron. The introduction to that interesting work informs us, that: Nella venerabile chiesa di Santa Maria Novella, un Martedi mattina, non essendovi quasi alcuna altra persona, uditi gli divini ufici in abito lugubre, quale a si fatta stagione si richiedea, si ritrovarono sette giovani donne, tutte 1' una all' altra o per amista, o per vicinanza, o per parentado congiunte, delle quali niuna il venti et ottesimo anno passato avea, ne era minor di diciotto, sa- via ciascuna, e di sangue nobile, e bella di forma, et ornata di costumi, e di leggiadria onesta. Love, real or imaginary, seems to have given birth to most of the poems and other literary productions of the day. It was in honour of the Princess Mary of Naples, whom he has celebrated under the name of Fiammetta, that Boccacio composed the romance which bears that title, as well as a second romance, intitled Filicopo^ and his two heroic poems, the Theseide and Filostrato. The want of interest which pervades all these works, appears the natural consequence of the want of reality in the passion which is pretended to have inspired them. In 88 FLORENCE. the two latter compositions the poet stands forward as the supposed inventor of the ottava rima, subsequently adopted as the vehicle of heroic poetry, in preference to that unbroken interlacement of rhymes, which is too apt to fatigue the ear in the Divina Commedia. The Theseide is, moreover, " the first modern poem in which the au- thor, abandoning the dull repetition of dreams and visions, imagined a regular action or fable, and conducted it, through different stages of adventure, to its close. To the English reader it presents the additional interest of being the model of < The Knight's Tale' of Chaucer, and the origin, therefore, of one of the noblest poems in our language, the ' Palamon and Arcite' of Dryden*." Boccacio was the author of various esteemed Latin works; but the source of his highest renown is the Deca- meron:- " A collection of tales which he held in no es- teem, which he composed, as he says himself, only for the solace of the ladies, who, in those days, led a very dismal life; and to which, in his declining years, he at- tached no other importance than the regret with which religious scruples inspired him. Like Petrarch, he look- ed for his immortality from learned works, composed in a learned language; like him he received it from the mere sports of imagination, in which he brought to ma- turity a language yet in its infancy, and till then aban- doned to the people for the common concerns of life; to which he was thus the first to give in prose, as Dante and Petrarch had done in verse, the elegance, the har- * Quarterly Review, No. XXI. BOCCACIO. 89 mony, the measured form, and happy choice of words, which make a literary and polished language*." Doubts, however, have been entertained as to whether Boccacio's style, which is in the highest degree elaborate and harmonious, flowing on, like a copious river, with a soft and ever-varying murmur, is the best adapted for narrative. It is objected, that its very sweetness at length fatigues us, and that we long for some interruption of this melodious current some cessation to this constant stream of language, Which runs, and, as it runs, for ever would run on. This verbiage, it must be confessed, pervades the whole of the Decameron. " The most tragic and the most comic events, description, narrative, and dialogue, are all given with the same plethoric fulness, the ' same solemn loquaciousness' of expression, which has since tinged the whole literature of Italy f." Boccacio's claims to the honours of original invention have also been disputed; and the groundwork of the Decameron must, it seems, be admitted to be discovera- * Ginguene" Hi. 70. f See Edinburgh Review, No. 109. The Italians themselves seem not unconscious of this defect; for Guicciardini's prolixity is prover- bial even in Italy. There was, we are told, a criminal, who was permitted to make his election between that author's history and the galleys. At first he chose the history. But the war of Pisa proved too much for him ; and rather than wade through it, he was content to lead the life of a galley slave : Chained down at sea, beneath the bitter thong, To the hard bench and heavy oar so long. Rogers. 90 FLORENCE. ble in the old Indian romance of Dolospathos. This romance the general outline of which will be familiar to the reader, from the imitation under the title of Turkish Tales found its way, at an early period, into the literature of most European states, and is known in this country by the name of " The Seven Wise Masters." The story which gives rise to the rest, is that of a young prince, who, rejecting the advances of one of his father's queens, is charged by her with the very crime which he had refused to commit. The father naturally hesitates to condemn his son to death, and the queen relates a tale with a view to overcome his irresolution. This is met by another, to shew the danger of rash measures. The queen replies in a third and so on, till the author's invention is exhausted. After all, however, admitting this romance to have suggested the first idea of the De- cameron, there are many tales in that celebrated work of which the originality has never been impugned. Ginguene does not betray quite so much heat as Hob- house in the defence of Boccacio*; but he apologizes as far as it is becoming to apologize for the real and imputed faults of the Decameron, and thus remarks upon the motley nature of its contents: " In passing sentence of condemnation upon the licentiousness of a great pro- portion of these tales, we ought to bear in mind that they are by no means all of them of this objectionable charac- ter; and that the interesting, the mournful, nay even the tragic and the purely comic pieces, are yet more numer- See Notes to the Fourth Canto of Childc Harold. CHAPELS. 91 cms than the licentious ones. In all these various kinds of composition, Boccacio displays the same facility, the same adherence to nature, the same elegance, the same fidelity in assigning to the different personages the style best adapted to them, in painting to the life their actions and their gestures, in making of each tale a little drama which has its argument, its plot, and its denouement where the dialogue is as perfect as the conduct of the piece, and where each actor preserves to the last his own peculiar features and character. " Priests, given up to hypocrisy and libertinism, such as they were in those days; monks, abandoned to luxury, gluttony, and sensuality; husbands, at once duped and credulous wives, sly and intriguing; the young, of both sexes, thinking of nothing but pleasure the old, of nothing but money; nobles, ever oppressive and cruel; knights, ever frank and courteous; ladies, some amorous and frail, others generous and high-minded, often victims of their frailty, and tyrannized over by jealous husbands; corsairs, malandrins, hermits, dealers in false miracles and leger- demain; persons, in short, of every station, every country, every age, all of them with their peculiar passions, habits, and language; such are the subjects comprised in this immense painting, subjects which even the most fastidious are never weary of admiring." The Chapel de' Depositi, That chamber of the dead, Where the gigantic shapes of Night and Day, Turned into stone, rest everlastingly, 92 FLORENCE. deserves notice rather as Michael Angelo's first essay in architecture than for any merits of its own. The design, consisting of two orders, has neither lightness nor gran- deur to recommend it, and is, indeed, altogether unwor- thy of the impressive monuments within; two allegorical figures representing Morning and Twilight, reclining upon a sarcophagus containing the ashes of Lorenzo de' Medici ; and two other recumbent figures, representing Night and Day, upon a sarcophagus immediately opposite to the former*. " The attitude of Night," says Bell, " is beau- tiful, mournful, and full of the most touching expression : the drooping head, the supporting hand, and the rich head-dress, are unrivalled in the arts. Day is little more than blocked, yet most magnificent: the noble effect is only heightened by what is left to the imagination. Till I beheld them, I had no conception of the genius and taste possessed by this artist : they evince a grandeur and origin- ality of thought, a boldness and freedom of design and execution, unrivalled." A certain poet having said of the statue of Night: "Though she sleeps, she lives: if thou doubtest, awake her, and thou wilt hear her speak;" * Armed statues of Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici, in a sitting posture, are placed in niches over these sarcophagi. The former of these is, according to Rogers, " the most real and unreal thing that ever came from the chisel: What from beneath his helm-like bonnet scowls? Is it a face, or but an eyeless skull? Tis lost in shade; yet like the basilisk, It fascinates, and is intolerable." PALACES. 93 Michael Angelo, himself no slighted votary of the muses, thus replied in the person of Night: Grato m' e il sonno, e piu 1'esser di sasso. Mentre che il danno e la vergogna dura, Non veder, non sentir m' gran ventura. Per6 non mi destar ; deh ! parla basso. Grateful to me to sleep, more grateful still to be of stone ! While wrong the hapless land defiles, while shameless deeds prevail, On me, alas, to see, or hear, would misery entail. Then wake me not; but speak, if speak thoumust, in softest tone. The contiguous Chapel de' Medici the intended Mausoleum of the Medicean family " is more noble and more chaste in the design itself, though its architect was a prince, and its walls were destined to receive the richest crust of ornament ever lavished on so large a sur- face*." It is covered in the interior, as far as it is yet finished, with lapis lazuli, agate, jasper, and other pre- cious stones. On the extinction of the Medicean line, the work was abandoned, and it is only within these few years that it has been resumed. The unfinished churches of Florence justify Burnet's remark, that " they look as if they were flayed;" while the variegated marble exterior of the cathedral, campanile, and baptistery, sufficiently warrant the other observation, that " they look as if they were in livery." Palaces. The general aspect of the Florentine palaces is that of gloomy strength. Their solid masonry gives them more the appearance of castles fitted for the defence * Forsyth. 94 FLORENCE. of feudal barons, than of mansions adapted to the re- sidence of wealthy merchants. " Were these singular buildings displayed by greater breadth of street, the vast and magnificent character of the Tuscan style would then be better seen. To this hour Florence wears the aspect of a city filled with nobles and their domestics a city of bridges, churches, and palaces. The streets are short, narrow, and angular, and each angle presents an archi- tectural view, fit to be drawn for a scene in a theatre. Each house is a palace; and a palace, in Florence, is a magnificent pile, of a square and bulky form, with a plain front, extending from two to three hundred feet, built of huge dark-grey stones, each measuring three or four feet. A coarse rustic work rises in a solid form to twenty or thirty feet in height. A great grooved stone, or stylobate, sets off the building from the street, forming a seat which runs the whole length of the front: this, in feudal times, was occupied by the dependants of the fa- mily, who there loitering in the sultry hours of the day, lay asleep under the shelter of the broad deep cornice, which, projecting from the roof, threw a wide shade below. " The first range of windows, which are ten feet from the ground, are grated and barred with massive frames of iron, resembling those of a prison. The front has, on the second floor, a plain and simple architrave. The windows are high and arched, placed at a considerable distance from each other, and varying from ten to fifteen in number, according to the extent of the front. The third story resembles the second in plainness, and in the size of its windows. The roof is of a flat form, with a deep cornice and bold projecting soffits, imparting an air of grandeur THE PITTI PALACE. 95 to the whole edifice. The chimneys are grouped into stacks, the tops of which, increasing in bulk as they rise in height, resemble a crown: the slates, with which they are constructed, are placed in such a manner as to produce the effect of ventilation; having a plited form, not unlike the fan-heads in the inside of a mushroom." A massive iron gate opens into the court, which is usually surrounded by a colonnade, composed of one of the Greek orders, and bearing no analogy to the exterior of the building. " The interior distribution," observes Forsyth, " accords with the length of front. One line of doors enfilades the apartments and lays open the whole house; apian rather incommodious for private life, but very proper for a gala, and suited to a hot climate. It sometimes, indeed, makes a thoroughfare of Signora's bed-chamber; but those sacred retirements, which an Englishwoman requires, are unne- cessary in a country where ladies affect no restraint, and feel embarrassed by no intrusion. In every house the lower rooms are vaulted. The upper apartments are hung very generally with silk; never with paper. The walls are coated with a stucco which is rather-gritty, but well adapted for fresco-painting." The Pitti Palace boasts the finest collection of pictures in Florence, after that of the Royal Gallery. Some idea of its value may be formed from this circumstance, that the French carried away no less than sixty-three to the Louvre; all which have, however, been restored. " The cant of criticism," says Mathews, " and the dogmatism of knowledge, would confine all right of judg- ment upon painting and sculpture to those alone who have 96 FLORENCE. been duly initiated in the mysteries of virtu; whereas it seems to be with painting and sculpture as Johnson has pronounced it to be with poetry it is by the common sense of mankind, after all, that the claims to excellence must finally be decided." On this head, Algarotti also remarked, that " the painter should impress strongly upon his mind, that there is no better judge of his per- formances than the genuine connoisseur and the public*. ' Woe to those works of art,' continues he, quoting an observation of D' Alembert's, ' which have no charms but for artists themselves.' " " Painting," to quote once more the words of Ma- thews, " considered as a fine art, is principally valuable as it is historical or poetical; in other words, as it represents the subject as it really was or, as it represents the sub- ject as it existed in the mind of the painter. Mere ex- cellence of execution is surely the lowest claim a painter can advance to admiration. As well might a literary production rest its pretensions upon the mere beauties of the style. If the composition neither please the imagin- ation, nor inform the understanding, to what purpose is * Mirabile est enim cum plurimum in faciendo intersit inter doc- turn et rudem, quam npn multum differat in judicando Cic. de Oratore. Je ferois souvent plus d'etat de 1'avis d'un homme de bon sens, says De Piles, qui n'auroit jamais manie le pinceau, que de celui de la plus part des peintres; and, if we may trust Pliny, the most re- nowned of all the ancient painters seems to have entertained much the same opinion: Idem (Apelles) perfecta opera proponebat per- gula transeuntibus, atque post ipsam tabulam latcns, vitia, quae 110- tarentur, anscultabat, vulgum diligentiorcm judicem quam se prae- fercns. Plin. N. H. xxxv. 10. THE PITTI PALACE. 97 its being written in elegant language? In the same man- ner, drawing and colours the language of painting can as little, of themselves, form a title to praise. " When I visit a collection of paintings, I go to have my understanding instructed, my senses charmed, my feelings roused, my imagination delighted or exalted. If none of these effects be produced, it is in vain to tell me that a picture is painted with the most exact atten- tion to all the rules of art*. At such pictures I look without interest, and turn away from them with indiffer- ence. If any sensation is excited, it is a feeling of regret that such powers of style should have existed, without any spark of that Promethean heat, which alone confers upon them any real value. Where this is wanting, it is vain that a connoisseur descants upon the merits of the drawing, the correctness of the perspective, and the skill of the arrangement. These are mere technical beauties, and may be interesting to the student in painting; but the liberal lover of the arts looks for those higher excel- lences, which have placed painting in the same rank with poetry. For what, in fact, are the works of Mi- chael Angelo, Raphael, Murillo, Salvator Rosa, Claude, Nicholas Poussin, and Sir Joshua Reynolds; but the sub- lime and enchanting, the terrific and heart-rending con- ceptions of a Homer, a Virgil, a Shakspeare, a Dante, a Byron, or a Scott, ' turned into shapes?' They are the kindred productions of a congenial inspiration. * Ars enim, cum & natura profecta sit, nisi naturam moveat ac delectet, nihil sane egisse videtur. Cic. de Oratore. VOL. I. H 98 FLORENCE. " Yet I would not be understood to deny all merit to mere excellence of execution. I would only wish to as- certain its true place in the scale. The perfect imita- tion of beautiful nature in the landscapes of Hobbima and Ruysdaal the blooming wonders that expand under the pencil of Van-Huysum and the exquisite finishing of Gerhard Douw's laborious patience cannot be viewed with absolute indifference. Still less would I withhold the praise that is due to the humorous productions of Teniers, Hogarth, and Wilkie. These have a peculiar merit of their own, and evince the same creative powers of mind, as are exhibited by the true vis comica in the works of literature." The collection in the Pitti is one of the choicest in Italy. Among its other treasures there are no less than eight pictures by Raphael "the father of dramatic painting," as Fuseli styles him "the painter of hu- manity less elevated, less vigorous than Michael An- gelo, but more insinuating. What effect of human con- nexion what feature of the mind, from the gentlest emotion to the most fervid burst of passion, has been left unobserved has not received a characteristic stamp from that examiner of men ! Perfect human beauty he has not represented. No face of Raphael's is perfectly beautiful no figure of his possesses, in the abstract, the proportions which could raise it to a standard of imitation. Form to him was only a vehicle of character or pathos; and to those he adapted it, in a mode and with a truth that leave all attempts at emendation hopeless. His in- vention connects the utmost stretch of possibility with THE PITTI PALACK. 99 the most plausible degree of probability, in a way that equally surprises our fancy, persuades our judgment, and affects our heart. The line of Raphael has been ex- celled in correctness, elegance, and energy; his colour far surpassed in tone, in truth, and harmony; his masses, in roundness; and his chiaroscuro, in effect: but, considered as instruments of pathos, his works have never been equalled; and, in composition, invention, expression, and the power of telling a story, he has never been approach- ed." This is high praise, and seems to exemplify the remark, that it is difficult to speak with moderation of Raphael* those who under-value him rating him by his worst performances, while his admirers look only to his best. Perhaps there is some truth in Mathews's observation, that " the character of his genius, like that of the Caracci, was extraordinary. Most painters may almost be said to have been born so; and Sir Joshua Reynolds and Mr. West have expressed something like a feeling of humiliation, upon finding, at three-score, how very little they could add to the first juvenile productions of their pencils f. Raphael was a genius of a slower growth ; and it would be difficult to discover, in the hard * For the reverse of the picture, the reader is referred to Simond's notice of frescos in Raphael's works in the Vatican. See Art. Va- tican, Sfc. of this work. f " Genius is like the spiral, more rapid in its progress, than when it draws near the unattainable centre of perfection. Reynolds look- ing back at his guinea-portraits, and Bernini at his hr.sts of Cardinal Scipio Borghese, were mortified to find those not so inferior as they expected to their latter works." Forsyth. H2 100 FLORENCE. dry outlines of his first manner, any indication of that felicity of conception and execution, which is so conspi- cuous in his maturer works. His females are beings of an exclusive species; and if he painted from nature he was fortunate in his acquaintance. The Madonna is a subject which he has appropriated and made his own; it is only tolerable in his hands; or, at least, after seeing his, there is no tolerating any other." As Mengs ob- serves, ".his Madonnas enchant us, not because they dis- play the correct beauty of the Venus of Medicis or the celebrated daughter of Niobe, but because, in their ex- pressive features and engaging smiles, he realizes all our ideas of female modesty, maternal love, sweetness of dis- position in a word, of grace itself." During my progress through the picture galleries of Italy, it was a source of no little amusement to me to compare the different opinions of different travellers on some of the more celebrated works of art. This was es- pecially the case with regard to the Madonna della Seg- giola a picture so called from the chair on which the Virgin is sitting. It is one of Raphael's most admired performances, and is said to have so captivated Buona- parte, that he always carried it with him in his carriage, even during his campaigns. " The Madonna della Seg- giola unites the most opposite graces; there is a refined elegance joined to a diffident simplicity, with a gentle tenderness pervading the whole expression of her figure, which realizes all one's conceptions of that mother, from whom the meek and lowly Jesus derived his human nature." Such is Mathews's opinion of this famous pic- THE P1TTI PALACE. 101 ture. Moore, however, appears to have regarded it with a less favourable eye. He tells us that he visited the Pitti in company with an English country gentleman; that this country gentleman greatly admired the picture in question so long as he fancied it represented a mere peasant with her child; but that, on being told it was meant as a representation of the Virgin, he forthwith changed his tone, professing that he thought the figure utterly destitute of that dignity, which a woman, con- scious of being the object of divine favour, would na- turally feel. This story may well be doubted. How any English country gentleman, even though, like the one in question, he should " know as little of painting as his pointer," could have reached the heart of Italy a coun- try where Madonnas are " as plenty as blackberries " without at once recognising the subject of suchji picture, it would be difficult to imagine. The truth seems to be, that Moore was determined to say something new upon the subject; and this was no such easy matter; for the merits of the work having been duly appreciated already, novelty was only to be had at the expense of absurdity. So just is that observation of Sir Joshua Reynolds, that " a man, who thinks he is guarding himself against prejudices by resisting the authority of others, leaves open every avenue to singularity, vanity, self-conceit, obstinacy, and many other vices all tending to warp the judgment and prevent the natural operation of his faculties." The portraits of Julius II. and Leo X., also by Ra- phael, combine the force and richness of the Flemish 10*2 FLORENCE. and Venetian schools, and are second only to the hap- piest efforts of Vandyke. In this branch of art, indeed, Vandyke stands unrivalled. " He has been equalled in freedom by Reynolds, and surpassed in the fascination of female loveliness by Lawrence, but no one has yet equal- led him in manly dignity in the rare and important gift of endowing his heads with power to think and act. With all his vigour, he has no violent attitudes, no start- ling postures; all is natural and graceful. Whatever his figures do, they do easily: there is no straining. Though a painter of mind more than of velvet or silk, he yet throws a cloak over a cavalier with a grace which few have attained. His ladies are inferior to his men; they seldom equal the fresh innocent loveliness of nature." Such is Cunningham's remark upon Vandyke's style in general; and the collection of the Pitti affords us an in- stance of its justness, in a full length portrait, to which Mathews thus briefly but shrewdly adverts: " Any dauber may paint a sign-post likeness; but a portrait must have spirit and character as well as resemblance. Vandyke seems to embody, in one transient expression of the countenance which is all that a painter can give the whole character of his subject. The Bentivoglio is a magnificent specimen of his talent in this way. The sub- ject is worthy of his pencil, and seems to have pleased him. It is a full length dressed in a cardinal's robes." There are also some pieces by Salvator Rosa, that ardent lover of nature in her wildest moods, who, to his other claims to notice, adds the merit of originality. " The world," says Reynolds, " was weary of the long THE WTT1 PALACE. 103 train of insipid imitators of Claude and Poussin, and de- manded something new: Salvator Rosa saw and supplied this deficiency. He hit upon a new and savage sort of composition, which was very striking. Sannazarius, the Italian poet, for the same reason, substituted fishermen for shepherds, and changed the scene to the sea." What- ever may be Salvator's merits on the score of originality, Sir Joshua, as Lady Morgan has observed, seems in the above passage to have been guilty of an anachronism. " When Salvator struck into a new line, Poussin and Claude, who, though his elders, were his contempo- raries, had as yet no train of imitators. The one was struggling for a livelihood in France, the other was cook- ing and grinding colours for his master at Rome." Hence, she concludes, not improperly perhaps, that Salvator's early passion for those rude scenes of which he has con- veyed such vivid impressions in his works, was not the re- sult of speculation, having any reference to the public taste, but merely the operation of original genius. " Salvator Rosa," remarks Mathews, with that felicity of thought and gracefulness of language by which all his observations are distinguished, "is of all painters the most poetical; possessing not only that mens divinior, that mysterious power over the grand, the sublime, and the terrible, which constitutes the soul of a poet; but also ministering more than any other painter to the ima- gination of the spectator. There is always in his wild and romantic sketches, a something more than meets the eye, which awakens a train of association, and sets in motion the airy nothings of the fancy. You may look at 104 FLORENCE. his pictures for ever without feeling the least satiety. There is a battle of his in the Pitti, which might serve as a study to all poets who have sung of battles, from Ho- mer down to Walter Scott. There is also a portrait of himself, by himself, which promises all the genius exhi- bited in his works." The Four Philosophers a splendid picture by Rubens exhibits the singular life and vigour, the freedom and truth of drawing, and the glowing and unlaboured colour- ing, which characterize most of that great artist's works. The Fates one of the few oil paintings that M. An- gelo has given us form an extraordinary group. Their withered bodies, and wrinkled faces, and heavy eyes, give them a sort of family likeness: .... facies non omnibus mm, Nee diversa tamen, qualem decet esse sororum. " There is something quite appalling in the solemn se- verity the terrible demeanour of their gravity." The St. Mark is, among the pictures of Fra Bartolom- meo, what the Moses of San Pietro in Vincoli at Rome is among the statues of Michael Angelo the noblest work of its author. The St. John in the Wilderness, by Andrea del Sarto, is one of his happiest performances, and may serve to vindicate him from that sweeping censure of Forsyth's, which describes him as having " neither poetry in his head, nor pathos in his heart." In the centre of the apartment called the Boudoir stands Canova's Venus, placed, to evident disadvantage, in THE PITTI PALACE. 105 the same city which boasts the Venus of Medicis. It has been supposed that it was the artist's object to com- bine, in this figure, the beauties of the Medicean and Callipygian Venuses: though it is admitted that, even with the help of drapery, he has failed to attain the mo- desty of the Florentine statue; while, in point of form, he has fallen far short of the exquisite beauty of the Neapolitan one. In the opinion of Mathews, the attitude of the statue is constrained, if not even awkward, a cir- cumstance which he is for attributing to the manner in which she compresses the scanty drapery which the sculp- tor has given her, intended, perhaps, to double every charm it seeks to hide. He charges it, too, with want of symmejtry, and as having a head manifestly too large for the body. The remainder of his critique, which con- trasts it with the Medicean Venus, exhibits, as compared with the remarks of other tourists, a singular instance of that strange diversity of opinion which seems to prevail upon almost every work of art. " This statue," says he, " occupied the pedestal of the Medicean Venus during her flight to Paris; but she is not worthy to officiate as chambermaid to the goddess of the Tribune. It is simply the representation of a modest woman, who seems to shrink from exposure in such a dishabille; while her Grecian prototype, in native innocence and simplicity scarce conscious of nakedness seems to belong to an order of beings to whom the sentiment of shame was as yet unknown." It is amusing to see in how different a light the expression of this very statue was regarded by the sculptor Banks. Speaking of the Medicean Venus, 106 FLORENCE. he remarks that " her face has beauty and expression so happily combined, that, at first sight, one sees she is conscious of her exposed state!" On comparing- these different opinions, one would suppose " the force of dis- cord could no further go," but we shall find that Simond has contrived to carry it further still. " I shall only re- mark on the Venus," says he, " that consciousness of sex seems to be the sole distinguishing character or expres- sion which ancient and modern artists, from Praxiteles to Canova, have ever thought of giving to that goddess. Unlike Apollo, who walks a god and forgets that he is naked, she seems to think of nothing else. Still more unlike to Eve, who Undecked, save with herself; more lovely fair Than wood nymph, or the fairest goddess feigned Of three, that on Mount Ida strove Stood to entertain her guest from heaven : no veil She needed, virtue proof, no thought infirm Altered her cheek. The attitude of the Venus," he continues, " is every way unbecoming." And, as if this were not hard mea- sure enough, he has the cruelty to hang her up upon the horns of a dilemma. " Either the goddess feels that she is naked, or she does not : if her modesty suffers, let her put on her clothes. It really were too absurd for this modest person to walk up and down Olympus, under the gaze of immortals and of mortals too, all the while en- during miseries which she might so easily spare herself!" It was, perhaps, a conviction of the ludicrous inconsis- tencies into which connoisseurs are so frequently be- THE PITTI PALACE. 107 trayed, that led Lord Byron to exclaim, with real or af- fected contempt for the labours of the whole fraternity I leave to learned fingers, and wise hands, The artist and his ape, to teach and tell How well his connoisseurship understands The graceful bend and the voluptuous swell : Let these describe the undescribable ! At the Corsini Palace is one of the most admired per- formances of Carlo Dolci a figure of Poetry exhibit- ing less of the mannerism, less of the mawkish and af- fected sweetness that characterizes most of his works. It has been well described, as " one of those counte- nances, the charms of which are lighted up by that un- definable expression, which makes the face the index of the mind, and gives the assurance, at the first glance, of intellectual superiority." 108 FLORENCE. IMPROVVISATORI. Aut insanit homo, aut versus facit. Hon. ITALY possesses, in her improvvisatori, a class of poets, whose fugitive essays leave no monument behind them, though they afford, perhaps for that very reason, the greater pleasure at the time. The talent of these im- provvisatori, their inspiration, and the enthusiasm which they excite, are characteristic features of the nation itself. " In them especially," says Sismondi, in his History of Italian Literature, " we discern how poetry is more im- mediately the language of the soul; how the thoughts as- sume, from their very birth, the most captivating form; how the music of the diction and the colouring of the picture are so allied to feeling, that the poet possesses in verse a genius which fails him whenever he descends to prose, and that the man who would hardly be listen- ed to in common conversation, no sooner abandons himself to the inspiration of the moment, than he becomes at once imaginative, engaging, and sometimes even sub- lime." " Florence has long been renowned for improwisatori. So early as the fifteenth century, the two blind brothers, Brandolini, excelled here in singing Latin extempore. And, in later times, the crowned and pensioned Gorilla drew the admiration of all Italy*." Two others, of still more * Forsvth. JMPTIOVVISATORI. 109 recent date, were scarcely less distinguished La Fantas- tici, the wife of a Florentine goldsmith, and Signora Mazzei, descended from one of the noblest families of Florence. " Heaven," says Sismondi, " had endowed the former with an exquisite ear, a fancy worthy the name she bore, and a fluency and copiousness of diction corresponding with the harmony of her voice. The latter, however, may perhaps be said to surpass all others in the fertility of her imagination, the richness and purity of her style, and the harmony and perfect regularity of her verse. She does not chant her effusions. Absorbed by her in- ventive faculty, she is always hurried along by the rapidity of her thoughts, and being thus incapacitated from attend- ing sufficiently to her delivery, her recitation is somewhat ungraceful. But the moment she gives up the reins to her imagination, the most harmonious of all languages becomes invested with new charms: the hearer is enrap- tured, and hurried along by the magic flow of her verse; he feels himself transported into a new world of poetry, and marvels at sight of a human being thus declaiming in the language of the gods ! " Rose gives the following description of the appearance of a celebrated improvvisatore, a description that may, in many respects, apply to most exhibitions of the kind*. * Un improvisatetir demande un sujet, un theme a 1'assemblee qui doit {'entendre : les sujets de la mythologie, ceux de la religion, 1'his- toire, et les evenemens du jour, lui sont, sans doute, plus souvent offerts que tous les autres ; mais ces quatre classes ccntiennent elles- memes plusieurs centaines de sujets divers qu'on peut considerer comme rebattus, et il ne faut pas croire qu'on rende service au poete en le qiiestionnant sur un sujet qu'il a deja traite Apres avoir rec.u son sujet, 1'iniprovisateur reste un moment a me- 110 FLORENCE. " Two understrappers appeared upon the stage, with materials for writing and a large glass vase; one of whom took down, on separate scraps of paper, different subjects, which were proposed by such of the audience as chose to suggest them; the other, having duly sealed them, threw them into the vase, which he held up and shook before the spectators: he then presented it amongst them for se- lection, and different subjects were drawn, but all rejected, till they came to ' Alfieri at the tomb of Shakspeare,' an argument accepted by universal acclamation. " The two assistants now retired, and the principal, who was young, appeared in their place. He received the paper on entering, and immediately threw himself on a chair; from whence, after a few Pythian contortions, apparently made with a view to effect, he poured out a volley of verse without the slightest pause or hesitation : but this was only the prelude to a mightier effort. " He retired, and the assistants re-appeared. Sub- jects were proposed for a tragedy, the vase shaken as be- fore, and the papers containing the arguments drawn. " Amongst the first titles fished out, was that of Ines cliter, pour le voir sous toutes ses faces, et faire le plan du petit poeme qu'il va composer. II prepare ensuite les huit premiers vers, afin de se dormer 1'impulsion a lui mfeme en les recitant, et de se trouver par la dans cette disposition d'ame qui fait de lui un etre nouveau. Aprs sept ou huit minutes, il est prt, et il commence a chanter; et cette composition instantanee a souvent cinq ou six cent vers. Ses yeux s'egarent, son visage s'enflamme, il se debat avec 1'esprit pro- phetique qui semble 1'animer. Rien dans notre siecle nepeut repre- senter, d'une maniere plus frappante, la Pythie de Delphes, lorsque le dieu descendait sur elle, et parlait par sa bouche. Sismondi, Hist. Lit. de, Vltalie. IMPROVVISATORI. Ill de Castro, which was adopted, and communicated to the improvvisatore. Professing himself unacquainted with the story, the leading facts of it were communicated to him, succinctly enough, by the suggester of the theme, and he forthwith proceeded to form his dramatis persona, in the manner of one who thinks aloud. These were few, after the manner of Alfieri. As soon as this matter was arranged, he began and continued to declaim his piece, without even a momentary interruption, though the time of recitation, unbroken by any repose between the acts, occupied the space of three hours. " As a tour de force, the thing was marvellous; but Italy is fertile in such prodigies. I recollect once seeing a man, to whom, after he had played various pranks in verse, three subjects for sonnets were proposed; one of them was Noah issuing from the Ark, the other the Death of Ccesar, and the third the Wedding of Pantaloon. These were to be declaimed, as it may be termed, inter- lacedly a piece of Noah, a piece of Caesar, and a piece of Pantaloon. He went through this singular process with great facility, though only ten minutes were given for the composition, and though it was moreover clogged with a yet more puzzling condition : he was to introduce what is termed a verso obligate a particular verse, specified by one of the audience at a particular place in each of the sonnets. " Such strains pronounced and sung unmeditated, ' such prompt eloquence,' such sentiment and imagery flowing in rich diction, in measure, in rhyme, and in mu- sic, without interruption, and on subjects unforeseen, must evince a wonderful command of powers; yet judg- 1 12 FLORENCE. ing from the studied and published compositions of im- prowisatori, which in general are dull enough, it would seem that this impromptu-exercise seldom leads to excel- lence. Serafino d' Acquila, the first improvvisatore that ap- peared in the language, was gazed at in the Italian courts as a divine and inspired being, till he published his verses and dispelled the illusion*." The same re- mark, too, applies to the celebrated Gianni, one of the most renowned of the tribe. Nothing which he pro- duced in the retirement of the closet seemed to warrant the high repute in which he was held. And yet, singu- lar enough, when short-hand writers took down his im- promptu-effusions, as was sometimes the case, these were found to possess a warmth of poetic feeling, a richness of imagery, a force of eloquence, and not unfrequently a depth of thought, that might place him upon a level with the brightest ornaments of his country. The Italian improwisatori have the benefit of a language rich in echoes, and to this circumstance Madame de Stael's Corinna attributes much of their success. In her opinion, " this extemporaneous verse- making is not a whit more extraordinary in the languages of the South, than the charms of oratory, or the talent of conversation, in other languages. Nay," continues she, " I might, unfortunately, aver that with us it is even more easy to make impromptu-verse, than to express oneself well in prose. The language of poetry differs so entirely from that of prose, that, from the very first verses, the attention is rivetted by the expressions them- * Forsyth. JMPROVVISATOIU. 113 selves, which, in a manner, place the poet at a distance from his audience. Nor is it merely to the sweetness of the Italian language, but still more to the emphatic and marked pronunciation of its sonorous syllables, that we must attribute the empire of poetry over us*. The Italian language possesses a sort of musical charm which affords pleasure by the mere sound of the words, almost independently of the sense : these words, too, have nearly all of them something of the picturesque painting, as it were, what they express. Thus it is easier in Italy than any where else to captivate the imagination by words, displaying neither depth of thought, nor novelty of imagery." To this it may be added, as another means of accounting for the frequent occurrence of this extra- ordinary faculty, that the improwisatore " generally calls in the accompaniment of song, a lute, or a guitar, to set off his verse, and conceal failuresf . If his theme be difficult, he runs into the merest common-place, or takes refuge in loose lyric measure. Thus he may always be fluent, and sometimes by accident be bright." * Les sons appellent des sons correspondans, les rimes s'ar- rangent d'elles-memes aleur place, et 1'ame ebranle ne peut se faire entendre qu'en vers, comme une corde sonore lorsqu'elle est frap- pee se partage d'elle-mfeme en parties harmoniques, et ne peut faire entendre que des accords. Sismondi. f This remark of Forsyth's must be taken with some exception. The most celebrated improvvisatori do not call in the aid of song; sometimes, because they feel themselves above the want of it, some- times, because they have no voice. Tous les improvisateurs ne chantent pas; quelqu'uns des plus celebres n'ont point de voix, et sont obliges de d^clamer leurs vers aussi rapidement que s'ils les lisaient. Sismondi. 114 FLORENCE. Remarkable as is the talent of impromptu-verse-mak- ing, it seems that the prototype of the improvvisatore must be sought among the ancient Greeks and Romans. " That the oracles both in Italy and Greece were deli- vered in unpremeditated verse is sufficiently certain; as also that the vates., or seers, foretold things to come in spontaneous measures. Mention is made in Cicero, of Marcius and Publicius, as possessing that extraordinary faculty in great perfection. (De Div. i. 20). Many of the Roman youth, who had no pretensions to greater inspiration than their imaginations afforded them, were, notwithstanding, as regular improvvisatori as those whose performances have justly excited so much astonishment in these later times. In the year of Rome 391, to pro- pitiate the gods, who were believed to be afflicting the city with a grievous pestilence, recourse was had to a public dramatic spectacle. A company of Tuscans were accordingly sent for, who performed their national dances to the sound of a pipe, but without dialogue. This bar- barous exhibition the young men of Rome imitated; not, however, without making an essential improvement, con- sisting in the addition of extempore verses, which they accompanied with suitable gestures. Such long con- tinued to be the state of the Roman drama; resting upon the natural talent the Romans had for extempore poetry, and not reduced to a written systematic form till the time of Livius. A taste, however, so congenial to the vivacity of this people, was not to be annihilated by a written drama; and there were ever found, even in the most polished ages of Rome, persons who, after the an- cient custom, bandied ludicrous verses with each other, IMPUOVVISATOR1. 115 called exodia, between the acts of the play, and who were not thought to receive any of that contamination from the histrionic art, which excluded actors in general from a place in their tribe, or a post in the army. (Liv. vii. 2). Perhaps the poetical contests carried on between the peasants in Virgil and Theocritus may be considered less extravagant, when allowance is made for the possible possession of a faculty, which, in our own country, the most refined and best educated cannot boast*." Forsyth has remarked that the Greek language and the Italian appear to be equally favourable to this talent. Equally rich and harmonious and pliant, they allow poets to alter the length and collocation of words, to pile epi- thets on epithets, and sometimes to range among different dialects. " In attending to the Italian improvvisatori," says he, " I began to find out, or perhaps only to fancy, several points in which they resemble their great prede- cessor Homer. In both may be remarked the same openness of style and simplicity of construction, the same digressions, rests, repetitions, anomalies. Homer has often recourse to shifts of the moment, like other improv- visatorif . Like them, he betrays great inequalities. Some- * Blunt's Vestiges of Ancient Manners in Italy. -f Homer seems to have kept a stock of hemistichs, which recur incessantly at the close of verses; as, tirta irTfpotvra irpofftvSa; Gfa fXai'KujiriQ A0JJ1/J), &c. ; expletive epithets, as SIOQ, Sat/jioviT), &c., which appear in so many, and such opposite meanings, that they cease to have any meaning at all; expletive phrases, which he applies indiscriminately, as the opxa/zot; avSpwv, both to the mo- narch and the swine-herd; set forms, which introduce his speeches, i2 116 FLORENCE. times, when his speech is lengthening into detail, he cuts it short and concludes. Sometimes, when the interest and difficulty thicken, the poet escapes, like his heroes, in a cloud. I once thought of Homer in the streets of Florence, where I saw a poor cyclic bard most cruelly perplexed in a tale of chivalry. He wished to unravel ; but every stanza gave a new twist to his plot. His hear- ers seemed impatient for the denouement, but still the confusion increased. At last, seeing no other means of escape, he vented his poetical fury on the skin of his tambourine, and went off with a maladetto!" as, TOV S' airafiti^o/jisvof Trpoirt^t), &c. or else begin them, as, tffre 0i\avii, &c., begin the business of the day! The return of such passages was a breathing place to the improvvisatore. The names and titles which he heaps on his gods, were only, says Lucian, an expedient to fill up a verse. Such was Homer, and such is the Italian ; both lite- rally singers; and the harp of the aoiSof is now most generally repre- sented by a guitar. Forsyth. THE DRAMA. 117 THE DRAMA. Quam non adstricto percurrat pulpita socco! HOR. ACCORDING to Sismondi, the French took precedence of the Italians in dramatic representations. It was they who, while the ancient drama had sunk into complete ob- livion, first thought of submitting to the eyes of assem- bled spectators, either the great events which accom- panied the establishment of Christianity, or the mys- teries which it proposes to our faith*, or even those oc- currences of domestic life which might serve to provoke laughter, after contemplating scenes of a more serious character. The istrioni of the twelfth century, to whom * The first who roused the attention of the people by these dra- matic compositions, including various characters, were pilgrims re- turning from the Holy Land, who thus submitted to the eyes of their countrymen the scenes which they themselves had witnessed, and which all were anxious to be acquainted with. It is thought to have been in the twelfth, or, at latest, in the thirteenth century, that these spectacles were first exhibited, and that in the open air. But it was not till towards the close of the fourteenth century, that a company of pilgrims, who had celebrated, by a brilliant show, the marriage of Charles VI. and Isabella of Bavaria, established themselves perma- nently at Paris, and undertook to give regular entertainments of the kind. This company was called the Fraternity of the Passion, from the Mystery of the Passion, the most famous of their shows. Sis* mondi, Hist, Lit. 118 FLORENCE. some would trace up the Italian theatre, were mere bal- lad singers, and never rose to histrionic imitation. The first attempt at dialogue was made in the moralities, as they were called, of the following century; and even these bore no other mark of the drama, till the History of Abraham appeared at Florence in 1449, more than fifty years after the most famous of these monkish pas- times, called the Mystery of the Passion, had been acted at Paris. " This Mystery, the earliest dramatic work after the revival of literature, comprises the whole history of our Saviour's life, from his baptism to his crucifixion. It was too long to be acted in a single day; accordingly, the representation was continued from day to day, and the entire piece was broken into a certain number of di- visions, called journees, each of which contained the por- tion to be performed in one day. " In this Mystery of the Passion no less than eighty- seven personages successively made their appearance on the stage. Among them were the three Persons of the Trinity, six Angels, the twelve Apostles, six Devils, Herod and his court, together with many other person- ages of the poet's own creation. A variety of machinery seems to have been employed to give to the show all the pomp of a modern opera: in some scenes recitative ap- pears to have been employed; choruses, too, are here and there introduced, and the changes in the structure of the verse indicate no little acquaintance with the har- mony of the language. Some of the characters are well delineated: some scenes display grandeur, movement, or THE DRAMA. 119 tragic effect; and though the style not unfrequently falls into the trivial or the tiresome; though some scenes are in the highest degree absurd; yet we cannot but recog- nise great talent in the conception of this terrible drama, which, executed as it was without model, and placing as it did before the eyes of the Christians of that age events which absorbed all their thoughts, must have excited a far deeper interest than the best constructed tragedies of modern days. Above all, one is surprised at the perspi- cuity of the language, which is far more intelligible than that of the lyric poets of the same epoch. Thus, in the council held by the Jewish Rulers, where several of the Pharisees are in their turn delivered of very long-winded addresses, Mordecai expresses himself in the following manner: Quant Messias, quant le Christ regnera, Nous esperons qu'il nous gouvernera En forte main, en union tranquille; Couronne d'or sur son chef portera, Gloire et richesse en sa maison aura, Justice et paix regira sa famille. Et si le fort le pauvre oppresse ou pille, Si le tyran son franc vassal exille, Quant Christ viendra tout sera mis en ordre. " The Baptist delivers a terribly long sermon upon the stage; nor can we comprehend how the spectators could have patience enough to endure these tedious harangues, on any other supposition than that of their having con- sidered themselves as doing a sort of penance; persuaded that, in these religious mysteries, that which neither pro- voked laughter, nor drew forth tears, might yet tend to 120 FLORENCE. the salvation of their souls. In the following scene, how- ever, where the Baptist is interrogated by certain of the Priests and Levites, the dialogue is well supported: ABYAS. Sainct Proph^te ! il nous est escript, Que le Christ, pour nous racheter, Se doit a nous manifester, Et reduyre par sa doctrine Le peuple en sa grace divine. Par quoi, veu les enseignemens, Les haulx fails et les prechemens Dont tu endoctrines tes proesmes; Nous doultons que ce soit toy-mesmes Qui montres tes belles vertus. SAINT JEHAN. Non suis; je ne suis pas Christus, Mais desouls lui je m'humilie. ELYACHIM. D'ou te vient doncques la folie De toi tenir en ces deserts, Tout nu? Dis nous de quoi tu sers, Et quel doctrine tu presches? BANNANYAS. On nous a dit que tu t'empesches D 'assembler peuples par ces bois Pour venir escouter ta voix, Comme d'un homme solennel. Es-tu done maitre en Israel? Spai-tu les lois et les propbeties, Qu'est-ce de toi? NATHAN. Tu nous publics Que Messyas est ja venu; Comme le s^ai tu? L'as-tu vu? Est-ce toi? SAINT JEHAN. Ce ne suis-je mye. NACHOR. Et quel bomme es-tu done? Helye? Te dis-tu Helyas? SAINT JEHAN. Non. THE DRAMA. 121 BANNANYAS. Non? Qui es-tu done? quel est ton nom? Imaginer je ne le puis. TueslePropbete! SAINT JEHAN. Non suis. ELYACHIM. Qui es-tu done? Or te denonce, Alia que nous donnons reponse Aux grans princes de notre foi, Qui nous ont transmis devers toi Pour savoir qui tu es. SAINT JEHAN. Ego Vox clamantis in deserto. Je suis voix au desert criant, Che cbacun soit rectifiant La voie du Sauveur du monde, Qui vient pour notre coulpe immonde Reparer sans doubte quelconque. " The result of this scene is the conversion of the interlocutors; who eagerly implore baptism at the hands of St. John. This ceremony is followed by the baptism of the Saviour himself. But here the versification is far less remarkable than the notes, which almost carry us back to the time of these rude exhibitions: " Ici, (it is said), entre Jesus dedans le fleuve de Jour- dain, tout nud ; et Saint Jehan prend de 1'eau a la main, et en jette sur le chef de Jesus: SAINT JEHAN. Sire, vous etes baptize. Qui a votre baute noblesse N'appartient ne a ma simplesse, Si digne service de faire ; Toutefois mon Dieu debonnaire Veuille suppleer le surplus. 122 FLORENCE. " Ici sort Jesus du fleuve Jourdain, et se jette a ge- noux tout nud devant Paradis. Adonc parle Dieti le Pere, et le Saint-Esprit descend en forme de colombe blanche sur le chef de Jesus, puis retorne en Paradis. Et est a noter que la loquence de Dieu le Pere se doit prononcer intendiblement, et bien a traict, en trois voix; c'est a savoir ung hault dessus, une haulte centre, et une basse contre, bien accordees; et en cette harmonic se doit dire toute la clause qui s'ensuit: Hie estfilius meus dilectus, In quo mihi bene complacui. Ceslui-ci est mon fils ame" Jesus, Qui bien me plaist; ma plaisance est en lui. " Moreover, since the same Mystery was the prototype of Comedy as well as Tragedy, we must also transcribe a few verses from the dialogue of the Devils; for, through- out the whole piece, it is they who enact the comic parts; while the eagerness they betray to maltreat each other never failed to provoke the laughter of the spec- tators : BERITH. Je ne say qui est ce Jesus, Mais je croy qu'en 1'universel N'en y a point encore ung tel; Qui que 1'ait en terre coi^u, Je ne S9ay d'ou il est issu, Ne quel grant dyable 1'a presche; Mais il n'est vice ni pe'che' De quoi je le 3911886 charger. SATHAN. Haro, tu me fais enrager Quant il faut que tels mots escoute. BERITH. Et pourquoi? THE DRAMA. 123 SATUAN. Pour ce que je doubto Qu'en la fin j'en sole desert. Laissons-le ici en ce desert, Et nous en courons en enfer Nous conseiller a Lucifer, Sur les cas que je lui veulx dire. BERITH. Les dyables vous veulent conduire, Sans avoir meilleur sauf conduit. LUCIFER. J'aper^oy Sathan et Berith Qui reviennent moult emp^che's. ASTAROTH. Si vous voulez qu'ils soient torches, Vecy les instrumens tons prets. LUCIFER. Ne te hate pas de si pres, A frapper derriere et devant; Ouir faut leur rapport avant, Sc. avoir s'il nous porte dommage. " But when the devils have given their sovereign an account of what they had seen, and of their vain endea- vours to tempt Jesus to sin, Ashtaroth falls upon them with his imps, and flogs them back again to earth*." The example set by the author of the Mystery of the Passion was quickly followed by a crowd of imitators, whose names are for the most part forgotten. The Mystery of the Conception and Nativity of our Saviour, and that of his Resurrection, are among the more an- cient. The legends of the Saints were -also put into dialogue and prepared for representation; and in like manner was the whole of the Old Testament drama- tized. * Sismondi, Hist. Literaire. 124 FLORENCE. These sacred dramas are still acted in many of the towns of Italy during Lent; but more especially at Naples, where nothing is more common than to see advertisements pasted on the walls, setting forth that, on such a night, will be represented, at one theatre, the Murder of the Innocents; at another, the Sacrifice of Abraham; at a third, the departure of the Israelites from Egypt; whilst enormous pictures, exactly upon a par with the rude daubs in front of our own wild beast or mountebank shows, serve to illustrate these respective subjects, and attract the attention of the public. " It is the opinion of Voltaire," says Blunt, " that the Italians received these mysteries from Constantinople, where the Greek plays of the old tragedians continued to be acted for several centuries after Christ. To sup- plant such profane exhibitions, Gregory of Nazianzum, in the fourth century, with a temporising spirit which too much prevailed at that period, determined to introduce dramatic stories derived from the Old and New Testa- ments. Of these one is still extant, intitled Xpurros Troiir^cov, or Christ's Passion valuable as being a cento of verses collected from the Greek tragic poets, by which some true readings in the originals have been preserved. The characters in it are the Virgin, our Saviour, Joseph of Arimathea, Mary Magdalen, Pilate, John, a Nuncius, the Synagogue, a chorus of women, and some others. It is expressly declared in the argument that it was written in imitation of Euripides; and that it was the first time the Virgin Mary had been brought upon the stage. " Warton mentions another sacred drama of a still THE DRAMA. 125 earlier date; in all probability about the times immediately succeeding the destruction of Jerusalem. (Hist, of English Poetry, Vol. ii.) It is written in Greek iambics by one Ezekiel, styled the tragic poet of the Jews, and many frag- ments of it are preserved in Eusebius, (Lib. ix. 28, 29). It bears the title of the Eaycoye, or Departure of the Israelites out of Egypt. The principal speakers are God, Moses, and a Nuncius. The narrative, however, adheres pretty closely to the Bible, although the Nuncius, in describing the passage of the Red Sea, informs his hear- ers, * that Pharaoh disposed his infantry in the centre; that on each side of them he left room for the chariots of war; and that each wing consisted of horse.' " From the date as well as the character of these plays, it is clear that they at least were borrowed from the heathen drama; and whether the Italians received such compositions through the medium of Constantinople, or drew them directly from their own ancient theatre, is a matter of no importance. They were at any rate well prepared to acknowledge the legitimacy of them; for the Roman, no less than the Grecian stage, abounded with adventures of the gods. Witness the Amphitryo of Plautus, in which Jupiter and Mercury display a variety of feats little becoming the nature of beings so exalted. Amongst the several rules which Horace lays down for the regulation of stage compositions, that, by which a restriction is imposed on the indiscriminate introduction of deities amongst the dramatis personae, is not forgotten. " Happily for the interests of religion, these mysteries, though once so common in England, have long since been 126 FLORENCE. abolished. That they are still retained in Italy arises probably from the dramatic nature of the Roman Catholic ceremonies themselves. In Italy there has ever been a certain connexion between the theatre and the church. The union was formed when plays were for the first time represented at Rome under a vain expectation of sup- pressing a pestilence, and appeasing the anger of Heaven. (Liv. vii. 2). It was strengthened by the part they continued to bear in the festivals of the gods; and it has been prolonged by that insatiable thirst of the people, whether in the solemnities of worship, or the frivolities of amusement, for the gratifications of sense." It was not till the year 1483, four-and-thirty years after the first appearance of the history of Abraham, that Politian revived, in his Orfeo, the ancient form of acts and choruses. This piece, which was brought out at the court of Mantua, though divided into five acts, inter- spersed with choruses, and wound up with a tragic con- clusion, might with more propriety be called an eclogue than a tragedy. The love of Aristeus for Eurydice the flight and death of the latter, whose untimely fate is bewailed by the Dryads the lamentations of Orpheus his descent into hell and the vengeance wreaked upon him by the Thracian Bacchanals, form the ground-work of the five acts, or rather of five different subjects but slightly connected together. Nevertheless, the Orfeo combining the charms of decoration, of poetry, and of music, and exciting the curiosity while it satisfied the judgment brought about a revolution in the drama. So many were the imitations of the Greek produced by this THE DRAMA. 127 example, that a regular theatre, the first in Modern Europe, was built at Milan in 1490, on the Greek model. " Tragedy now began to speak Italian." Trissino's Sophonisba, which appeared in 1515, thirteen years after that of Caretto, passes for the first regular tragedy writ- ten after the revival of letters; and might, as Sismondi has observed, also pass for the last of the ancient trage- dies; so closely did its author tread in the steps of the Greek tragedians, especially of Euripides. Trissino wanted, it is true, the creative genius which inspired the great Athenian poets; and failed to impart a sufficiently dignified demeanour to his leading characters. But, to a scrupulous imitation of the ancient drama, he had the merit of adding much depth of feeling, and was the first who contrived to excite a lively interest in the specta- tor: With arts arising, Sophonisba rose, The tragic Muse, returning, wept her woes. With her the Italian scene first learned to glow, And the first tears for her were taught to flow. POPE. Rucellai', the friend of Trissino, Alamanni, Anguil- lara, Speroni, Giraldi, and various others, followed in the same track; writing on the ancient plan, in long solemn dialogues, quite foreign from the purpose of playing; and imitating the defects, rather than the beauties, of the Greek drama. " Does the Greek thea- tre afford an instance of want of address in the conduct of a piece, or fatigue us with a speech of an astounding length that they are sure to select for imitation. One would swear that they had laid a wager to get Sophocles 128 FLORENCE. and Euripides hissed off the stage, and that, at the close of the piece, they are waiting to tell you: 'What has thus exhausted your patience is the ancient drama!' Euripides, it is true, was but too fond of introducing moral sentences and philosophical dissertations: but each of his maxims, compared with RucellaVs, is but as a text to its commentary. " The inferiority of the Italians to the Spaniards in dramatic composition," continues Sismondi, " is very striking, and that, too, during the most palmy period of Italian literature. Those would-be restorers of the theatre have, it is true, from as early a date as the six- teenth century, scrupulously observed all Aristotle's rules, and conformed to the literary laws laid down by the an- cient classics, while those laws were as yet but partially re- ceived; but what avails this, if life and spirit be still want- ing? It is impossible to get through a tragedy of theirs without insufferable fatigue: it is a weight which there is no such thing as shaking off; nor can we comprehend how the spectators could have had the patience to en- dure the long tirades, and wearisome dialogues to which they were condemned in place of the action itself, which was studiously kept out of sight. A Spanish play, on the contrary, though monstrous in plan, and most irre- gular in execution, never fails to captivate the fancy, by the curiosity and interest which it excites. Even on reading these plays, it is with regret that we lay the book aside; and yet the stage is their proper element; it is there that their dramatic spirit rivets the attention of the spectator, and never suffers his thoughts to wander." THE DRAMA. 129 Comedy was first introduced by Hercules, Duke of Ferrara, in his translation from Plautus*. Ariosto soon followed with a comedy intitled La Cassaria, or the Farmer's Wife, the oldest Italian work of the kind, unless, indeed, we admit the Calandra of Cardinal Bibbiena to have preceded it. Ariosto took Plautus and Terence for his models; and these he copied with the same fidelity with which they had already copied the Greeks. Hence his plays and there are five in all place before our eyes the slaves, the parasites, the nurses, the adventurers all the personages, in short, to be found in the Roman drama. We sometimes meet with wit, but it is of a kind too far-fetched to be natural. It is more of Roman than Italian origin: the jokes in which his slaves and parasites indulge so strongly recall the recollection of the same characters in the works of Plautus and Terence, that, if we smile at all, it is at the pedantry rather than the wit. After the manner of the Romans, the scene, which never changes, is in the street, before the residence of the principal personages: the unity of time is no less rigor- ously observed than that of place; but here again, after the Roman fashion, the action is related rather than seen. In short, in these frigid pieces, every thing reminds you of the Roman stage even the very jests, where we meet * Plautus's plays, it seems, were sometimes performed in the original language. Apres 1'annee 1470, says Sismondi, 1'academie des litterateurs et des poetes de Rome entreprit, pour faire mieux revivre les anciens, de representer en latin quelques comedies de Plaute. VOL. I. K 130 FLORENCE. with the coarseness and obscenity of the Latin poets, instead of the playful sallies of the modern Harlequins. *' The crowd that succeeded wrote plays as exercises for princes and scholars, who recited those comedies, now called erudite, in courts, academies, and colleges. The very title, the purpose, the place, and the players, seem to have condemned the whole species to stupidity and oblivion*." Macchiavelli and Pietro Aretino form, per- haps, the only exception to this remark. Of the former we have three comedies, which, for novelty of plan, sprightliness of dialogue, and truth of character, are infinitely superior to any thing of the kind which Italy had produced previous to that time; superior perhaps to any thing which she has produced since. In them we recognise at once the hand of a masterf; especially in * It was of a period somewhat anterior to the one to which the above remark of Forsyth alludes, that Sismondi says: Les souve- rains, qui a cette e*poque mettaient toute leur gloire a prote"ger les lettres et les arts, s'effor^aient de se surpasser les uns les autres, en elevant, pour quelque occasion solennelle, un theatre qui ne devait servir que pour une seule representation : les gens de lettres et les grands de la cour se disputaient les r61es dans la pice qu'on devait repre'senter, et qui tantot etait traduite du grec ou du latin, tantot e"tait composed par quelque poete moderne a 1'imitation des anciens maitres. L'ltalie etait glorieuse, quand dans une seule anne"e elle avait eu deux representations the"atrales, 1'une a Ferrare ou a Milan, 1'autre a Rome ou a Naples. Tous les princes voisins y accouraient avec leur cour, de plusieurs journe'es a la ronde; la magnificence du spectacle, la de"pense e"norme qu'il occasionnait, et la reconnaissance pour un plaisir gratuit, emp&chaient le public de se montrer severe dans ses jugemens. t Macchiavelli's tale of Belphegor, or the Devil, who takes refuge THE DRAMA. 131 the ability with which he tears off the mask from hypo- crisy. Two hypocritical monks, one of them named friar Timothy, who appears in the two first pieces the other, friar Alberino, who figures in the third are hit off with a force and truth, which left nothing to be added by the author of Tartuff. Aretino's comedies, though sadly defective in plan, and devoid of interest in most of the characters, yet exhibit genuine dramatic talent, together with an originality, and not unfrequently a sprightliness, rarely met with in the old Italian drama. Instead of blindly imitating the ancients, Aretino took human nature for his guide, and that too with all its vices and deformities in a corrupt age : and it is precisely because he looks only to the manners of his own time, as Aristophanes had looked only to the manners of his, that he resembles the comic poet of Athens even more than they who had studied him as their chosen model. The earlier Italian comedies, as we have seen, were nothing more than pedantic copies from the Latin, which had been performed at the expense of the different courts, before societies of the learned; but a short time elapsed, however, ere companies of players got possession of these pieces, and recited them before the public, who paid for their entertainment. From that moment it became neces- sary both for actors and authors to study more attentively the public taste. It was not enough that a play did not in hell to escape from a shrewish wife, has been translated into most languages. K'2 132 FLORENCE. infringe any of those laws which the critics derived from the ancients; it became necessary also that it should afford amusement, or excite interest. Macchiavelli and Pietro Aretino had shewn how laughter might be pro- voked by the portraiture of the manners and vices of the times. In imitation of them, therefore, a crowd of au- thors undertook to amuse the public, without consulting Terence, and without any diminution of sprightliness on that account. The most remarkable among them was Grassini, a Florentine, nick-named il Lasca, who strove to impart to the Tuscan stage a character purely national, and who overwhelmed with ridicule both the pedants and the Petrarceschi. It is but fair, however, to observe, that, if the earlier writers might justly be taxed with pedantry, still more justly might these later ones be taxed with negligence and ignorance. Content to provoke the laugh- ter of the populace by the lowest and coarsest jests, they altogether renounced the art of constructing and unravel- ling a plot, and seemed scarcely to trouble themselves at all about the truth and fidelity of their characters. The Commedie del? arte also took their rise in the six- teenth century. These, being the work of the players themselves, were never written beforehand: their plots alone were chalked out, and the dialogue was left to the extemporary wit of the actors*. Each actor, however, * Sismondi takes the Commedie dell' arte to be nothing more than an improvement upon the performances of strolling moun- tebanks. Apparemment, (says he), des bateleurs et des saltim- banques essay^rent de faire paraitre sur leur tre"teaux des farces un pen plus longues; et ce qui n'avait d'abord ete qu'un dialogue im- THE DRAMA. 133 was confined to a single character, and supposed to be drawn from a particular province, the dialect of which he was to use. Pantaloon was a Venetian merchant; Tar- taglia, a stutterer of some other province; the Doctor Balanzone, a civilian of Bologna; while Harlequin and Brighella were of Bergamo: yet, though always re-ap- pearing as Harlequin and his fellows, these maskers could furnish an incessant variety of story, satire, and fun. Many extraordinry tales are still told of the ready with which this extemporary comedy was said to elicit. One pleasant instance, recorded in Moore's View of Society in Italy, may serve as a specimen. The Stutterer was in an agony: the word was inexorable: it was to no purpose that Harlequin suggested another and another. " At length, in a fit of despair, he pitched his head full in the dying man's stomach, and the word bolted out of his mouth to the most distant part of the house ! " Perhaps we shall be less surprised at the ready wit as- cribed to these maskers, if we consider more attentively the abstract nature of the characters they personated. " Two fathers, two lovers, with their respective mistresses, and three or four domestics, generally constituted the whole dramatis personae. To each was assigned a par- ticular station in life, to each was appropriated a given name, country, mask, and dress; while, in each company, the same actor invariably played the same part, and made it his sole study to catch the spirit, tone, and repartees provis^ entre un charlatan et son compere, prit peu a peu la forme d'une petite comedie. 134 FLORENCE. peculiar to that part. Stage tradition added a few other peculiarities: a certain movement of the head, for ex- ample, a certain accent, a certain gesture, which a fa- vourite actor might happen to have adopted in the char- acter either of Pan talon de' Bisognosi*, the Doctor Ba- lanzone, or the Harlequin and Brighella, became thence- forth the manner appropriated to that imaginary being. Every thing was chalked out for him beforehand; his character, his thoughts, his most trifling peculiarities. The actor had nothing to create: it was enough if he caught the true spirit of his part, as thus handed down to him. Each personage, as Schlegel ingeniously ob- serves in his Cows Dramatique, may be compared to a given piece at the game of chess, where the moves are all previously settled; and where a knight can never be played as a bishop or a castle. Nevertheless, with a li- mited number of men, thus subject to certain rules, the combinations in the game of chess are infinite; and, in like manner, those of the Commedie delF arte might also be infinite. " The less the actor was called upon to tax his inven- tion in the part he had to perform, the more might he be trusted for what he was to say. An actor who had never trod the stage but as the representative of Panta- * Pantalon de' bisognosi is derived from San Pantalon, a physi- cian, to whom a church is dedicated at Venice, and who, from re- lieving the necessitous, was styled iravra fXtijpuv. This was abridg- ed into Pantalon, and the de' bisognosi supplied the place of the truncated syllables. In conformity with this derivation, Pantaloon is always a compassionate character on the Venetian stage. THE DRAMA. 135 loon he who had all his life played the part of Harlequin was perhaps more safe from saying or doing any thing out of character than the author himself who composed the piece. Accordingly, the latter usually contented himself with a mere sketch: he brought two or three per- sonages together, just indicated what was to be the result of the dialogue, and trusted for the attainment of his end to the natural gaiety of the actors. Some of the best jokes, indeed, were previously composed, because brilliant re- partee was hardly to be expected on the spur of the moment; and some of the more laughable situations were preconcerted, because a single word too much from either of the actors might have changed the circumstances in which they were placed, either by extricating one of them out of a difficulty, or by revealing what required to be kept secret, or explaining some ludicrous mistake. Still, however, each actor might, without deranging the action, or impairing the interest, or interfering with the play of another, contrive to turn himself into ridicule. Pantaloon might harmlessly make a display of his child- ish good nature, the Doctor might betray his pedantry *, Brighella his cunning, and Harlequin his stolidity." * "The Doctor's character (says Addison, in conformity with the above"remark of Sismondi) comprehends the whole extent of a pedant, that with a deep voice, and a magisterial air, breaks in upon conversation, and drives down all before him: every thing he says is backed with quotations out of Galen, Hippocrates, Plato, Virgil, or any other author that comes uppermost; and all answers from his companions are looked upon as impertinences or interruptions. H ar- lequin's part is made up of blunders and absurdities : he is to mistake one name for another, to forget his errands, to stumble over queens, 136 FLORENCE. After all, however, it would seem that the wit of these repartees was very apt to evaporate upon a closer exa- mination. " The pleasantry was, it is true, without ma- lice, because each exposed his own vices, his own absur- dities, or his own stupidity; but it was also, for the most part, without wit or nature. It wanted wit, because each actor had no time for reflection, and could not foresee what he would have to contend with; and it wanted na- ture, because each exaggerated his part, in order to pro- duce effect*." In conformity with the above remark, Rose tells us, that " a collection of sayings, uttered by a certain actor in the character of Brighella, disappointed the expectations of the Venetian public. " Of these sallies," he continues, " which pleased on the stage, though not in the closet, it may be observed that they usually sin on the side of extravagance. May not, therefore, their immediate success be as fairly cited in evidence of the art of the wit, as the famous passage, quoted by Quintilian, in proof of the power of the orator? Every one knows, that, in alluding to a much applauded part of an oration, the fustian of which, consi- dered by itself, must be obvious to the least fastidious, he exclaims, * By what nice gradations must the orator have worked up the passions of his hearers ! how must he and to run his head against every post that stands in his way. This is all attended with something so comical in the voice and gestures, that a man who is sensible of the folly of the part can hardly forbear being pleased with it. Pantalone is generally an old cully, and Co- viello (Brighella) a sharper." * Sismondi Hist. Lit. Vol. ii. THE DRAMA. 137 have intoxicated their imaginations to make them receive for sublime that which, considered by itself, must be ac- knowledged to be bombast!" 5 " Tragedy, in the mean time, could not, like her sister, descend to the mob; and therefore sunk under the heavy coalition of her scholastic poets and gentlemen players. To rouse her from this lethargy, they applied the fatal remedy of music." Notwithstanding the truth of this remark of Forsyth's, it is probable that the aid of music was called in from the very revival of the drama. In all the earlier tragedies, choruses had been introduced after the manner of the Greeks, and these choruses were sung. Pastoral pieces were yeCmore constantly interspersed with airs, sung to music. Still, however, in all these compositions, music was but an accessory; it gave a finish to the entertain- ment, but did not constitute its essence. It was in the year 1594 that this order was, for the first time, reversed. Rinuccini a Florentine poet, far less distinguished by talent or invention than by the possession of a musical ear, which made him alive to all the melody of his native tongue composed, in concert with three musicians, Peri, Corsi, and Caccini, a drama founded on ancient mytho- logy, and intitled Daphne *, in which the three fine arts were destined to unite their charms. * Le premier essai de Rinuccini n'etait presque qu'une des meta- morphoses d'Ovide mise en dialogue. On voyait Apollon tuer le serpent Python, au moment ou ce monstre mettait en fuite les ber- gers et les nymphes. Tout orgueilleux de sa victoire, il brave 1' Amour qui, avec Venus, etait descendu sur la terre; le dieu enfant 138 FLORENCE. Rinuccini's Eurydice, composed in concert with the same three musicians, was represented for the first time in the year 1600, on occasion of the marriage of Henry IV. with Mary of Medicis. This was followed by his Ariadne, which, like the former, met with a very favourable recep- tion. The success of the opera was now assured; the different courts seemed eager to follow the example of Florence; the work was rendered more perfect; more action was given to the drama; more variety to the mu- sic; while the recitative itself was interspersed with airs. Duets and morceaux d? ensemble were also introduced; and, about a century after the commencement of the opera, Apostolo Zeno carried it, as it was thought, to all the perfection of which it was susceptible, till Metastasio came, and, by the force of genius, infused fresh life into the work of art. " Nothing so extravagantly unnatural as the opera has ever stood so long," says one critic*. " What can be sevenge; Apollon voit Daphne, il la poursuit; elle s'enfuit, et un messager vient raconter sa metamorphose. Quatre choeurs par- tagent en petits actes un petit drame, qui se compose au plus de quatre cent cinquante vers. Les choeurs, divises en couplets gra- cieux, semblent plus particulierement destines a la musique. Le reste de 1'opera etait probablement tout en recitatif : on n'y voit point d'ariettes detachees, inoins encore de duo ou de morceaux d'ensemble. Sismondi. * Forsyth. " For the opera," he continues, " Italians have erected their grandest theatres, invented a new system of deco- ration, instituted academies, and mutilated men. Music, though introduced only as an assistant to tragedy, soon became the prin- cipal; and any poetry was thought good enough for an enter- tainment where no poetry could be understood." Vos musicieus THE DRAMA. 139 more contrary to nature," says another*, " than the sing- ing a whole piece from beginning to end, as if the per- sons represented were ridiculously matched, and had agreed to settle in music both the most common and the most important affairs of life. Is it to be imagined that a master calls his servant, or sends him on an errand singing; that one friend imparts a secret to another sing- ing; that men deliberate in council, and that orders in the field of battle are given, singing; and that men are melodiously slain with swords and darts? This is the downright way to lose the life of representation, which without doubt is preferable to that of harmony; for har- mony ought to be no more than a bare attendant, and the great masters of the stage have introduced it as pleasing, not as necessary, after they have performed all that relates to the subject and discourse. Nevertheless, our thoughts run more upon the performers than the hero in the opera, and Viganoni and Morelli are seldom out of our minds. The mind not being able to conceive a hero that sings, runs to the actor or actress; and there is no"question, that, in our most fashionable operas, Banti and Bolla are a hundred times more thought of than Zenobia or Dido." These, it must be admitted, are fameux, says de Stael, disposent en entier de vos poetes; 1'un lui declare qu'il lie peut pas chanter s'il n'a dans son ariette le mot fe- licitd; le tenor demande la tomba; et le troisieme chanteurne peut faire des roulades que sur le mot catena il faut que le pauvre poete arrange ces gouts divers, comine il peut, avec la situation drama- tique. Corinne, Vol. i. * St. Evremond. 140 FLORENCE. plausible objections. The admirers of the opera, how- ever, ^might perhaps urge in its defence the same line of argument which Dr. Johnson used so triumphantly in defence of Shakspeare's violation of the unities. They might contend that a dialogue in recitative is but one degree more removed from nature than a dialogue in verse; and that the man who can imagine the heroes of a tragedy to converse in rhyme, may well imagine some- thing more: but that, in fact, the spectators are never for a moment deceived, never for a moment suppose that men deliberate in council, or give orders during battle, in recitative ;~in short, that " they are always in their senses, and know, from the first act to the last, that the stage is only a stage, and the players only players." The comic, like the serious opera, dates from the year 1597. It was founded on the Commedie dell' arte, and accordingly its principal personages are Harlequins, Bri- ghellas, and other masks of the Italian theatre*. The same Apostolo Zeno was also the author of some comic operas, in these, however, he evinced but little talent; nor has this kind of composition yet produced any distinguish- ed poet. Still it served to " pamper the two great ap- petites of the nation with music and buffoonery, and drew the upper classes of society away from poor prosaic Har- lequin, who sunk to the level of our Bartholomew fair." The seventeenth century was also very prolific of dra- * " The musical demon fell next upon comedy, and begot the mon- ster called opera buffa a composition more wretched, if possible, than the serious melo-drama." Forsyth. THE DRAMA. 141 matic Writers: tragedies, comedies, and pastorals, were recited in every court, and on every stage; but none of these numerous pieces would bear comparison with those either of the preceding or subsequent century. The tra- gedies of that age were devoid of all truth in the por- traiture of manners and character. Bloated in style and cold in action, they sin equally on the side of pedantry and bad taste, and are now only regarded as objects of curiosity, on account of the erudition they display. Not one of these pieces would now be heard to an end; not one of them could an author look to for novelty or ex- ample. The poet thought only of exciting the wonder of the spectators, by brilliance of decoration, and fre- quent change of scene: probability was sacrificed to the fondness for combats, and the desire of bringing cars, horses, and monsters, on the stage. The comedies of that age, too, were flat, vulgar, indigested compositions, manufactured solely for the mob; the pastorals grew con- tinually more and more insipid, more affected, and fuller of conceits; and if the opera was then the only spectacle in vogue, it was also the only one which deserved to be so. The Abbe Pietro Chiari, it is true, sought to bring about a revolution in the drama, and with this view com- posed ten volumes of comedies in verse, which for a time met with some success. But their very success only served to shew the complete depravation of the public taste. There is in them such a blending of the solemn and the flat, the trivial and the far-fetched, that they be- come at once ridiculous and tiresome. 14*2 FLORENCE. In this low state was the Italian theatre when Goldoni appeared, and succeeded in bringing about a revolution which others had attempted in vain. At the commence- ment of his career, Goldoni found the stage divided be- tween the Commedie erudite, and the Commedie delf arte. The first class comprised all those which their authors had elaborately concocted in the closet, consulting the rules of Aristotle rather than the taste of the public: of these some were pedantic imitations of the ancients; others, copies of these imitations; and others, copies from the French. The Commedie deW arte were either impromptu performances in the strict sense of the term, or mere skeletons of plays, the filling up of which was left to the actors. " Obliged, like Moliere, to acquiesce for a while in the established barbarisms*, Goldoni at first wrote for the old masks; but, introducing beauties which were foreign and unfit for them, he gradually re- fined the taste of the spectators, made them ashamed of their former favourites, and then ventured to exclude the * Goldoni, en exigeant de ses acteurs qu'ils recitassent ses pieces telles qu'il les ecrivait, et qu'ils n'improvisassent plus, se rapprocha cependant plus des comedies de 1'art qu'aucun de ceux qui, avant lui, avaient ecrit pour le theatre. II conserva, au moins dans la moitie" de ses pieces, tous les masques de la come'die Italienne; il leur laissa sans alteration le caractere que la tradition leur avait donne" ; et lorsqu'il cessa d'exercer sur les acteurs, par sa presence, une influence directe, ceux-ci recommencerent a improviser ; en sorte que, comme tous ceux qui sont venus apres lui ont abandonne" les masques, ses pieces sont aujourd'hui les seules oil 1'on entende en- core, en Italic, un acteur traiter son v61e comme un canevas. Sis- mondi. THE DRAMA. 148 whole Harlequin family. Chiari and his adherents cla- moured against this exclusion; but Goldoni has so com- pletely succeeded, that his own masked comedies are now banished from the stage*." " As regards comedy," says Sismondi, " Goldoni is now-a-days looked upon by the Italians as undisputed sovereign of the stage. His pieces, which evince an intimate acquaintance with the habits and character of his countrymen, always meet with an enthusiastic recep- tion. A thousand times during their performance have I heard the exclamation, Great Goldoni! resounding from every part of the house; although, his distinguish- ing faculty le naturel, la fidelite des moeurs et la gaiete does not exactly come up to the ideas we are apt to connect with the term greatness, or a great genius. We must, however, give him credit for no ordinary powers a fertility of invention, for example, which constantly supplied him with fresh subjects for comedy an extreme facility of composition, which more than once enabled him to finish, in the short space of five days, a comedy in five acts and in verse great sprightliness of dialogue, which is almost always appropriate, animated, and di- rected to its object a thorough knowledge of the man- ners of his countrymen, and a rare talent of painting them to the life in short, that drollery of which the Italians are so enamoured, which turns stupidity into ridicule, and never fails to provoke laughter. The names of his females are generic. His Rosaure is a sentimental girl, who is always a little in love, but * Forsyth. 144 FLORENCE. always submissive one who has a great inclination to be married, but a still greater to submit to paternal authority. His Beatrice, who is just the reverse of all this, betrays a vivacity, a wilfulness, a reckless gaiety, which contrasts strongly with the melancholy of Rosaure ; while sometimes she evinces a degree of effrontery but ill adapted to the female character. In many of Gol- doni's plays we meet with girls who, after having eloped from their parents, and followed their admirers from town to town, are made after all to bring their adventures to a successful issue a mode of proceeding neither con- sistent with fact, nor conducive to morality. " Nor is it solely with regard to love affairs that Goldoni makes his females play a part which does not belong to them; their character is equally misrepresented in other respects; their virtues and vices are alike exaggerated. His women are either angels or fiends: their portraits exhibit no gradation of light and shade. " The same observations apply to his men. Their dissi- mulation, and the little scruple with which they break their word, are among the failings with which Italians are most frequently reproached; and hence perhaps it is that a scrupulous regard to a promise once given is one of the virtues most frequently brought upon the stage. Yet this principle is, most ridiculously, extended to cases where a man can neither make nor keep the promise; cases which depend too much upon the will of others; as where a father engages to dispose of the hand and heart of a daughter. " In like manner is the virtue of honesty either strangely overcharged, or obtruded without delicacy: honest men THE DRAMA. 145 make such a parade of their honesty, make so many protestations that they will not lay hands on what belongs to another, that any where else distrust would infallibly be the consequence. " A literary person is always represented as an insuffer- able pedant: not that Goldoni wished to turn literary men into ridicule, but because literature was then at a low ebb in Italy; and because those whose time had been devoted to its cultivation, were but too often unfit- ted for polite society. His heroes are generally brag- garts, whose valour evaporates when put to the proof. Duels are by no means rare in his plays; yet we often find the duellist pondering whether it would not be wiser to assassinate his adversary. " But what Goldoni aimed at most of all was, to give an amusing but exaggerated picture of absurdity and vice. In general he knows well enough how to support the characters of his personages: this character betrays itself in every action, word, and gesture; but then, it is, for the most part, carried beyond all bounds. As society can hardly be said to exist in Italy, as opinion is there without force, and ridicule powerless, the vices and fail- ings of human nature shew themselves with a nakedness not to be met with elsewhere. Nevertheless, there are limits to which a comic author ought to restrict himself, for fear of exciting disgust instead of provoking laughter. For example, cowardice is, perhaps, the vice which of all others most provokes the risibility of the spectator; yet, in portraying it, Goldoni should have restricted it to those whom he meant to render ridiculous; whereas, VOL. I. L 146 FLORENCE. in more than one of his plays, he makes the men more arrant cowards than their mistresses. Perfidiousness and baseness, when carried to a certain extent, ought always to be excluded from the stage; where no personage, likely to be followed by the execrations of the spectators, ought ever to be admitted. Yet in the Two Twins, Pancrazio is a hypocrite, a paltry scoundrel, and a coward, who finishes by poisoning his rival, and that, too, with so little prospect of deriving advantage from his death, that the improbability of such a crime adds to the disgust which it inspires." In general, this author deals but little in the sentimen- tal. He seldom takes his heroes or heroines from ro- mance. He portrays them with all their defects, and does his utmost to raise a laugh at their expense; labouring to shew how often their generosity is debased by egotism, their friendship by self-interest, their admiration by envy; thus endeavouring, on all occasions, to exhibit human nature in an unfavourable point of view. Goldoni's ignorance of the manners of foreign coun- tries frequently betrayed him into the most ludicrous mistakes; witness his Pamela Maritata of which the scene is laid in London where a cabinet minister is made to wait on Lord Bonfil, on the part of the king, to prohibit him from divorcing his wife. This sort of ignor- ance, however, is common to him with the rest of his fellow dramatists, " who," as Sismondi observes, " are but too fond of attempting to describe what they are unacquainted with camps which they never entered courts which they never saw countries in which they THE DRAMA. 147 never once set foot. Happily for them, they met with spectators even more ignorant than themselves, who always took their pictures for resemblances; for this very reason, that they were totally unlike any thing they had ever witnessed before." By furnishing his company with finished pieces, and prohibiting them from adding any thing of their own, Gol- doni had effected a change in the Italian theatre, which proved fatal to the Commedie dell' arle. It happened that a company, known by the name of the Compagnia Sacdti, composed of the most distinguished performers, every one of whom possessed in an eminent degree that sort of ex- temporary wit adapted to his part, found themselves, by the desertion of the different authors, reduced to the most abject poverty. These Pantaloons, Harlequins, and Brighellas, hitherto so much admired, had now no longer an opportunity of availing themselves of their talents: they still strove to maintain their ground against Goldoni's company, which had far less drollery and origin- ality to boast of; but the contest was too unequal. Their exasperation against Goldoni and the Abbe Chiari who was still in some vogue, and who, with his bloated Mar*- tettian* verses, still disputed the possession of the stage with the Venetian advocate was extreme. Gozzi at length resolved to vindicate the claims of this national comedy, this popular drollery, which he regretted to see * The Martellian verse is an imitation of the Alexandrine, and was first introduced into Italian poetry by Martelli, from whom it derived its name. L2 148 FLORENCE. going out of fashion. His delicate ear was wearied with those Alexandrines which, in contempt of the genius and prosody of the Italian tongue, had occupied the stage for more than twenty years: his taste was shocked by the perplexed and bloated style of Chiari, that genuine dis- ciple of the Seicentisti : his national pride made him rebel against that authority which the French sought to arro- gate over literary works; he detested their mock philoso- phy, and eagerly seized the first opportunity of turning it into ridicule. It was in the year 1761 that he com- posed, for the Sacchi Company, his skeleton, intitled The Three Oranges; trusting for its success to the imagin- ation and ingenuity of those witty actors, who, being moreover stimulated by their enmity towards those whom they parodied, on this occasion outdid all their previous efforts. " The scene of The Three Oranges is laid at the court of the King of Diamonds, who, being the exact counterpart of the grotesque images we see on playing- cards, treads the stage with all the majesty and gravity of a buffoon. Tartaglia, the hereditary Prince of Dia- monds, is just at the point of death; his disorder is a settled melancholy, induced by the spells of a malicious enchanter (the Abbe Chiari), who is in the act of poisoning him, as it were drop by drop, with Martellian verse. This enchanter is seconding the ambition of the Knave of Diamonds and his mistress Clarissa, Queen of Spades, who hope to succeed to the crown. Tartaglia cannot be restored to health except he can be made to laugh; and with this view another enchanter (Goldoni) THK DRAMA. 149 has despatched to the court a black mask, Truffaldino, who does his utmost to provoke the laughter of the Prince. Thus far the piece was an undisguised satire on Goldoni and Chiari. When it was brought out, the actors took care to mimic their language and turn of thought; paro- dying the bloated and affected style of Chiari, and the low phrases of Goldoni. The other personages were all of them caricatures borrowed from the works of the same authors, while the actors took a malicious pleasure in ex- aggerating pictures which the spectators took an equally malicious pleasure in applying. " This parody, however, involving in its principle the supposition of charms, the author naturally sought to turn to account the stories current on the subject. Accord- ingly he made choice of a fairy tale well known at Venice The Love of the Three Oranges. Tartaglia, being at length cured of his melancholy by a violent fit of laughter, becomes inflamed with a desire of carrying off the Three Oranges, guarded in the castle of the fairy Creonta, whose history had already been related to him during his illness. His journey in order to discover them, his success, and all the wonderful events that follow, were meant as the vehicle of a succession of satirical allusions to the various pieces of Goldoni and Chiari. Gozzi, while present at the performance, was astonished to see how much the whole house was delighted with the mar- vellous part of the shew, to which he himself had paid but little attention, and which consisted of nothing more than a scenic representation of the story, exactly as the old women and nurses of the day retailed it to children. 150 FLORENCE. The fairy Creonta cries out to her dog: Tear in pieces the plunderer of my oranges! and the dog replies: Why should I tear to pieces one who has given me something to eat, while you have suffered me to pine with hunger for so many months and years? The fairy cries to the rope at the well: Bind the plunderer of my oranges ! and the rope lifts itself up and replies: Why should I bind one who has laid me out in the sun to dry, while for so many months and years you left me to rot in a corner? Again, the fairy calls out to the iron gate of the castle: Close, and crush the plunderer of my oranges ! and the gate re- plies: Why should I crush one who has oiled me, while for so many months and years you suffered me to be de- voured by rust? During the whole of this dialogue, the audience, mute with attention and delight, devoured with eyes and ears a marvellous fiction with which every one present was acquainted, and at length broke out into thunders of applause. Their delight was redoubled at sight of the wonders that followed, when Truffaldino, cutting asunder two of the oranges, out came two lovely girls, who soon died of thirst; and when Tartaglia, cutting asunder a third beside a fountain, out came a beautiful princess, to whom he forthwith gave a draught of the water, and who was destined to be his wife; not, however, without incurring fresh dangers; for, while still in sight of the spectators, she is transformed into a dove, nor is it till a considerable time afterwards that she recovers her natural form. " Thus did Gozzi learn, by mere chance, the vast ad- vantage to be derived from the love of the people for the THE DRAMA. 151 marvellous, from the wonderment excited in the specta- tors by transformations and sleight-of-hand on a large scale; in a word, from that interest always excited by the tales to which we have been accustomed in infancy. While the Compagnia Sacchi was enriching itself by suc- cessive representations of the Three Oranges, Gozzi en- tered in good earnest on the path thus indicated to him. He brought out, one after another, those fairy tales that appeared to him the most showy, while the public ap- peared more and more delighted by the splendour of the decorations, the skilful contrivance of the machinery, the sprightliness of the actors, and more especially the wit, and not unfrequently the interest, which the author knew how to infuse into old stories, which became under his hands tragi-comedies, alternately ludicrous and affect- ing*." Comedy had now made considerable progress in Italy, while tragedy had remained almost stationary. With the single exception of Maffei's Meropef, the Italian lan- guage had not, previous to Alfieri, a tragedy that would now draw an audience. A new play scarcely survived * Sismondi. Goldoni was so deeply mortified at the success of Gozzi's parodies, that, abandoning both his country and his native tongue, he retired to Paris, where he employed himself in the com- position of French plays. f The Merope was brought out at Modena in 1713, and met with unparalleled success, having gone through no less than sixty editions. The author's own manuscript is still preserved as a sacred relic. The Merope may be said to be the work of a tasteful scholar rather than of an inspired poet; exempt, indeed, from striking defects, but exhibiting few passages of peculiar beauty. 152 FLORENCE. the year of its birth, and hence the players were obliged to have recourse to Metastasio's operas, which they re- cited, omitting the airs. " But," as Forsyth justly observes, " verses composed for a composer of music are not the lan- guage of men speaking to men; nor can much passion be excited by speeches so antithetical, so balanced, and so measured as those of Metastasio." From that unvary- ing similarity of manners, that exaggeration of character, and that happy winding up of the catastrophe, which dis- tinguish Metastasio's works, there results a most weari- some monotony. After reading one opera of his we may form a tolerable notion of all the rest, and, when once acquainted with his manner, may almost always foresee, from the very commencement of the piece, both the nature of the plot and the denouement. The tragic opera of Italy may be said to be conceived almost upon the plan of the Commedie delP arte. Both of them exhibit but a given number of masks ; each of which is the pro- totype of one unvarying character the tyrant, or the virtuous prince the impetuous hero, or the timid lover the traitor, or the faithful friend. These unchangeable personages Metastasio invests, at random, with the name and dress of Greek or Roman, Persian or Scythian : this, however, is all he gives them of the people whose name he makes them bear, and, without any other change than that of costume, the same opera would apply just as well to their antipodes*. * Metastase, says de Stael, que Ton vante comme le poete de 1'amour, donne a cette passion, dans tous les pays, dans toutes les THE DRAMA. 153 " Metastasio is the poet of love, Alfieri the poet of liber- ty. All his plays (says Sismondi) have a political end; all owe their eloquence, their warmth, and movement to this sentiment, which was ever uppermost in his mind. From the beginning to the end of his pieces, we have continually before our eyes the enemy of tyrants, the enemy of every abuse, nay the enemy of every recognised authority; while, owing to the constant inflation and affected brevity of his style, the expression of these sentiments betrays often as much sameness as the sentiments themselves. Alfieri was destitute of that liveliness and versatility of fancy, which can alone enable an author to identify him- self with his hero, and enter completely into his feelings. Hence he is sadly wanting in variety, and often falls into the monotonous. " Alfieri was a rigorous observer of the unities; not merely as regards time and place, but action also. His plan was, in each piece, to bring into view one single action, to confine himself to the developement of one sin- gle passion; to place these distinctly before his audience at the very outset of the piece, and never to lose sight of them till its close; not to permit a moment's distraction, and to reject, as subversive of the interest, every per- sonage, every event, every discourse not essentially con- situations, la mme couleur. (Corinne, i. 249). His principal merit is the art with which he combines simplicity of expression with all the elevation and richness of lyric poetry. II sut trouver dans les mots, dans la langue, une harmonie ravissante, que les plus sublimes ac- cords de Pergolese devaient se contenter de conserver fidelement. Sismondi. 154 FLORENCE. nected with the action, or conducive to the progress of the scene. In this way, dispensing with confidants, and other subordinate characters, he contrived to reduce almost all his tragedies to four principal personages; and in like manner, by suppressing every line that was foreign to the action, he rendered them shorter than those of any other poet; and seldom extended them beyond four- teen hundred lines." " Alfieri is," according to Forsyth, " the Italian poet most difficult to Italians themselves. His tragedies are too patriotic and austere for the Tuscan stage. Their construction is simple, perhaps too simple too sparing of action and of agents. Hence his heroes must often soliloquize*; he must often describe what a Shakspeare would represent, and this to a nation immoderately fond of picture. Every thought, indeed, is warm, proper, energetic; every word is necessary and precise; yet this very strength and compression, being new to the lan- guage and foreign to its genius, have rendered his style inverted, broken, and obscure; full of ellipses and eli- * Alfieri, though fond of soliloquies, studiously abstained from asides; and, in the opinion of Sismondi, .not without reason. Le soliloque, says he, laisse pe"ne"trer nos regards dans le coeur des personnages, comme la toile qu'on leve les laisse penetrer dans des appartemens qui, cependant, sont supposes fermes a tons les yeux. Les soliloques, sous ce rapport, sont beaucoup moins choquans que les aparles, dans lesquels la reflexion intime est devoilee au specta- teur, en opposition le plus souvent avec la parole, sans qu'aucune passion puisse excuser cette voix involontaire ; et lorsque celui qui parle ainsi a demi-voix expose son existence meme pour instruire le spectateur. ii. 450. THE DRAMA. 155 sions; speckled even to affectation with Dantesque terms; without pliancy, or flow, or variety, or ease." Alfieri's mode of composing, such as he himself de- scribes it, will serve to account for his merits and his defects. " He never seems," says Rose, " to have known what it was To feed on thoughts which, voluntary, move Harmonious numbers. Casting and recasting, copying and recopying, condens- ating and cutting down, may not his operations, both in the process and result, be compared to those of the dis- tiller, who reduces the wine on which he works to a concentrated and ardent spirit, which, however, remains without colour, flavour, or perfume?" Alfieri found many imitators; but among them all the most celebrated are Monti and Niccolini. The Aristo- demus of the former, and the Polyxenes of the latter, are justly reckoned among the most affecting tragedies in the Italian language *. * For a more detailed notice of these pieces, the reader is referred to Sismondi's Literary History. To the same work also he is re- ferred for a particular account of the comedies of Federici, Rossi, and Giraud: all that can be given here is a general character of their works. Of Federici, Sismondi remarks : C'est rarement par la gaiete de 1'esprit ou la sensibilite du coeur qu'il excite le rire ou 1'interet, mais plutot par le piquant des situations. Son dialogue est lourd, monotone, et peu naturel; ses plaisanteries sont ameres : lorsqu'il veut etre sentimental, il est le plus souvent pedantesque ou affecte; mais, en general, il noue son intrigue d'une maniere ori- ginale ; il conduit bien son petit roman, il soutient I'int^ret par la 156 FLORENCE. " The players," observes Forsyth, " seem to keep pace with the poets in improvement. As if ashamed of their descent from the * maschere dell' arte,' they have re- nounced the rant and buffoonery of the old stage, and affect a temperance bordering upon tameness. Yet still degraded in society, and everywhere rated below the warbling wethers of the opera, they claim no respect for an art which denies them the rank and emolument of liberal artists; they style it only recitation; they expose, like showmen in the streets, their scenes ' painted upon a pole and underwrit;' and they close each performance with a long imploring invitation to the next." The theatrical year is divided into four or five seasons. Each season brings a different company of performers to each theatre. The heterogeneous composition of these curiosite plus encore que par le sentiment, et il sait trouver la surprise qui fait rire. Of Rossi he says : Quand on raconte ses pieces, elles paraissent parfaitement plaisantes ; chaque caractere est original; leur rencontre, leur opposition, les developpent re"ciproque- ment; les evenemens sont inattendus et cependant naturels, et le denouement met la derniere main a la satire. Quand on a fini, on trouve qu'on aurait du lire; mais nul part 1'auteur n'a su trouver de ces mots heureux qui donnent en quelque sorte le signal de 1'eclat de rire, et qui entrainent le parterre. La gaiete de Gherardo de' Rossi est toute re'fle'chie; elle n'est point assez spontanee pour se communiquer. Of Giraud, a gentleman of French extraction, he observes: On trouve dans ses pieces la bonhommie Italienne et la finesse Franaise : ses intrigues ont un mouvement et une gaiete qui semblent propres aux peuples du Midi; mais ses personnages, meme dans les situations les plus bouffonnes, conservent un melange de dignite', dont le gout Fran$ais ne permet jamais 1'abandon absolu. Vol. ii. 408, &c. THE DRAMA. 157 various corps may be reckoned among the many second causes which have impeded the growth and progress of the Italian drama. Almost every town in Italy boasts its theatre, the ma- nagement of which is undertaken by individuals, who re- cruit, how they can, and often at very small bounties, from almost every province. " The effect of this system,' says Rose, " is, in some degree, the same as would be produced by a dramatic conscription from the different counties of England. Let an Englishman, therefore, conceive a Hamlet soliloquizing in broad Yorkshire, and he may guess at the feelings of a Florentine on hearing the lyrical effusions of a David from Bergamo. The Italians are very indulgent with regard to accent; but I have heard as strong disgust expressed in Florence at the barbarous pronunciation of Milan, as a well-educated Londoner would feel at the whine of Devonshire, or the burr of Northumberland." The scene is so often laid in England*, that one would expect to see some attempt at propriety of cos- tume. " I have seen in one and the same evening," says Forsyth, "a Venetian senator with a foreign order, a pale-faced Othello habited as a Turk, our prince Hal in a Spanish dress, and Poins in a round hat, blue coat, and silk stockings. Their scenery often corresponds with their dress. HI painted, ill set, inappropriate, rumpled, * II y a sur le theatre Italien un Tom Jones, une Clarice, et un grand nombre d'autres pieces ou les noms pretendus Anglais, et les mceurs pretendues Anglaises, conviennent a la Chine comme an Japon. Sismondi, Hist. Lit. ii; 407. 158 FLORENCE. ragged and slit, it presents its strolling poverty in the face of the noblest architecture. No illusion can be at- tempted on a stage where the prompter rises in the front, and reads the whole play as audibly as his strutting echoes, who, from their incessant, change of parts, can be perfect in none. " Benefits are allowed only to the chief performers. A prima donna is bound to call on all the gentry of the place to solicit their attendance, and on the evening al- lotted to her she sits greedily at the receipt of custom, bowing for every crown that is thrown on her tea-tray. The price of a ticket to the pit is but three or four pauls; nor will this appear so low, when you consider the short roll of actors, their small salaries, their mean wardrobe, and the cheap composition of an orchestra, where noble- men volunteer their fiddles with the punctuality of hire- lings." Italians seem to look upon the theatre chiefly as a pleasant place of resort, where, as de Stael phrases it, nothing but " the ballet is listened to," for then only it is that the pit is silent. The post of honour in a box is not that which commands the best view of the stage, but that from which the occupant can be best seen by the audience: here visits are made., and here, too, occa- sionally, little entertainments are given. 159 VALLOMBROSA CAMALDOLI LA VERNA. Presentiorem et conspicimus Deum Per invias rupes, fera per juga, Clivosque praeruptos, sonantes Inter aquas, nemorumque noctem. GRAY. AMONG the objects of interest in the neighbourhood of Florence, the three sanctuaries, Vallombrosa, Camaldoli, and La Verna, must not be forgotten. The first of these, Once called " Sweet Waters," now the " Shady Vale," seated in a sequestered spot about twenty miles from Florence, derived its former name of Acqua Bella from the beauty of its stream, as it derives its present one from the wooded valley which leads up to it. Ariosto lauds it for its wealth, and the courteous reception it was wont to afford to strangers*; while Milton, in a passage, of which the beauties are familiar to every reader, celebrates it for the charms of its scenery. Eustace, however, seems to doubt whether Pope has not furnished us with a truer * Vallombrosa Cosi fu nominata uua badia Ricca e bella, non men religiosa, E cortese a chiunque vi venia. 160 VALLOMBROSA. description of it in the following passage of his epistle from Eloisa to Abelard: The darksome pines that o'er yon rocks reclined Wave high, and murmur to the hollow wind, The wandering streams that shine between the hills, The grots that echo to the tinkling rills, The dying gales that pant upon the trees, The lakes that quiver to the curling breeze But o'er the twilight groves and dusky caves, Long-sounding aisles and intermingled graves, Black Melancholy sits, and round her throws A death-like silence, and a dead repose : Her gloomy presence saddens every scene, Shades every flower, and darkens every green ; Deepens the murmur of the falling floods, And breathes a browner horror o'er the woods. On the other hand, Forsyth will have it that the amphi- theatre of hills in which the abbey stands is so accu- rately described by Milton, that the picture in his mind could only be a recollection of Vallombrosa, which Crowns with her enclosure green, As with a rural mound, the champaign head Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild, Access denied ; and overhead upgrew Insuperable height of loftiest shade, Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm ; A sylvan scene, and as the ranks ascend Shade above shade, a woody theatre Of stateliest view. VALLOMBROSA. 161 On comparing these two passages, it would be difficult to say in what Pope's has the advantage, unless it be in its length. In neither case ought we to look for an ac- curate description of all the various elements of the land- scape the dell the waterfall the convent the lawn the woods and the mountains. Yet Milton's lines convey by far the most definite idea to the mind; nor is there any thing in them, as Williams justly observes, " so unlike the original, as ' The lakes that quiver to the curling breeze,' not even the ' cedar and the branching palm.' Lakes there are none, and palms there are none; but I can more easily conceive a palm than a lake among the sylvan scenes of Vallombrosa. Then, again, the winding streams that shine between the hills, though they glitter very prettily in the poet's page, have no reference to the deep ravines, hiding the fretful brooks in gloomy shade. In short, our imaginations were so raised by the various descriptions of Vallombrosa, both in verse and prose, that we felt a little disappointed with the general view of the place itself. " The poet and the painter," he continues, " in their descriptions, seem to view natural scenery in a different manner. Both, however, must be charmed with the magnificence and splendour of the wooded mountains of Vallombrosa. But the poet, in his description, selects detached parts which may not be seen together, combin- ing them so as to give what he conceives to be a general idea of the whole. The painter, on the other hand, though he may also select, must make his representation VOL I. M 162 VALLOMBROSA. a faithful portrait, strictly referable to his subject. He, therefore, is more particular in his examination of the component parts, in order to judge whether they may be favourable for picture; whether the details, and the great characteristic features, are in unison with each other. In this respect, the painter may not be altogether satisfied with the general appearance of Vallombrosa. The uni- form curved lines of the hills, the formal building*, the regular pavement, are all against the sentiment inspired by the poet, or the florid describer, and certainly not compatible with the ideal beauty in the painter's mind; yet the latter, in his representation of the scene, has to contend with these, and I doubt whether there be any point of view in which the sanctuary, with ' the darksome pines that o'er its rocks recline,' can be taken so as to answer the expectations excited by the poet. But what painter, on seeing Vallombrosa, would not confess that parts of the scenery are fully equal to the finest description, and that he could select such as might enable him to produce a composition which would be striking and sublime? But * Poets and painters are not the only persons who view the same objects through a different medium. The Abbey of Vallombrosa, that" formal building," as Williams calls it, is described by Forsyth as " a large, loose pile, of various construction, and regular only in one front. Why (continues he) is no convent to be found absolutely regular? Surely one quadrangle might be made sufficient for all the wants of a few monks. Allot three sides to their cells, the fourth to the general offices, refectory, library, &c., and insulate the church in the middle of the court ; then would the result be cloisteral, con- nected, uniform ; Religion surrounded with her votaries; the taber- nacle in the bosom of the camp!" CAMALDOLI. 103 would it be Vallombrosa? Yet it is by similar means that the poet makes his beguiling pictures." In the museum are preserved, among other curiosities connected with the place, all the pastoral staves that the abbots have borne since Gualberti founded the order. The oldest of these is a plain black stick, with a head formed like a T; the head of the next resembles an adze; that of the next an adze without its pole ; the rest in suc- cession bend gradually into a crosier. On one of the cliffs is a small building, consisting of a chapel and a few rooms, called the Paradisino. It is a monastery in miniature, and derives its name from its situ- ation, commanding a distant view of Florence, the Val- darno, and the sea. On the edge of a precipice, close to the path leading from the abbey to the Paradisino, is a rock, the history of which is as follows: Gualberti, while at his devotions, was once attacked by the devil, and compelled to fly; but being closely followed by his adversary, who was now just at his heels, and about to hurl him over the precipice, he took refuge under a rock, which, yielding to his pressure, retained him as it were in a mould, and screened him from his cloven-footed foe, who in his haste fell headlong over him into the abyss. CAMALDOLI. From Vallombrosa, the region of the fir and the larch, the road gradually winds down through a forest of oak and beech, till it once more reaches the country of the olive and fig-tree, traversing the rich and verdant vale of Prato Vecchio. At a short distance from Prato Vecchio commences the ascent of the barren moun- M 2 164 CAMALDOLI. tains leading to Camaldoli, whose water-worn and chan- nelled sides " suggest the idea of their having been skinned, the bones and muscles being exposed to view." In the midst of this desolate region, in a deep and wooded dell, is seated Camaldoli, like an oasis in the desert. The monastery itself, a large, irregular building, erected at different periods, is looked upon as a sort of privileged retreat, being appropriated to the sick or the superan- nuated, the dignitary or the steward, the apothecary or the bead-turner. Higher up the mountain, about two miles distant from the monastery, is the Santo Eremo* a city of hermits walled round, and divided into streets of low detached cells, with a garden appropriated to each where, in the eleventh century, St. Romuald himself passed a portion of his life, and established De' tacenti cenobiti il coro, L' arcane penitenze, ed i digiuni Al Camaldoli suo. * Each cell consists of two or three naked rooms, built exactly on the plan of the Saint's own tenement, which remains just as Ro- mualdo left it 800 years ago, now too sacred and too damp for a mortal tenant .... The unfeeling Saint has here established a rule which anticipates the pains of purgatory. No stranger can behold without emotion a number of noble, interesting young men bound to stand erect chaunting at choir for eight hours a day their faces pale, their heads shaven, their beards shaggy, their backs raw, their legs swollen, and their feet bare. With this horrible institute the climate conspires in severity, and selects from society the best constitutions. The sickly novice is cut off in one or two winters, the rest are subject to dropsy, and few arrive at old age. Forsyth, Vol. i. LA VERNA. 165 Above the Santo Eremo tower the heights of Falte- rona, one of which, styled by the peasant the Giant of the Apennines, is said by Ariosto to command a view of both seas. LA \tERNA. About fourteen miles from Camaldoli is the third sanctuary, La Verna, founded by St. Francis himself, amidst the fantastic cliffs and pinnacles of one of the most aspiring Apennines, on the very spot where, as Dante sings, Infra Tever ed Arno, Da Christo prese 1' ultimo sigillo; Che le sue membra due anni portarno, the Saint received the stigmata or five wounds of Christ. Dante might well apply the epithet "crude sasso" to this rugged spot. " Here," observes Forsyth, " reigns all the terrible of nature a rocky mountain, a ruin of the elements, broken, sawn, and piled in sublime con- fusion precipices crowned with old, gloomy, visionarj woods black chasms in the rock, where curiosity shud- ders to look down haunted caverns, sanctified by mira- culous crosses long excavated stairs that restore you to daylight." The wildness and sublimity of the scenery seem, indeed, to vindicate the choice of the Saint, for nothing can be imagined better fitted to dispose the mind to religious meditation. The precise spot where St. Francis received the stig- mata guarded from profanation by a railing is still shewn in the chapel of that name. " The whole hill, indeed, is legendary ground. Here the seraphic father 166 LA VERNA. was saluted by two crows, which still haunt the convent; there the devil hurled him down a precipice, yet was not permitted to bruise a bone of him*." Pulchra Laverna, Da mihi fallere, da justum sanctumque videri! But enough of the three sanctuaries; in each of which we may observe something to censure, and something to commend. While we admit the hospitality of the richly endowed anchorites of Vallombrosa and Camaldoli, we may well question the utility of that kind of hospitality which " feeds poor men, but keeps them poor." While we acknowledge, that, wherever there is misery, the poor Franciscans are found endeavouring to allay it mixing intimately with the peasantry as counsellors, comforters, and friends we cannot but reprobate a system of men- dicity, which, authorizing those to beg who ought rather to work, sends forth its holy vagrants at stated periods to levy contributions for the support of the fraternity. Among the former, we are offended by useless and un- meaning austerities; among the latter, we are frequently disgusted by mummery and grimace. Still, whatever may be the merits or demerits of these monastic estab- lishments, there is, it must be confessed, something very striking in their duration. " Kingdoms and empires rise and fall around them governments change dynasties flourish and fade manners and dress undergo continual alterations, and languages themselves die away and give * Forsyth. LA VERNA. 1G7 place to new modes of speech. Enter the gates of Ca- maldoli or La Verna the torrent of time stands still you are carried back to the sixth or tenth century you see the manners and habits, and hear the language of those distant periods you converse with another race of beings, unalterable in themselves though placed among mortals as if appointed to observe and record the vicis- situdes from which they are exempt*:" From their retreats, calmly contemplating The changes of the earth, themselves unchanged. ROGKRS. * Eustace. 168 GENERAL ASPECT AND AGRICULTURE OF TUSCANY. Hie segetes, illic veniunt felicius uvse; Arborei foetus alibi. VIRG. THAT distinction which Nature has everywhere made between plain, hill, and mountain, is perhaps more mark- ed in Tuscany than in any other country, as well from the difference in the condition of the peasantry as from the difference in the culture and produce of the soil. PLAIN. Many of the plains of Tuscany are perfectly level, and look as though they had once formed the bottom of a lake, whose waters at length found vent and disappeared, leaving no other vestige of their existence than the rich mould which they had been for ages de- positing. In some instances the mould thus deposited is from seven to eight feet in depth. Such levels are, for the most part, remarkable for their fertility; but there are exceptions, owing to this circumstance, that they are in general lower than the beds of the rivers by which they are watered the latter being confined to their channels by dikes of considerable height. The level of the Tuscan sea being too high to receive the waters of the different rivers that flow into it, especially during the prevalence of a south wind, it has been found necessary to inclose the rivers between lofty dikes, to prevent them from inundating the plains. These dikes, GENERAL ASPECT, &C. 169 too, require to be raised continually higher and higher, either because the beds of the rivers become more and more elevated by successive deposites, or because the Mediterranean itself becomes so. Notwithstanding these precautions, when the rains have been unusually heavy, or when a strong south wind has continued to blow for any great length of time, disastrous floods still occur. Nor are such floods the only mischief occasioned by these streams. Their waters being always above the level of the adjacent plains, they not unfrequently soak through the dikes, and thus convert the most fertile tract into a barren swamp. In soils which are rendered cold by this kind of soakage, the vine and the mulberry, after having for a few years yielded fruit of an acrid taste, rot and die away. Wheat, too, is found to rot away in the same manner: the very herbage becomes too sour for the cattle to eat; and the farmer is at length compelled to abandon the unprofitable task of cultivation. The method employed to reclaim a swamp is called a colmata. The rains, which fall with great violence in Italy, usually carry along with them a vast quantity of earth from the sides of the mountains. Streams, which at other times seem almost lost in a wide tract of sand and gravel, suddenly expand into broad torrents loaded with mud; covering a bed which nobody would have dreamed had been intended for them, and rushing furi- ously against dikes, which a superficial observer would have deemed useless. The mud thus held in solution is carried down to the mouths of the rivers, where it forms sand-banks which impede their exit into the sea. 170 GENERAL ASPECT It was a happy idea, therefore, to cause these torrents to repair the mischief which they had themselves occa- sioned, by penning their waters, and forcing them to deposite upon the plains the mud which obstructed their course. The plan adopted is this to inclose the low grounds by a dike, similar to those by which the rivers themselves are confined to their channels; and then to make a breach in the banks of the stream somewhat higher up, in order that when charged with mud it may pour its waters into the inclosure prepared for them. Here the waters are suffered to remain till they become clear, and an opportunity is then taken to sluice them off into the lower part of the river when its bed happens to be nearly dry. This operation is repeated as often as convenient during the year, and, as three or four inches of mud are frequently deposited at a time, at the end of three or four years the plain becomes sufficiently elevated to be out of the reach of ordinary floods; and, what was before a mere morass, is thus converted into a tract of indescribable fertility. The most extensive colmate in Tuscany are those of the plain of Pisa, the work of a fraternity of Carthusians those of the Val di Nievole, the work of the Marquis Ferroni and that of the Val di Chiana, conducted under the auspices of the Knights of St. Stephen; who have thus rendered that marshy district one of the most productive in the whole Duchy. Generally speaking, the Tuscan farmers more espe- cially those of the hills are metayers, the conditions on which they hold their farms being the following: to cultivate the lands at their own cost, and to furnish the AND AGRICULTURE OF TUSCANY. 171 wood necessary to prop the vines to find half the seed and half the manure to reserve one half of all the pro- duce for the landlord, or to sell it on his account to divide with him the profit arising from the cattle, and to supply him with a given quantity of poultry and eggs*. The landlord, on his part, has to provide the other half of the seed and manure to be at the sole expense of improvements and repairs and to supply props for such vines as are fresh planted. The only peculium of the farmer is the produce of his hives. The farmers of the plain of Pescia are for the most part proprietors of livelli or life-leases. On consideration of a fixed annual rent, sometimes paid in money, some- times in kind, they hold these leases for four successive generations. At the expiration of the term, they who hold under the Grand Duke, or under a religious frater- nity, are allowed to renew for four generations more, by paying fifteen per cent, on the value of the land, without any increase of rent. They who hold under private in- dividuals are generally permitted to renew on pretty much the same terms. Like other property, these leases are alienable; indeed, owing to their requiring a smaller outlay, they are oftener in the market than property of any other kind. Hence this tenantry, having every pos- sible inducement to augment the value of their farms, * The younger Pliny pursued the same plan, and sets it in its true light: Non nummo sed partibus locem, ac deinde ex meis ali- quos operis exactores fructibus ponam. Est alioquin nulliun justius genus reditus quam quod terra, crelum, annus refert; at hoc mag- nam fidem, acres oculos, numerosas maims poscit. 172 GENERAL ASPECT are generally the most industrious and the wealthiest of their class. In the plain of Pescia there are some farmers who hold their lands only for a term of years : there are also some few -metayers. These latter are always the poorest and least industrious among the farmers*; and, as they form the largest number in all the other plains of Tuscany, there is none so well cultivated as the Val di Nievole. The farmers on the plain being the largest holders are almost the only ones who call in the aid of servants f. Even in these cases, however, the farms may, in great measure, be said to be tilled in the patriarchal style by the brothers, sisters, and children of the farmer. " No- thing is more natural," says Sismondi, " than that the children should submit to paternal authority, and, by their labour, endeavour to make some return for the care * II y a un fort grand inconvenient attache* a la culture par me"- tayers et a leur misere; c'est que ceux-ci, trop pauvres pour prendre des ouvriers, cherchent a faire eux seuls tous les ouvrages de la cam- pagne, d'oii il rsulte qu'il n'y en a aucun de fait a terns. Sis- mondi, Agriculture. Toscane. f Les fermiers de la plaine, quelques riches qu'ils soient, se nour- rissent, ainsi que leurs ouvriers et domestiques, avec la plus stricte economic. Jusqu'au mois de Mai, leur boisson n'est que de la piquette : a cette e"poque seulement, ils entament leurs vins, qui ne valent guere mieux. Ils n'ont de viande sur leur table que les dimanches. Des trois repas qu'ils font les autres jours, 1'un est presque toujours compost de la bouillie de ble' de Turquie; un autre de pain et de haricots assaisonne avec de 1'huile ; et le troisieme de soupe. Sismondi. " Negligent of their own dress, they take a pride in the flaring silks and broad ear-rings of their wives and daughters." Forsyth. AND AGRICULTURE OF TUSCANY. 173 and expense bestowed in bringing them up; but what may well excite our surprise is, to find that, on the death of the father, the eldest son becomes master of the fa- mily, takes charge of all monies without rendering any account to his brothers, and disposes of their labour, as well as of the produce of the farm, without consulting them; finding them food and raiment, but no money; and yet these brothers seem to agree perfectly well to- gether, without ever murmuring at this whimsical arrange- ment, and without envying the lot of the first-born." The fields are usually laid out in the form of a paral- lelogram, about a hundred feet wide and four or five hundred feet long: these are surrounded by a ditch, on the borders of which are planted poplars for the support of the vine: in general also two rows of mulberry trees traverse each field longitudinally. As the oxen are al- ways shut up in the stalls, and never go out but to labour, inclosures are scarcely necessary in Tuscany, except as a defence against thieves. Hence, though one field is seldom separated from another by a hedge, whether the two fields belong to the same farmer or not; yet the highways are carefully bordered by fences of all sorts, to prevent the passengers from trespassing. The large ditches which serve to drain off the superfluous waters from the plains, as well as the canals for irrigating them, form in general a sufficient barrier against trespassers. When, however, the grapes begin to ripen, as a further precaution, the ditches are bordered with a dead fence, and the grapes themselves besmeared with mud. Where the ditches are neither wide enough nor deep enough for 174 GENERAL ASPECT the purpose, or where there happens to be no ditch at all, the fields are surrounded by a strong hedge. The plains of Tuscany yield in general two harvests a year*, " the first of wheat, the second of some green crop; which last is sometimes ploughed up, and left to rot on the field as manure for the next. This course is interrupted every third or fourth year by a crop of Turkey wheat, sometimes of beans or rye, and more rarely of oatsf." HILL. On approaching the skirtsof the different plains, a change of agriculture is observable; the vine and the olive gradually prevailing over corn. The plains of Tus- cany possess, in an eminent degree, the beauty peculiar to plains that which arises from abundance and fertility But the adjacent hills combine the charms of picturesque scenery with the advantage of fertility. The fields rising in terraces one above another, look as though they were inclosed in a trellis of vines. The thick-matted herbage of the turf-embankments is everywhere seen bordering upon the corn, the former mingling its soft verdure with the golden hue of the latter: the olive-trees which shade most of the hills, also serve to soften the picture by the roundness which they communicate to the steepest and boldest acclivities. If their pale willow-like leaves have a somewhat melancholy look, yet they give variety to the landscape; while the picturesque form and light elegance * Le cours de re"colte y dure en general trois ans, et Ton seme cinq foisla terre; ou quatre ans, et alors on la seme sept fois, sans jamais la laisser en jachere. Sismondi, Agriculture Toscane. f Forsyth. AND AGRICULTURE OF TUSCANY. 175 of the tree itself compensate for the paleness of its foliage. The chestnut woods, which crown the summits of the hills, and sometimes skirt the torrents which channel their sides, form a pleasing contrast with the olive, by the richness of their verdure, the wide spread of their branches, and their majestic form. In a word, the frequent villages, perched like eagle-nests amidst the rocks, or hanging on the steep slopes of the different hills, give animation to the picture, and produce a most imposing effect. Owing to the steepness of most of these hills, it would have been impossible to cultivate them without danger of having the soil carried away by the heavy rains so frequent in every part of Italy, had not the farmers hit upon the plan of cutting them into a gradation of terraces which are always more narrow in proportion as the ascent is more precipitous. The most pleasing, as well as the most profitable, and least expensive method of support- ing these terraces, is to face them with turf-embankments. On the hills in the neighbourhood of Florence, where the soil is of a more stony nature, the terraces are faced with loose stone walls instead of turf. The disadvantage attendant upon this method the loss of the hay pro- duced by the turf-facings is said to be compensated in some measure by the greater warmth imparted to the soil, and the quicker ripening of the grapes. The different objects of culture on the hills are the olive, on the steeper and more exposed slopes the vine, on such as have a more favourable aspect, as well as gene- rally on the brink of the different facings the mulberry and other fruit trees the various kinds of grain and the 176 GENERAL ASPECT hay produced by the turf embankments. " Thus," as Forsyth observes, " in addition to our objects of hus- bandry, the Tuscan has to learn all the complicate pro- cesses which produce wine, oil, and silk, the principal exports of the state." The vine and the olive, whose roots penetrate deep into the ground, are proof against the effects of drought, and flourish most upon the hills: corn, on the contrary, suffers from the lightness and po- verty of the soil; and its growth is the more stunted, be- cause the natural dryness of the soil precludes the more favourable tilths. On the hills the spade generally super- sedes the plough: indeed, even in the plains, though the plough saves labour, it " is considered less calculated for produce than the triangular spade, with which the tenant is bound by his landlord to dig or rather to shovel one third of his farm*." MOUNTAIN. One half of the Tuscan territory consists of mountain f . Not only do the Apennines surround it, but their various branches intersect it in every direction. * Forsyth. Les paysans de la Toscane, observes Sismondi, ont 1'excellente m6thode de labourer tous les ans un tiers de leurs champs a la be"che, pour ramener a la surface un terrain nouveau, que les labours a la charrue n'effluraient pas, et pour 1'ameublir toujours davantage. T One-half of Tuscany is mountains, which produce nothing but timber; one-sixth part consists of hills, which are covered with vine- yards or olive-gardens ; the remaining third is plain : the whole is divided into 80,000 fattorie, or stewardships. Each fattoria includes on an average seven farms. This property is divided among 40,000 families or corporations. Forsyth, AND AGRICULTURE OF TUSCANY. 177 The higher chains are flanked by hills which serve them as so many buttresses, some of which are both lofty enough and steep enough to merit the name of mountains. The farmer, however, easily distinguishes them from the primitive chains, of which the produce and the appearance are wholly different. The inhabitants of this region are collected together in large villages, a circumstance which makes them ap- pear more numerous than they really are, as well as causes them to pass their time far more agreeably than if their dwellings were scattered over the mountains; for the roads, instead of following the windings of the valleys, run up the face of the mountain, and are altogether im- practicable for vehicles of any kind. Most of these vil- lages are situated upon the banks of some stream, about midway up the mountain, generally with a south, never at least with a north, aspect: they are also usually em- bellished with a fountain, and surrounded with a belt of vineyards and olive-groves. Beyond are interminable chestnut-woods, covering the distant heights. These chestnut-woods, which spread over so large a portion of the Apennines, form the sole revenue of the inhabitants. They were doubtless planted many ages since, and are still kept up; for, in fact, they require but little care. Wherever the earth happens to be carried away by the descending waters, a low stone wall is raised to support it: where an old chestnut-tree happens to have decayed, or where there appears room to plant another, the peasant begins by forming a little terrace similar to those on the hills; taking care to face it with a turf-em- bankment, lest the new tree should be uprooted by the VOL i. N 178 GENERAL ASPECT violence of the rains. The frequent repetition of this plan gives a chestnut-wood a sort of rude resemblance to an olive-garden. In both, instead of an uniform slope, we see the surface of the ground cut into terraces; the ter- races on the mountain, however, do not exhibit the same regularity as those on the hills; nor is such regularity re- quired. In these woods, the soil, being left entirely to itself, is usually covered with herbage, which not only prevents the earth from being carried away, but also affords pasturage for cattle. As the chestnut blows in the month of May, it suffers much from the rains and frosts which sometimes occur at that early season. If it escape these it has no other danger to encounter except from the hail-storms, which are not unfrequent among the mountains; or from ex- cessive drought. The chestnuts, which, either whole or reduced to meal, form the chief support of the moun- taineers, are harvested in November. As the husks open the fruit falls to the ground of itself, and the only trouble is that of picking it up. The appearance of the mountaineers proves that this diet is as wholesome as it is agreeable; for though the active life they lead may account for their robust health, yet their beauty proceeds in great measure from their sim- ple fare. The valley of Pontito and Schiappa is famed throughout Tuscany for the beauty of its women, who are remarkable for the clearness of their complexions and the regularity of their features*. * Comme les femmes de cette valise portent un habillement qui leur tait particulier, et qui, consistent en une Juppe attache aux AND AGRICULTURE OF TUSCANY. 179 In some of the more favoured spots among the moun- tains, and especially around the villages, the same system is adopted as on the hills the vine, the olive, and the mulberry being substituted for the chestnut, and wheat and beans being sown alternately beneath them. But this plan is seldom found to answer, in consequence of the havoc occasioned by the hail-storms a calamity which every farmer must expect to undergo once in three years. While some of those spots which have a favourable aspect are considered as too good to be devoted to the growth of the chestnut, others which have a bad one are often left to nature, and covered with forest trees of 3 less profitable kind. In spite of Leopold's pecuniary grants to encourage the planting of the chestnut, we are far from finding that tree on all the heights that seem adapted to it. It is probable, however, that the higher Apennines would, from their elevation, be too cold for it. On these lofty mountains we rarely meet with the Alpine fir; the pine (pin. pinea) and the wild pine occupying its place. The former of these, which produces an agree- able fruit in much request, cannot, to judge by the high price it fetches, be very common anywhere; but the wild paules, leur donne la tournure Grecque, ou plutot celle des femmes a la mode du jour, cet liabillement avait contribue a les faire re- marquer. II n'y avait pas une masquerade oil Ton ne vit des Schi- appines avec une pifece d'ecarlate autour des bras. Les dames de la ville aimaient a faire presumer que Ton trouverait un joli visage sous le masque, en prenant un habit qui etait reconnu pour 1'uni- forme de la beaute. Sismondi, Agriculture Toscane. N2 ISO GENERAL ASPECT pine, which differs but little from it, except in the small- ness of its fruit, forms magnificent forests in the centre of the Apennines, and furnishes an excellent wood for building an advantage which, owing to the vileness of the roads, is turned to little account. Where the climate is less severe, such heights as are not clothed with chestnuts are covered with forests of dif- ferent kinds of oak a remark equally applicable to the mountains in the neighbourhood of Siena, Volterra, and the Maremma. So much for the general aspect of Tuscany. With regard to the immediate environs of Florence, the most prominent feature in the scene is Fiesole, perched on a hill precipitously steep. Its narrow terraces, however, faced with stone walls instead of turf, give, as Forsyth justly observes, " a hard, dry effect to the immediate picture, which, viewed from Florence, is the most beau- tiful object in this region of beauty. The top of the hill is conical, and its summit usurped by a convent of Fran- ciscans, whose leave you must ask to view the variegated map of country below you. Their corridors command a multiplicity of landscape: every window presents a dif- ferent scene, and every minute before sunset changes the whole colouring. " It would be ungrateful," continues the same writer, " to leave the environs of Florence without mentioning the pleasure which I once enjoyed ' at evening from the top of Fesole.' The weather was then Elysian, the spring in its most beautiful point, and all the world, just released AND AGRICULTURE OF TUSCANY. 181 from the privations of Lent, were fresh in their festivity. I sat down on the brow of the hill, and measured with my enraptured eye half the Val d'Arno. Palaces, villas, convents, towns, and farms, were seated on the hills, or diffused through the vale, in the very points and combi- nations where a Claude would have placed them:" Monti superbi, la cui fronte Alpina Fa di se contro i venti argine e sponda ! Valli beate, per cui d' onda in onda L'Arno con passo signoril cammina! The splendour of an Italian sunset has been remarked upon by many travellers; and Mathews has given us the following vivid description of one which he witnessed from the top of Fesole. " The sun had just gone down, leav- ing the whole sky dyed with the richest tints of crimson while the virgin snows of the distant mountains were suffused with blushes of ' celestial rosy red;' when, from an opposite quarter of the heavens, there seemed to rise another sun, as large, as bright, and as glowing as that which had just departed. It was the moon at full: and so complete was the illusion, that it required a few mo- ments to convince me that I was not in Fairy Land. " An evening, or night, in an Italian villa, at this season of nightingales and moonlight (the month of May) is a most delicious treat *. How could Shakspeare write * According to Sismondi, an evening in autumn is scarcely less attractive. C'est dans une soiree d'automne, lorsque les lumieres qui 182 GENERAL ASPECT as he has done without having been in Italy? Some of his garden scenes breathe the very life of reality. And yet if he had been here, he would hardly have omitted all allusion to the fire-fly, a little flitting insect that adds greatly to the charm of the scene, and is sprinkled about with as much profusion as spangles on a lady's gown:" .... An insect that, when evening comes, Small tho' he be, and scarce distinguishable, Like Evening clad in soberest livery, Unsheaths his wings*, and thro' the woods and glades Scatters a marvellous splendour, from dusk till dawn Soaring, descending . . . . ROGERS. These lucciole, as the Italians call them, are in greatest abundance in the month of June. Their flitting motion, and the momentary light which they emit and conceal by turns, almost dazzle the eye. The hills are illumi- nated with myriads of them; and the valleys, to use the strong expression of Sismondi, " look like so many lakes brillent de toutes parts, decelent les maisons modestes des cultiva- teurs, cachees sous des treilles, ou des groupes d'arbres fruitiers et 'd'oliviers; lorsque des flambeaux de paille errans sur tous les sen- tiers, font remarquer les paysans qui vont gaiment se reunir chez leur voisins, et passer les veillees ensemble, lorsque les croupes ar- rondies des montagnes, que les oliviers semblent velouter, se des- sirient HansTe ciel le plus pur, que le spectacle des collines rappelle les ide"es les plus romanesques. Agriculture Toscane. * The fire-fly is of the beetle tribe. AND AGRICULTURE OF TUSCANY. 183 of fire." Indeed, the whole country seems as if it were covered with electric sparks*. * From the following lines, taken from a short poem in Heber's Indian Journals, intitled " An Evening Walk in Bengal," these in- sects appear to be equally abundant in the eastern hemisphere : Yet mark ! as fade the upper skies, Each thicket opes ten thousand eyes. Before, beside us, and above, The fire-fly lights his lamp of love, Retreating, chasing, sinking, soaring, The darkness of the copse exploring. 184 SIENA. SIENA. Empty lodgings and unfurnished walls, Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones. SHAKSPEARE. THE road from Florence to Siena is hilly and tedious. The views between the former place and Poggibonsi are agreeably diversified, but they are hardly fine enough to account for the fame of Tuscan scenery. The vales and lower declivities of the hills are covered with corn- fields and vineyards; the upper slopes, with olive-groves. But this country, abounding with corn, wine, and oil, may be said to be pretty rather than picturesque. If the orange-tree is thought to be too round and formal in its appearance to constitute a picturesque object, what shall we say of the olive, the mulberry, the poplar, and the elm? the first of these being, from the paleness and scan- tiness of its foliage, scarcely more beautiful than the com- mon willow; and the others, to which the vine is here invariably married, being on that account pruned after the fashion of an English filbert. Such, h6wever with the exception of a few cypresses scattered here and there are the only trees that cover the somewhat arid hills of this part of Tuscany; for here the Englishman will look in vain for the thick-matted herbage, and umbrageous masses of wood, that distinguish the landscapes of Britain. Between Poggibonsi and Siena, the country wears a less pleasing aspect, but it does not degenerate into down- SIENA. 185 right deformity: in fact, the scenery between Florence and Poggibonsi seems to have been too much eulogized; between Poggibonsi and Siena, to have been too un- sparingly condemned. Siena, which once reckoned a hundred-and-fifty thou- sand inhabitants, now scarcely contains an eighth of the number. It stands on the summit of a bleak hill. On entering by the Florentine gate, you pass through a long irregular street, which nearly bisects this depopulated town; but you must strike off among the less frequented streets, before you meet with the objects of principal interest the Lizza, the Citadel, the Cathedral, and the Piazza del Campo. It is only here that you meet with tiles laid in that fish-bone manner, supposed to be the " spicata testacea" of Pliny. In the " master-line," and some others of the principal streets, the pavement, though formed of smaller stones, may compare with that of Flo- rence. The term palace is everywhere prostituted in Italy, but nowhere more so than at Siena, where every gen- tleman's house though few of them include courts, the distinctive feature of a palace is dignified with that high-sounding name. Some of these old mansions are in a mixed, demi-gothic style a style which character- izes all the public works of their two most distinguished architects, Agostino and Agnolo. The Piazza del Campo is sloped, like an ancient thea- tre, for public games; and, like that, forms the segment of a circle, in the chord of which stands the Palazzo Pubblico a work of different dates and designs, and 186 SIENA. parcelled out into different objects such as the public offices, the courts of law, the theatre, and the prisons. The Sala del Consistorio is embellished by some frescos of Mecherino's, remarkable for their difficult foreshorten- ings: among them is a figure of Justice, of which Vasari says, that " it is impossible to conceive a more beautiful one among all that were ever painted with a view to ap- pear foreshortened when seen from below." In other respects, however, these works are thought to be on too large a scale to exhibit a very favourable specimen of Mecherino's style that style being, according to Lanzi, " somewhat like a spirit which retains all its strength so long as it is pent up in a phial, but which, when poured out into a larger vessel, evaporates and is lost." In the same Sala is a Judgment of Solomon, by Giordano; and in other apartments may be seen various works by Salimbeni, Casolani, &c. All these works, however, sustained considerable injury from the earth- quakes of 1797, which damaged this as well as many other palaces at Siena. In the Cathedral considered one of the finest in Italy we see the same piebald architecture which we have already had occasion to notice more than once : " we find marble walls polished on both sides, and built in alter- nate courses of black and white a front overcharged with ornament on the outside, and plain within a belfry annexed, but not incorporated with the pile a cupola bearing plumb on its four supports circular arches rest- ing on round pillars doors in double architraves columns based upon lions tearing lambs. All these are SIENA. 187 peculiar to the Tuscan churches built in the Lombard style; but here, too, are indisputable marks of the Gothic, particularly on the front, the vaults, and the windows*." The labour bestowed on this edifice must have been almost endless. The very spouts are loaded with orna- ment; the windows are formed like so many scenes of perspective, with a multitude of puny pillars retiring one behind another; the larger columns are carved with fruits and foliage, which run twisting about them from top to bottom; the whole front is covered with such a variety of figures, and such a profusion of decoration, that nothing can be better suited to the taste of those who prefer false beauties and meretricious ornaments to a noble and majestic simplicity. On contemplating the architecture of this cathedral, we can hardly help falling into the reflections which the sight of it excited in Addison. " When," says he, " a man sees the prodigious pains and expense that our fore- fathers have been at in these barbarous buildings, one cannot but fancy what miracles of architecture they would have left us, had they only been instructed in the right way; for, when the devotion of those ages was much warmer than it is at present, and the riches of the people much more at the disposal of the priests, there was as much consumed on these Gothic cathedrals, as would have finished a greater variety of noble buildings than have been raised either before or since that time." The pavement of this cathedral a sort of engraved * Forsyth. 188 SIENA. inlay, which, though there is no tesselation, produces the effect of the richest mosaic, merely by the insertion of grey marble into white, and the hatching of them both with black mastic is the work of a succession of artists from Duccio down to Mecherino. It consists, for the most part*, of scriptural subjects, among the best of which may be reckoned a figure of Abraham on the point of sacrificing his son. Most of the heads, however, have a rude appearance, and the work is interesting chiefly as a monument of early art. This pavement, which is now protected by a covering of boards, is said to have lain for more than a hundred years exposed to the general tread, and, to judge from one female figure which had never been trodden, and looks harsher than the rest, seems to have been improved rather than injured by the attrition. A barbarous taste for the emblematic pervades this structure. On the pavement are represented the sym- bols of cities once in alliance with Siena the elephant of Rome the lions of Florence and Massa the dragon of Pistoia, &c. In like manner the front is covered with animals, all of them symbols of cities. The pillars of the aisles, too, like the external walls, are crossed with alternate stripes of black and white marble, and this, merely because black and white happen to be the colours of the city banner. * On this pavement there are figured no less than ten different Sibyls, as if the Catholic clergy were vain of any connexion between classical subjects and Christianity. SIENA. 189 The vault of the nave intended to represent the fir- mament is of a deep azure colour, studded with stars. The cornice is surmounted with busts, genuine or forged, of the different Popes, down to Alexander III. To the left of the grand altar is a marble pulpit, sup- ported by pillars based on lions tearing lambs, and de- corated with relievos representing the principal events of our Saviour's life. " Instead of this fixed and established dignitary," says Forsyth, " I would call occasionally into use a poor old itinerant, the wooden preaching bench of St. Bernardine, which stands mouldering here in all the simplicity of holiness." " The Chigi Chapel," continues the same writer, " glares with rich marble, silver, gilt, bronze, and lapis lazuli; where the sweeping beard and cadaverous flanks of a St. Jerome are set in contrast with the soft beauty of a Magdalene, which Bernini had transformed from an Andromeda, and thus exchanged the affliction of inno- cence for that of guilt." This, it must be admitted, is well written; but the description is, in point of fact, a little overwrought; for neither is the chapel itself so rich, the Magdalene so beautiful, nor the St. Jerome so cada- verous, as this representation would lead one to imagine. The Sacristy, or Library, may now be called a library without books, for all that it contains are a few volumes of church music ; though these are well worth notice on account of the illuminations with which they are embel- lished. In the centre of the library is a group of the Graces, found under the church: they are of a some- what diminutive stature, and sadly mutilated. The walls SIENA. are decorated with a variety of frescos representing the principal events of the life of Pius II., most of them painted by Pinturicchio from Raphael's designs. These gaudy, gilt pictures, some of which it seems were not only designed but executed by Raphael, are thought to do that artist no great credit; and hence some have gone so far as to assert, that they are called Raphael's merely from a few accidental touches lent by the immortalizing master. Let it, however, be remembered that Raphael was at the period in question no more than twenty years of age; that painting had till then attempted but little; that, in the works of those days, the larger figures usually stood detached from each other, no attempt being made to give them the interest of an historic scene; that even when such an attempt was made, the subjects were always borrowed from Scripture, where the very frequency of repetition had paved the way for plagiarism; let it, more- over, be borne in mind, that, in the transition from the old to the modern style, no work of equal magnitude and variety had hitherto been conceived by any individual painter and the admirers of Raphael will have no cause to blush at this juvenile performance of their favourite. The Dominican Church sustained so much injury from the earthquake of 1797, that it no longer contains the celebrated Madonna of Guido da Siena the first Italian painter who set the example of dating his works. From the date (1221) affixed to this venerable picture in which, as Lanzi observes, " the countenance is of a very pleasing cast, exhibiting nothing of that grim appear- ance which forms the distinguishing character of the SIENA. 191 Greek artists" the Sanesi contend that their school was the earliest in modern art. " At present they can boast neither school nor artist, and were, some few years back, obliged to call in Adi- mollo, who has painted some of their palaces, and is too much admired here for the fire, the diversity, the estetico of his compositions. It is easier to delineate violent pas- sion than the tranquil emotions of a great soul; to set a crowd of figures on the stretch of expression, than to ani- mate but one hero by an action which shall leave him the serenity of a hero. What a distance from the bloated hyperboles of Lucan, to the unrestrained majesty of Vir- gil ! from the attitudes of a player, to the natural dignity of a prince ! from the vivacity and exertion of Adimollo, to the grace and silent pathos of Raphael ! " Madame de Stael, in her Corinna, has a passage which betrays much the same train of thought, and shews that she was as much alive as Forsyth to the unaffected gracefulness and pathos of Raphael's manner. She contends, that " there is a species of rhetoric in painting as well as in poetry, and that all who cannot arrive at expression seek to atone for the defect by the beauty of the acces- sories, endeavouring to set off an attractive subject by richness of drapery and vivacity of attitude; whereas, the mere representation of a Virgin, holding her infant in her arms of an attentive old man, in the picture of the Miracle of the Mass at Bolsena of another resting on his staff, in that of the School of Athens or of a St. Cecilia, lifting up her eyes towards Heaven produce, by the mere expression of the countenance, a sensation of a 192 SIENA. far deeper kind. These natural beauties develope them- selves daily more and more; while, on the contrary, pic- tures painted for effect are always most striking at the first glance." At Fonte Giusta is Peruzzi's celebrated Sibyl, in the act of foretelling the birth of Christ to Augustus, and generally considered as one of the finest frescos in Si- ena. " This figure," observes Lanzi, " Peruzzi has con- trived to invest with such an air of inspiration, that even Raphael himself, when treating similar subjects, can, perhaps, hardly be said to have surpassed him; and yet less can Guide or Guercino." Forsyth admits the sub- limity of the figure, but thinks it too sedate for the act of prophecy. " She does not, as in Virgil, pant, labour, rage with the god; nor, like the Pythia, does she reel and stare and foam with the poison of the Delphic mo- feta: she rather displays the * folgorar di bellezze altere e sante' of a Sophronia*." The cities of Italy, like those of ancient Greece, are remarkable for nothing so much as for their mutual ha- tred of each other. And, as if they could not find vent enough for this passion abroad, they are most of them split into little sections at home. " The strongest bond * Might I point out the pictures which gave me most pleasure at Siena, the first should be Vanni's Descent from the Cross a jewel concealed in the obscure church of San Quirico. Here the horror inherent in the subject is softened by that amiable artist, who has finely diversified the affliction of the three Maries, and made the mother's something both human and heavenly. Casolani's Flight into Egypt, in the same church, is full of the tranquil graces, and beautifully mellow; but should the child be old enough to travel on foot? Forsyth. SIENA. 193 of union among Italians is only a coincidence of hatred. Never were the Tuscans so unanimous as in hating the other states of Italy; the Sanesi agreed best in hating all the other Tuscans; the citizens of Siena in hating the rest of the Sanesi; and in the city itself the same amia- ble passion was subdivided among the different wards. " This last ramification of hatred," continues Forsyth, " had formerly exposed the town to very fatal conflicts, till at length, in the year 1200, St. Bernardine instituted boxing as a more innocent vent to their hot blood, and laid the bruisers under certain laws, which are sacredly observed to this day. As they improved in prowess and skill, the pugilists came forward on every point of national honour; they were sung by poets, and recorded in in- scriptions*. The elegant Savini ranks boxing among the holiday pleasures of Siena:" Tazze, vivande, compagnie d'amici, Maschere, pugni, ed il bollor lascivo, D'un teatro foltissimo di Belle. * One of these may be selected as a burlesque on the Latin in- scriptions so common in Italy: Rosso, Senensium Bajulorum facile principi, Quod tres agathones Florentines In hac caupona combibentes, Dum invido morsu Senarum urbi obloquerentur, Pugnis liberaliter exceptos, Egregie mulctaverit, Bajuli Senenses patriae vindices M. P. VOL. I. O 194 SIENA. Boxing, however, is not confined to Siena; it is com- mon all over Tuscany, even in Florence itself, where, to say the truth, it puts on a very unscientific character. " There," says Rose, " to recur to poetry for assistance, Dalle lor man cazzotto non discende Che 1'inimico non colpisca appieno; Gli occhi, la bocca, o le narici offende; Ma non per questo il rio furor vien meno ; Serransi corpo a corpo, e con la destra Si stringono il canal della minestra. Their hands fair knocks or foul in fury rain, And in this tempest of bye-blows and bruises, Not a stray fisty-cuff descends in vain; But blood from eyes and mouth and nostrils oozes. Nor stop they there, but in their phrenzy pull at Whatever comes to hand, hair, nose, or gullet. ROSE. " If a man finds himself overmatched at this foul play, he usually shouts ' in soccorso ! ' and, by the aid of the first comer, turns the tables upon his antagonist. The latter also finds his abettors, and the combat thickens, till the street wears the appearance of the stage at the conclusion of Tom Thumb. " At Siena the art puts on a more scientific form. In this city are regular academies for pugilistic exercise, and a code for the regulation of boxing matches; a cer- tain time for resurrection is accorded to the person knocked down, and the strife assumes all the features of a courteous combat. " The Sienese and Florentine boxers contend with what may be called courteous weapons the unarmed fist; but SIENA. 195 those of Pisa and Leghorn clench a cylindrical piece of stick, which projects at each end of the doubled fist, and inflicts a cruel wound when they strike obliquely. In some antique statues, the clenched hand may be seen armed in the same manner, and the stick secured to the fist by thongs." JOURNEY FROM SIENA TO ROME. None stirring, save the herdsman and his herd, Savage alike. ROGERS. To the south and south west of Siena is the Maremma*, a tract which, whether it was formerly salubrious or not, seems at least to have been both fertile and well peopled. Most of the twelve cities which composed the Etruscan league were situated in this district. The ruins of Po- pulonia and Vetulonia are still visible in the most pesti- lential part of it; nor was the situation of Luna much more favourable. Pisa and Volterra were at that time rich and flourishing towns, though they sunk into insig- nificance under the empire. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries they revived again, insomuch that the former boasted no less than one hundred and fifty thousand in- habitants, and even the latter reckoned as many as fifty thousand. While these republics retained their liberty, Massa and Grosseto, in the neighbourhood of Populonia and Vetulonia, contained, each of them, from twenty to thirty thousand inhabitants: at present, they are almost * The Maremma, in its largest extent, stretches along the shore of the Mediterranean from Leghorn to Terracina, reaching inland as far as the first chain of the Apennines. Its length is about 200 miles; its breadth varies, and, in the Agro Romano, where it is greatest, is from thirty to forty miles. JOURNEY FROM SIENA TO ROME. 197 deserted: during the winter months the population of Massa may amount to two or three thousand, while in the summer it scarcely exceeds as many hundreds. In the country the depopulation is even greater still. In each district the possessions of such families as became extinct devolved upon the community; hence it came to pass, that some few families which had escaped the ge- neral devastation inherited the property of all the rest. In process of time, however, these families also became extinct; and the whole district, under the name of a ban- dita, devolved upon one of the neighbouring villages. There are villages to be found in the Maremma which possess as many as seven or eight of these bandite, and yet cannot muster inhabitants enough to cultivate a fourth part of their domains. The population itself, therefore, being too insignificant for the culture of the soil*, the inhabitants of the Casentine and other high and healthy * The country thus depopulated, nothing remained but to take advantage of the spontaneous production of the soil, to let the land run to grass, and to introduce a sort of wandering tribes, who should dwell here only in winter. During that season, men, as well as cattle, may roam through the wilderness with comparative impunity. It did not, however, suit the metayer of the upland districts to leafe his home, and take up his abode in the Maremma. There cajne, therefore, necessarily to be interposed between the proprietors ot the lands in the interior, and those on the sea coast, a race of wandering shepherds, possessing nothing but their cattle, and migrating with them, according to the seasons, from the hilly to the level country. Under the conduct of these men, 400,000 sheep, 30,000 horses, with a vast number of cows and goats, are annually reared for the supply of the Valdarno, and the other vales of Tuscany, where no cattle are bred. See Chateauvieux. 198 JOURNEY FROM tracts migrate hither to feed their cattle, to sow corn, make charcoal, saw wood, cut hoops, and peel cork. The most usual season of descent is the winter; but a portion of the mountain peasantry also assist in getting in the harvest. Most of the summer workmen imbibe the dis- eases of the place, and some even of those who are em- ployed in winter operations decamp too late, leaving their corpses on the road, or crawling away, "like poisoned rats to die at home." Leaving Siena, we traversed a dreary country, where, instead of valleys, we met with wide yawning ravines, se- parated by irregular hillocks of bare brown earth. For many miles round Siena the country is hill or mountain. The more rugged hills are planted with olive-trees; the rest are arable, interspersed with vineyards, some of which are in high repute. Those of Montepulciano, for ex- ample, produce a wine celebrated by Redi as the " king of wines;" Montepulcian chc d' ogni vino e il re ; while those of Chianti yield from their " canine grape a < vino scelto,' which many prefer to his majesty." We passed through Buon Convento, a wretched village, where the Emperor Henry VII. was poisoned by receiv- ing the sacrament from a Dominican friar an event from which this " good convent " received its name. We next passed the miserable hovels of San Quirico, and the soli- tary post-house of La Scala, not far from which are the Baths of St. Philip, where the calcareous water, being made to fall in spray upon moulds, hardens into exquisite SIENA TO HOME. 199 cameos and intaglios. The spring, which is a very co- pious one of hot transparent water, issues from Monte Amiato, about four miles from Radicofani, and about half a mile from the road side. Of this petrifying water, which holds in solution a considerable portion of sulphur and carbonate of lime, advantage has been taken to form casts, somewhat in the following manner: An impres- sion of the medal is first taken in sulphur, or on glass. A series of three or four pits, communicating by means of tubes, are sunk in the ground at a short distance from each other. In these pits, deposition to a certain extent is allowed to take place till the water is charged only with the requisite portion of earth. It is then made to fall through a tube on two pieces of board, two or three inches broad, placed crosswise, the effect of which is to break the stream, and throw off the water in all directions. Beneath this crossed piece is another similar one, and a third still lower; but all of them crossing in different directions, the more completely to break and disperse the column of water. These crossed pieces are sur- rounded by a frame work of wood, of a pyramidal form, within which are arranged the moulds previously touched with a solution of soap to facilitate the separation of the cast. They are disposed all round the pyramidal case, and inclined a little forward, opposite the several series of crossed sticks, and at the distance of about a foot from their extremities. In this position they receive a con- stant and equable dash of the water, which deposits its earthy matter on the mould. The cast, thus obtained, may be made of any thickness; but in small figures, 200 JOURNEY FROM it is commonly from an eighth to a fourth of an inch. The time employed in its formation is ten or twelve days*. Soon after quitting La Scala we began the ascent of the volcanic Radicofani, where all is utter sterility and nakedness; nor did we wonder that this savage prospect should have reminded Addison of the Italian proverb, which says, that " the Pope has the flesh, and the Grand Duke the bones, of Italy." At the foot of the mountain flows the Ricorsi, a torrent which, in the winter season, frequently overflows its banks, and is sometimes impassable for several days. That there is no little danger in attempting to cross it at such a time may be inferred from the guide-book, which quaintly observes, that you will have to pass it four times if you are not swallowed up in either of the first three. Confused masses of rock and stone, heaped together in shapeless desolation at the summit of Radicofani, are supposed to mark its ancient crater. Near it may still be seen the ruins of a fort which often made a figure in the history of Italy, and which was subsequently destroyed though not till the course of events had stripped it of its importance by the blowing up of the powder magazine. This frontier was formerly scarce less notorious for banditti than Terracina itself has been in later times. Ghino di Tacco an outlaw whom Dante and Boccacio did not disdain to celebrate; and, what is still more sin- gular, one on whom the Pope himself thought fit to * See Williams's Travels in Italy, &c. Vol. i. SIENA TO ROME. 201 confer the honour of knighthood, on account of the gen- tlemanly manner in which he carried on his opera- tions made this wild region the scene of his predatory exploits. On the acclivities of Radicofani, and, indeed, in many other parts of Italy, shepherds may frequently be seen clad in goat skins, to protect themselves against the weather. The caprices of fashion have little influence on the peasantry of any country save our own; and this dress, rude as it is, may plead classic antiquity in its de- fence; for it dates from Imperial Rome. Juvenal speaks of it as being used in the same manner, and for the same purpose, by the shepherd of his days : Qui summovet Euros Pellibus inversis. xiv. 186. The poor, who with inverted skins defy The lowering tempest, and the freezing sky. GIFFORD. At Ponte Centino we entered the Papal State, and soon afterwards " Acquapendente broke fresh upon us, surrounded with ancient oaks, and terraces clad in the vivid greens of spring, and hanging vineyards, and cas- cades, and cliffs, and grottos, screened with pensile foli- age. Then the Lake of Bolsena expanding at San Lorenzo displayed its islands, and castellated cliffs, and banks crowned with inviolate woods, and ruins built upon ruins Bolsena mouldering on Volsimi*!" Hence we passed through Montefiasconeand Viterbo their environs * Forsyth. 202 JOURNEY FROM bold and beautiful, combining every element of the pic- turesque hill and dale wood and water; while, to complete the interest of the scene, old Soracte's long black ridge, sacred to Apollo, and sung by two of his most favoured sons, rose in the distance on our left. On the hill above Baccano we caught the first glimpse of Rome, and at Monte Rosi entered on the forsaken Campagna. It was well said, that " the first entrance into the pa- trimony of St. Peter is not calculated to convey a very favourable idea of the richness of that inheritance." A great part of the Papal territory west of the Apennines presents a most forlorn appearance, harmonizing well enough with the state of decrepitude of the capital itself. During the whole journey from Siena to Rome, the country is thinly peopled, and generally open; some- times, indeed, covered with small patches of underwood, or relieved by the stone-pine and evergreen oak, but rarely intersected by a hedge or fence. But the nearer you approach to Rome the greater becomes the depopu- lation of the country. Around the Eternal City stretches in every direction the bleak and desolate Campagna; not a dead flat as it has often been described, but a tract of country broken into gentle hills and undulations; and, though presenting here and there an unprotected patch of corn, covered, for the most part, with a stunted her- bage, just sufficient to afford a scanty subsistence to a few flocks of ragged sheep. Within three or four miles of the capital itself, where the downs of the Campagna sink into green shrubby dells, you meet neither with country SIF.NA TO ROME. 203 houses, nor carriages, nor any thing else that would indi- cate the neighbourhood of a large city: All sad, all silent! o'er the ear No sound of cheerful toil is swelling; Earth has no quickening spirit here, Nature no charm, and man no dwelling! LETTERS TO JULIA. It is not till you have reached the Ponte Molle, within two miles of Rome, and crossed the Tiber which, as Hobhouse justly remarks, is not the " muddy insignifi- cant stream which the disappointments of overheated ex- pectations have described it, but one of the finest rivers in Europe, now rolling through a vale of gardens, and now sweeping the base of swelling acclivities clothed with wood, and crowned with villas and their evergreen shrub- beries" that the indications of a large city begin to manifest themselves. The Campagna is said to contain about three millions of English acres, and " is covered in many places to a great depth with substances evidently volcanic; such as puzzo- lana and coarse granulated ashes of a yellow colour mixed with fragments of pumice-stone, and vitrified minerals alternating with strata of water-formation. Sulphur ap- pears on the surface of the ground in various places, called solfatare, filling the air with noxious vapours. The sur- rounding belt of mountains, generally calcareous, exhibits in many parts lava and basalt; and most of the hillocks scattered over the plain itself are conical, hollow at top, and entirely composed of volcanic substances. The hoi- 204 JOURNEY FROM lows, which were no doubt the craters of volcanos, are now found generally full of water, and the largest of them forms the Lake of Bracciano, fifteen miles in circumfer- ence*." The forlorn appearance of the Campagna is greatly increased by the total absence of inclosures; a peculiarity, for which there is reason to suppose that ancient Italy was equally remarkable. Virgil would hardly have de- scribed Tityrus and Menalcas as sitting under a beech- tree, blowing their rustic reeds, had not the openness of the country rendered their services necessary to prevent the goats from straying. When the same poet speaks of the necessity of keep- ing the bulls apart from the rest of the herd, he makes no mention of a fence as the means of effecting this ob- ject; but trusts either to distance, or to the nature of the country, or, where these were not available, to the alter- native of shutting them up in the stalls : Atque ideo tauros procul atque in sola r elegant Pascua, post montem oppositam, et trans flumina lata: Aut intus clauses satura ad praesepia servant. GEORG.iii. 212. The youthful bull must wander in the wood, Behind the mountain, or beyond the flood : Or in the stall at home his fodder find, Far from the charms of that alluring kind. DRYDEN. So again, when the poet proceeds to enumerate the marks of spirit in a colt, he does not so much as hint at * Simond. SIENA TO HOME. 205 that of his leaping the hedges which oppose his course. He represents him as leader in every enterprise, as braving the torrent, and trusting the untried bridge, Primus et ire viam, et fluvios tentare minaces Audet, et ignoto sese committere ponti. The first to lead the way, to tempt the flood, To pass the bridge unknown, nor fear the trembling wood : but never once thinks of describing him as at one slight bound High o'erleaping all bound; though this would, we may imagine, but for the umn- closed state of the country, have been the picture most naturally presented to the poet's mind. " By the laws of the twelve tables," observes Blunt, " a person, arrived at years of discretion, who pastured his herds at night in his neighbour's corn, was subject to capital punishment; which, though not a proof, is a pre- sumption that there were no inclosures. " Indeed, the simple fact of Terminus being exalted into a deity, and his festival annually observed with great circumspection to say nothing of that distinguished honour which was paid him, when, to make room for the temple of Jupiter Olympius in the Capitol, the seat of every god except Terminus was removed is in itself strong ground for supposing that the boundaries of pro- perty were only known from memory, assisted by terminal statues, and observances renewed at stated points of time." Whether the Campagna anciently wore the same 206 JOURNEY FROM appearance, in other respects, as it does at present; or whether it was formerly much more populous, or much more salubrious than now, are points that have given rise to much discussion. From the known fact, however, that Rome drew its chief supplies of corn from foreign sources, as well as from the frequent mention of the existence of malaria by ancient writers, it would seem that the gene- ral aspect of this part of Italy has not undergone any very violent change. For if the existence of malaria may be taken as a sign of defective cultivation, then it follows, that if this evil should appear to have been as prevalent in ancient as in modern Italy, there is reason to conclude that the agri- culture of the country was at as low an ebb formerly as it is now. From a passage in Pliny, then, where it is his object to lay down certain rules for the purchase of lands, we may fairly infer that there were many districts infected with mephitism. " Attilius Regulus," says he, " used to declare, that the most fertile soils with a bad atmosphere, or most barren with a good one, are equally objection- able; that the healthiness of a district cannot always be ascertained by the appearance of the inhabitants; inas- much as the most pestilential situations may be endured by those who are habituated to them. That some dis- tricts may be free from mephitic air during one part of the year, which are not so during another; but that those only deserve to be called really healthy which continue uninfected the whole year through." (Plin. xxviii. 5). In another passage (iii. 5) the same author not only SIENA TO ROME. 207 gives us to understand that the neighbourhood of Rome was unhealthy, but also points out the supposed cause. " Many persons," he observes, " attributed the noxious influence of the Syrophoenician wind at Rome to this circumstance, that it carried with it the putrid exhala- tions of the Pontine marshes." And yet these marshes had been partially drained by Appius Claudius, and sub- sequently by Augustus. Eustace cites various authorities in support of the same argument. From Strabo (Lib. v.) there is reason to con- clude that the coasts of Latium were rendered insalubri- ous by the marshes that bordered them. From the fol- lowing remark of Pliny the younger, we learn that this was the case in some parts of Etruria: " The borders of Tuscany, which extend along the sea shore, are un- wholesome and infectious." (Lib. v. Ep. 6). Indeed, Columella seems to look upon the neighbourhood of the sea as in general unhealthy; for he tells us, " it is better to be at a great distance from the sea than at a short one, because the air of the intermediate space is un- wholesome." (Lib. v.) From another passage of the same author, we may, perhaps, not unfairly infer the un- healthiness of the immediate neighbourhoood of Rome. Speaking of Regulus, he says: " History informs us, that he was a cultivator of land in the Papinian district " a district only seven miles south of Rome " which is at once infectious and barren." And, in like manner, we learn from Tacitus, that the exhalations in the neigh- bourhood of the Vatican Hill actually proved fatal to 208 JOURNEY FROM persons who exposed themselves to their influence. (Tacit. Hist. ii. 93.) Other arguments, indeed, may be urged in favour of the opinion that the general aspect of this part of Italy is pretty much the same as it was formerly. Livy ex- pressly mentions the deserted condition of the country once occupied by the ^qui and Volsci, and has much difficulty in reconciling it with the armies sent forth by those tribes in the days of their contests with Rome. (vi. 169.) And yet this district was not more than fifty miles from Rome. Pliny also (Lib. v.) speaks of no less than " fifty-three separate tribes as having vanished so completely from ancient Latium, as scarcely to have left a trace behind them." The celebrated prophecy in Lucan, therefore, descriptive of the desolation which he himself witnessed, can hardly be considered as an hyper- bole : Tune omne Latinuin Fabula nomen erit: Gabios, Veiosque, Coramque Ptilvcre vix tectae poterunt monstrare ruinae; Albanosque Lares, Laurentinosque penates, Rus vacuum, quod non habites nisi nocte coacta Invitus LIB. vii. 389. With regard to the Campagna itself, it might be argued that a considerable portion of it was formerly, as it is at the present day, entirely given up to pasturage; for Pliny the younger, describing his villa near Laurentum, tells us that the adjacent country was pastured by " many flocks of sheep, many droves of horses, many herds of oxen." (Ep. 17). In another part of the same epistle, SIENA TO HOME. 209 speaking of the road which led to his villa, he represents it as being " here confined and straitened between conti- guous woods, there expanding and stretching away across meadows of very great extent" an alternation of wood- land and pasture corresponding exactly with what we still observe along the whole line of coast from Ostia to the Circean promontory. It was with a view to raise agriculture from the low estimation into which it had fallen, that Augustus im- posed upon Virgil the task of writing the Georgics; and hence we hear the poet lamenting the forlorn appear- ance of the country, in consequence of the peasantry having forsaken the fields for the camp " Squalent ab- ductis arva colonis." We know, too, that Italy, notwithstanding the natural fertility of its soil, did not grow corn enough for the sup- ply of its inhabitants. A great portion of the corn con- sumed in the capital was imported from Sardinia, Africa, and Sicily, especially the latter, upon which, according to Cicero, the Roman people placed their chief dependence. Suetonius tells us, that, in the reign of Augustus, Egypt was considered as the granary of Rome. That emperor employed his troops in repairing the canals that border on the Nile, in order to facilitate the transport of grain from thence to Ostia. Under such circumstances, con- sidering the rude state of navigation at the time, we can- not wonder that a stormy winter, or the prevalence of contrary winds, should have raised the most lively appre- hensions, and sometimes have incited the populace to acts of violence. It was upon an occasion such as this, VOL. i. P 210 JOURNF.Y FROM SIENA TO ROME. that the emperor Claudius was assaulted in the Forum. " It appeared," says Tacitus, who indignantly notices the circumstance, " that there remained no more food than was sufficient to supply the city for fifteen days; and it was only through the mildness of the winter, and the great mercy of the gods, that it was preserved from extremities. Yet, by Hercules, time was when Italy exported corn to the most remote of her pro- vinces. Nor is she sterile even now; but we chose ra- ther to bestow our labour upon Africa and Egypt, and trust the existence of the Roman people to accident and a ship." ( Annal. vii. 43). " The barrenness of the Campagna has been attribut- ed," says Mathews, " to the national indolence, which will not be at the pains to cultivate it. But, perhaps, it would be more correct to say, not that the Campagna is bar- ren, because it is not cultivated, but that it is not cul- tivated because it is barren. The Roman soldiers, be- fore the time of Hannibal, in comparing their own coun- try with that of the Capuans, argued thus: ' An sequum esse dedititios suos ilia fertilitate atque amoenitate per- frui; se, militando fessos, in pestilenti atque arido circa urbem solo luctari.' " Such are the arguments advanced by those who con- tend that the Campagna is now what it ever was. Some- thing, however, may be said on the other side of the question, but this I reserve for the next chapter. MALARIA. 211 MALARIA. Nee ssevior ulla Pestis et ira Dedm Stygiis sese extulit undis. VIRO. IT is contended by many, that, whatever may have been the state of the Campagna in Hannibal's time, it ap- pears, during the empire, to have been salubrious com- pared with what it is at present, and to have owed this advantage to population and tillage. During that period, the public ways, according to their account, were lined with houses from the city to Aricia, to Tibur, to Ocriculum, to the sea. This opinion receives some con- firmation from Dionysius and Pliny. " Whoever," says the former, (Lib. iv.) " would ascertain the size of Rome, would be led into error, from having no certain mark to decide how far the city reaches, or where it begins not to be city; the country being so interwoven with the town, that the latter wears the appearance of a city in- definitely extended." Pliny also says, (Lib. iii. c. 5), " so thickly are the houses scattered around that they have added many cities;" meaning, probably, that with little or no intermission there were houses lining the roads leading from Rome to various neighbouring towns. Florus expressly calls Tibur a suburb of Rome (Lib. i. c. ii.); and Nero projected a third circuit of walls, which was to take in half the Campagna. At this period, when, p2 21'2 MALARIA. as we have seen, the town and country were so interwoven that it was hard to say where the one ended or the other began, " the bad air infected but a small part between Antium and Lanuvium, nor did it desolate these; for Antium grew into magnificence under different emper- ors, and Lanuvium was surrounded with the villas of the great. " At length," continues Forsyth, " when a dreadful succession of Lombards, Franks, and Saracens, destroyed the houses, pavements, drains, crops, plantations, and cattle, which had protected the Campagna from mephi- tism, it then returned to its own vicious propensity; for both the form of its surface and the order of its soils promote the stagnation of water. Some lakes, lodged in ancient craters, can never be discharged; but they might be deepened and circumscribed, marshes might be drain- ed into some, and aquatic vegetation extirpated or shorn. Here, too, in the variety of earths peculiar to- volcanic ground, some subterranean pools have found a hard stra- tum for their bed, and a loose one for their cover. Thus retired from his reach, those invisible enemies attack man with exhalations which he cannot resist." These circumstances, added to the clearing of the woods of Nettuno which acted as a screen against the sea-vapours, and were therefore held sacred by the an- cients and the tyrannous operation of the annona laws, have been deemed amply sufficient to account for the present unhealthiness of the Campagna. After all, however, it must be admitted, that there are MALARIA. 213 other unascertained causes of malaria. For, however truly we may impute the unhealthiness of the country around Rome to its own annona*, yet we cannot attri- bute that of the Tuscan Maremma to the same cause, for there the law against the exportation of corn exists no longer. And yet, besides the intermittent fever, the usual concomitant of malaria, the Maremma is so notori- ous for producing liver complaints, that they who frequent it are proverbially big-bellied: " Ci si va," say the Tus- can peasants, in allusion at once to the want which drives them thither, and the disease which they bring back, " Ci si va con la pancia vuota, e si torna con la pancia piena." No doubt the fatal effects of the Maremma are greatly * The Roman Maremma a tract about thirty leagues long by ten or twelve broad is in the hands of not more than twenty- four farmers, called Mercanti di Tenuti, traders in land : in fact, they are rather merchants than farmers. They all live in Rome, take their measures in concert, and manage the land by Fattori who live on the spot. Chateauvieux, who visited one of these farms, styled the Campo Morto, tells us it contained about 6000 arpents of arable land, or land that was occasionally in tillage the arpent being to the English acre as 5 to 4. The uncultivated part was of about the same extent; and was stocked with cows and swine. The 6000 ar- pents, which are arable, are divided into nine nearly equal portions, of which one is fallow, another wheat, and the remaining seven pas- ture. On these seven were fed 4000 sheep, 400 horses, and 200 oxen ; a portion of it being also cut for hay. In the uncultivated part were 700 cows, and sometimes 2000 swine; and the general rent, yielded by the whole, might be estimated at 18 francs the ar- pent, or 15s. the acre. The whole rent of the farm is accordingly calculated at 5000 piastres, besides an interest of 51. per cent, on the gross capital employed in the farm. 214 MALARIA. aggravated by the habits of the people, who, in defiance of the well-known proverb fuge somnum meridianum usually sleep on the ground for two or three hours during the heat of the day. Indeed, they almost inva- riably sleep on the ground-floor, though it is well known, from the familiar example of the Grotta del Cane at Naples, that the mephitic air is always heavy and low. Were the labourers provided with sleeping rooms above the ground-floor, and supplied with good water for the water of this district is execrable were they a little more cautious in sleeping on the ground during the day, and, above all, in exposing themselves to the chilling breezes from the mountains during the evening, much of the mischief of the Maremma might, it is thought, be avoided. As a further instance of the difficulty of ascertaining the causes of malaria, it may be observed, that, in the south of Italy, the neighbourhood of the lakes is notori- ous for mephitism, while that of the lakes in Lombardy is free from infection. Nor is it to low situations only that this scourge is confined, though doubtless in such situations its influence is more severely felt. It both creeps and soars: Ingrediturque solo et caput inter nubila condit. Volterra, for example, though it stands high, and ex- posed to every wind that blows, is by no means exempt from its withering effects. We might, perhaps, ascribe its baneful influence in these more elevated situations, in some measure at least, to the filthy habits of the MALARIA. 215 people; but this we cannot do without overthrowing Brocchi's ingenious hypothesis. It is his opinion, that the disease is introduced through the pores of the skin, and not through the lungs; and to the general use of woollen next the skin he attributes the comparative safety of the ancients from its attacks not that even this woollen panoply would of itself have rendered them in- vulnerable had they not found an additional protection in the counter-poison of their own dirt, which, stopping up the pores of the skin, prevented the malaria from finding its way in ! " If," says the Edinburgh Reviewer, " as Signor Brocchi thinks, they really knew not how to wash this eternal blanket, to which the name of Toga gives in our ears such an imposing sound; and if, as Varro says, it was the universal dress of both men and women by day and night alike, we are not sure that we should not, for ourselves at least, prefer a clean shirt and an ague." In some few cases we may trace the causes of malaria with sufficient certainty; as, in marshy tracts, for in- stance; in the swampy shores of a tideless sea, which occasionally deposits back-waters in stormy weather, and which back-waters onda dal mar divisa remain till slowly drunk up by the soil, or absorbed by evapora- tion; or in damp woods situated on low grounds, such being always reckoned unwholesome in hot countries. Of the prevalence of the opinion with regard to the un- wholesomeness of woods, Rose mentions a curious in- stance. " I recollect," says he, " that going with an Italian gentleman, in an open carriage, through the 216 MALAlllA. Cascine, near Florence, the coachman, who was a foreigner, having driven through an open grove the or- dinary resort of those who take the air on foot or in car- riages was proceeding into a closer part of the wood, when my friend exclaimed * Non andar piu in la, caro, che si puo dire che costi la febbre sta di casa.' And yet Florence is one of the healthiest places in Italy." However difficult it may be to assign the causes of this pestilential air, we may determine with tolerable precision the time of its continuance. Commencing, in general, about the latter end of June, it continues till the earth is cooled again by the heavy rains which fall towards the close of September and the beginning of October. We learn from Horace, that July and September were con- sidered unhealthy in his time. Of the former month he says, " Adducit febres et testamenta resignat;" and with regard to the latter he prays that he may be preserved " incolumem Septembribus horis." HOME. 217 ROME. .... Rome is as the desert, where we steer Stumbling o'er recollections; now we clap Our hands, and cry " Eureka! " it is clear When hut some false mirage of ruin rises near BYRON. THE great northern entrance of Rome is by what is call- ed the Porta del Popolo, nearly on the site of the ancient Flaminian gate. This modern entrance, designed by M. Angelo, leads at once into the Piazza del Popolo, from whence diverge the three principal streets, laying open to the first view the interior of the Eternal City; The city that so long Reigned absolute, the mistress of the world; The mighty vision that the prophets saw, And trembled ; that from nothing, from the least, The lowliest village (what but here and there A reed-roofed cabin by a river-side?) Grew into every thing; and year by year, Patiently, fearlessly, working her way, O'er brook and field, o'er continent and sea, Not like the merchant with his merchandize, Or traveller with staff and scrip exploring, But hand to hand and foot to foot, thro' hosts, Thro' nations numberless in battle array, Each behind each, each, when the other fell, Up and in arms, at length subdued them all. ROGERS. So multifarious are the objects of interest at Rome, 218 ROME. that, for a few days after his arrival, the traveller is be- wildered and scarcely knows to which he shall turn his attention first*. Some sort of classification, however, is absolutely necessary, and the simplest, perhaps, is that which divides the curiosities into the antiquities, the churches, and the palaces. These latter, together with a multitude of columns, obelisks, and fountains, are to be met with in the inhabited quarters; "but you must cross the Capitol, or strike off among the mounts, be- fore the genius of ancient Rome meets you amid its ruinsf." So much has the modern city been raised above its original level by the rubbish accumulated during the lapse of centuries, that a man may well wonder to find the shape and situation of the ancient hills still so dis- tinguishable. Where the ground happens to have been excavated, the pavement of old Rome has not unfre- quently been discovered at the depth of forty feetf. Yet the Seven Hills though, from the accumulation of soil in the valleys, their limits are not so accurately defined as formerly are still distinctly discernible; and on each of them, except the Viminal the most difficult of all will be found some leading object; as the Villa Me- * " II faut, says Dupaty, with his usual love of point, que je com- mence par errer de c6te et d'autre, pour user cette premiere impa- tience de voir qui m'empcheroit toujours de regarder." t Forsyth. I Rome moderne est elevee de quarante pieds au dessus de Rome ancienne. Les vallees qui separaient les collines se sont presque comblees par le temps, et par les mines des edifices. Corinne, TOPOGRAPHY. '219 dici on the Pincian, the Papal Palace on the Quirinal, and the three Basilicas on the Esquiline, Coelian, and Vatican Hills. But the most interesting relics of an- cient grandeur will be found in the neighbourhood of the Palatine and Capitoline Hills, the cradle of infant Rome; for the first establishments of Romulus extended not be- yond the Palatine Hill: Porta est, ait, ista Palati; Hie Stator, hoc primum condita Roma loco est. TRIST. Lib. iii. None of its ancient works remain on the Capitol, except a corner of the Temple of Jupiter Tonans, and a foun- dation wall behind the Senator's Palace, forming a por- tion of the ancient Tabularium or Record-office. These remains, which consist of enormous uncemented blocks of Peperine stone, are of great antiquity, having been laid down as a basement for the Capitol in the year of Rome 367. Livy, who notices the work, speaks of it as being considered a remarkable performance even in the magnificence of his day. The two summits of the Capitoline Hill, formerly dis- tinguished by the names Arx and Capitolium, are still sufficiently well marked. That which was termed Arx the loftier of the two was on the south side of the hill, looking towards the river, the Theatre of Marcel- lus, and the Aventine Hill. This summit, to which the modern Romans have given the name of Monte Caprino, is supposed to have been the site of the Temple of Jupi- ter Capitolinus. The other, facing the north to which the epithet Capitolium was more peculiarly appropriated, 220 ROME. and which is now occupied by the church of Araceli is thought to have been the site of the Temple of Jupiter Feretrius. But the respective situations of these temples have been much disputed. It is no easy task to determine the exact site of the Tar- peian Rock, of that part qf it at least from whence cri- minals were thrown down; and when the spot is ascer- tained, as nearly as may be, there is scarcely any thing in Rome more likely to create disappointment. Seneca speaks of it as " a lofty and precipitous mass, whose projecting crags either bruised the body to death, or hur- ried it down with still greater violence. These crags, jut- ting out from its sides added to its formidable height rendered it truly terrific." ( Controv. Lib. i. 3). In vain shall we look for any traces of this description: time has divested the rock of all its horrors; for the only preci- pice that remains is one of about thirty feet, from the point of a wall, from which, as has been justly observed, a man might leap down on the dung-hill in the yard be- low, without much risk of broken bones. That the great wreck of old Rome should have so de- faced the features of this part of the Capitoline Hill, can be matter of surprise to no one who considers how greatly the modern city has been raised above the ancient level by the rubbish which has been accumulating for so many ages. The character of the ground below is completely changed; and the Campus Martius, which was at the foot of the Tarpeian Rock into which the mangled bodies fell is now, like the rock itself, covered with the modern town. TOPOGRAPHY. 221 On the opposite side of the hill is the Forum. " It is difficult to conceive," says Mathews, " and impossible to describe, the effect produced by the 'admonitus locorum' of this memorable scene reduced as it now is again to something like the state which Virgil describes in the days of Evander:" Passimque armenta videbant, Romanoque Foro et lautis mugire Carinis. JEtt. viii. 361. They viewed the ground of Rome's litigious hall: Once oxen lowed, where now the lawyers bawl. DRYDEN. The Roman Forum, though no longer the Papal Smithfield, still bears and merits the name of Campo Vaccino. " Yet," continues Mathews, " it is even now the finest walk in the world, and would hardly, perhaps, in the proudest days of its magnificence, have interested a spectator more than it does at present, fallen as it is from its high estate. Nothing can be more striking or more affecting than the contrast between what it was, and what it is. There is enough in the tottering ruins which yet remain to recall the history of its ancient grandeur; while its present misery and degradation are obtruded upon you at every step. Here Horace lounged; here Cicero harangued; and here now the mo- dern Romans count their beads, cleanse their heads, and violate the sanctity of the place by every species of abo- mination. " The walk from the Capitol to the Coliseum com- prises the history of ages. The broken pillars that remain of the Temple of Concord, the Temple of Jupi- 222 ROME. ter Tonans, and the Comitium, tell the tale of former times, in language at once the most pathetic and intelli- gible : it is a mute eloquence, surpassing all the powers of description. It would seem as if the destroying angel had a taste for the picturesque; for the ruins are left just as the painter would most wish to have them." The arches of the emperors have been thought scarce- ly to harmonize with the rest of the scene; but such is the accumulation of soil around them, that it would be unfair to judge of their former effect from their present appearance. From the arch of Septimius Severus, a quadruple row of trees, crossing the Forum in an oblique direction, and leaving the Temples of Antoninus and Peace on the left, leads to that of Titus. This walk, the boasted work of the French, however convenient, is but ill-suited to the scene : it is a remnant of that per- verted taste which formerly raised the " Orti Farnesi" among the ruins of the Palatine Hill, and introduced modern decoration into a spot where every thing that is modern appears profane. This, the most populous part of ancient Rome, is now almost wholly abandoned. Mount Palatine, which ori- ginally contained all the Romans, and was afterwards found insufficient to accommodate one tyrant, That proud eminence, Long while the seat of Rome, hereafter found Less than enough so monstrous was the brood Engendered there, so Titan-like to lodge One in his madness, is at present inhabited only by a few friars; and it has TOPOGRAPHY. 223 been observed, not unaptly, that what Virgil says of the Capitoline Hill would, were we but to reverse the ex- pression, be equally applicable to the modern state of the Palatine: Aurea nunc, olim silvestribus horrida dumis. .ZEN. viii. 348. You may now traverse the whole hill, and scarcely meet a human being 1 , and that, too, on a spot once crowded with the assembled orders of Rome and Italy*: ... On the road where once we might have met Caesar, and Cato, and men more than kings, We meet, none else, the pilgrim and the beggar! Raphael's villa, the Farnese summer-house, M. Angelo's aviaries, are all of them falling into the same desolation as the imperial palace itself, which fringes the mount with its broken arches. " Would you push inquiry beyond these ruins, from the Palatium of Augustus back to the Palanteum of Evander, you find the mount surrounded with sacred names the altar of Hercules the Ruminal fig-tree the Lupercal the Germalus the Velia; but would you fondly affix to each name its local habitation on the hill, contradiction and doubt will thicken as you re- mountf." In travelling round the antiquities of Rome, there is, * Toturn Palatium senatu, equitibus Romanis, civitate omni, Ita- \\k cuncla refertum. Cicero. f Forsyth. 224 ROME. indeed, much room for scepticism with respect to the propriety of the names that have been applied to many of them. The Temple of Vesta, for example, at no great distance from the Palatine Hill, must be referred to this doubtful order. Its situation on the banks of the river seems to accord well enough with Horace's " monu- menta Vestae*"; and its position will agree with the " ventum erat ad Vestse " of the ninth satire, where it is represented as lying beyond the Tiber, in the way from the Via Sacra to the gardens of Caesar. Yet, observes Forsyth, " if you fix Vesta in this round temple on the Tiber, others will contend there for Hercules, or Por- tumnus, or Volupia. If, again, you assign the three magnificent columns in the Forum to Jupiter Stator, others will force them into a senate-house, or a portico, or a comitium, or a bridge. All round the Palatine, the Forum, the Velabrum, and the Sacred Way, is the fa- vourite field of antiquarian polemics. On this field you may fight most learnedly at an easy rate : every inch of it has been disputed; every opinion may gain some plausi- bility, and whichever you adopt will find proofs ready mar- shalled in its defence:" Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the void, O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light, And say, " here was, or is," where all is doubly night? BYRON. * It is objected, however, with some appearance of reason, that when Horace alludes to a flood of the Tiber, reaching even to the temple of Vesta, as a memorable occurrence, he can hardly mean this temple, which is on the very banks of the river. 225 WORKS OF THE REPUBLIC. Reliquias veterumque vides monumenta virorum. VIRO. BUT few works of the kings have escaped the ravages of time, and those built in the Etruscan style; consisting of a few layers of peperine stone, observable in the remains of the Tullian walls, the Tullian prison, and the triple arch of the Cloaca Maxima. Yet these remains, com- posed of large uncemented but regular blocks, though confessedly insufficient to enable us to retrace the archi- tectural designs of the first Romans, may serve as a spe- cimen of their public masonry, and, in the opinion of some, afford a plain indication of their early ambition, " which thus projected from its very infancy * an eternal city,' the capital of the world." TULLIAN PRISON. The remains of the Tullian pri- son stand at the foot of the Capitoline Hill, beneath the church of S. Pietro in Carcere. This prison was built by Ancus Martius, as we learn from Livy, who tells us that that king, " to repress the growing licentiousness, caused a prison to be constructed in the middle of the city, overlooking the Forum." (Lib. i. c. 33). The sub- terranean part was added by Servius Tullius, and was thence called Tullianum. It was also denominated Ro- bur; and if this is what Livy (Lib. xxxii. c. 26) means by the Career Lautumiarum the prison of the stone VOL I. Q 226 ROME. quarries we may perhaps safely conclude that the excavation was originally made for the purpose of pro- curing stone, and that the quarry was afterwards con- verted into a prison. The steps, known by the name of the Scalse Gemoniae, by which criminals were dragged to prison or led out to execution, were near the entrance. The prison itself consists of two cells, one above the other, to which the only entrance was by a small aper- ture in the roof of the upper cell; while a similar aper- ture in its floor led to the cell below. The upper cell is seven-and-twenty feet in length, by twenty in width; the lower, which is of an oval form, is twenty by ten. The height of the former is fourteen feet, that of the latter only seven. Sallust (De Bello Cat. c. 55) gives us the following description of it: " In the prison, known by the name of the Tullian prison, on descending a little, you come to a dungeon on the left, sunk to the depth of about twelve feet. Dead walls on all sides of it render escape impossible: above it is a cell vaulted with stone. Its uncleanliness, its darkness, and its noisome smell, make it a truly disgusting and horrible abode." These dungeons, it seems, served as the state prisons, being appropriated to persons of distinction. It was here, as we learn from Sallust, that the Catiline conspir- ators were confined, and executed; it was here that Ju- gurtha perished of hunger; here, too, it was that Sejanus, that sport of fortune, met the punishment due to his crimes; and that Perseus, the last of the Macedonian kings, dragged on a miserable existence, till, towards the close of life, he was removed, at the intercession of WORKS OF THE REPUBLIC. 227 his conqueror, Paulus Emilius, to a less frightful abode. Here, too, St. Peter and St. Paul were immured so at least the guide would have you believe and how can you refuse to give credit to his statement, when, in attes- tation of it, he produces two standing miracles? St. Peter, it seems, struck his head violently against the side of the prison, and instead of fracturing his skull, as an or- dinary man might have done, he indented the wall; and in the solid rock the eyes of the faithful still discern a tolerable impression of his features! Again; it happened that, during his imprisonment, many converts came to be baptized by him, and, as there was no water in the place, Peter caused a fountain to spring up in the centre of the dungeon which fountain still remains! The limited size of the Tullian prison, compared with that of the numberless jails now scattered over every part of Europe, has been adduced as an instance of the re- markable difference between the ancient and modern systems of government; for, if we may believe Juvenal, this was the only prison in old Rome: Sub Regibus atque Tribunis Viderunt uno contentam carcere Romam. iii. 313. They saw, beneath their Kings', their Tribunes ' reign, One cell the nation's criminals contain. GIFFORD. CLOACA MAXIMA. Not far from the little Temple of Vesta may be seen the embouchure of the Cloaca Max- ima*, which, though almost choked up by the artificial * A portion of it may also be seen near the Arch of Janus. Q2 228 ROME. elevation of modern Rome, still serves as the common sewer of the city, after a lapse of near three thousand years. The stones employed in the construction of the arch which is a triple one, consisting of three concentric rows, one above the other are of great size, and placed together without cement. The height is the same as the width about thirteen feet, though Marlianus makes the height and width three feet more. It seems, there- fore, to have been no exaggeration to say, that the Cloaca was sufficiently large to admit a waggon loaded with hay. According to Livy's account, this work was commenced by Tarquinius Priscus, who " drained the low grounds of the city about the Forum and the valleys lying between the Palatine and Capitoline Hills, by carrying sewers from a higher level into the Tiber." (Lib. i. c. 38). But the drain was imperfect, and the work, according to the same authority, was completed by Tarquinius Superbus. " Tarquin the Proud made the great subterranean cloaca to carry off the filth of the city a work so vast, that even the magnificence of the present age has not been able to equal it." (Lib. i. c. 56). This celebrated work, however, has been referred to a much later period; and no wonder, when there are those who contend that the arch was unknown even in Greece till within a hundred years of the Christian era. Among other hypotheses, it has been assigned to Augus- tus; but this conjecture seems loaded with insuperable difficulties; for how are we to reconcile such a supposi- tion with the silence of Suetonius, or with Livy's state- ment that it was constructed by Tarquin? Pliny also, WORKS OF THE REPUBLIC. t?'20 who records the repair of the cloaca in the age of Au- gustus, expressly states, (Lib. xxxviii. c. 15), that, after the lapse of seven hundred years, this " greatest of all works" this opus omnium maximum continued as strong as when first built by Tarquin. On the other hand, though Livy tells us that " Tarquin sent for art- ists from all parts of Etruria" to superintend this and other public works, yet, when we consider the immensity of the undertaking, and the rudeness of the age in which it is said to have been carried into effect, we may well be pardoned for indulging in a little scepticism. At any rate, Ferguson, in his Roman Republic, has started some his- toric doubts that are well worth attending to. "The common sewers," says he, " were executed at great ex- pense. It was proposed that they should be of sufficient dimensions to admit a waggon loaded with hay. (Plin. Lib. xxxviii. c. 15). When these sewers came to be ob- structed, under the republic, the censors contracted to pay a thousand talents, or about 193,000/. for clearing and repairing them. (Dion. Halicarn. Lib. iii. c. 67). They were again inspected at the accession of Augustus; and clearing their passages is mentioned among the great works of Agrippa. He is said to have turned the course of seven streams into these subterranean canals, to have made them navigable, and to have actually passed in barges under the streets and buildings of Rome. These works are still supposed to remain; but, as they exceed the power and resources of the present city to keep them in repair, they are concealed from view except in one or two places. They were in the midst of the Roman, 230 ROME greatness, and still are reckoned among the wonders of the world; and yet they are said to have been the works of the elder Tarquin*, a prince whose territory did not, in any direction, extend above sixteen miles; and on this supposition they must have been made to accommodate a city, that was calculated chiefly for the reception of cattle, herdsmen, and banditti. " Rude nations sometimes execute works of great magnificence, as fortresses or temples, for the purposes of superstition or war ; but seldom palaces, and, still more seldom, works of mere convenience and cleanliness, in which, for the most part, they are long defective. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to question the authority of tradition, in respect of this singular monument of anti- quity, which exceeds what many well accommodated cities of modern Europe have undertaken for their own conveniency. And as those works are still entire, and may continue so for thousands of years, it may be suspected that they existed even prior to the settlement of Romulus, and may have been the remains of a more ancient city, on the ruins of which the followers of Ro- mulus settled, as Arabs now hut or encamp on the ruins of Palmyra and Balbec. Livy owns that the common sewers were not accommodated to the plan of Rome, as it was laid out in his time: they were carried in directions across the streets, and passed under the buildings of the greatest antiquity. This derangement, indeed, he im- putes to the hasty rebuilding of the city after its destruc- We have seen that they were completed by Tarquinius Superbus. WORKS OF THE REPUBLIC. 231 tion by the Gauls; but haste, it is probable, would have determined the people to build on their old foundations, or at least not to change them so much as to cross the direction of former streets. When the only remaining accounts of an ancient monument are absurd or incredi- ble, it follows, of course, that the real account of the times in which it was erected is not known." Such is Ferguson's note, which well merits attention; " though," as Mathews observes, " it is difficult to recon- cile the existence of a more ancient city*, on the site of the city of Romulus, with the entire silence of history and tradition ; unless, indeed, we carry it up to a pe- riod so remote, as would throw an awful mystery over the first origin of the Eternal City connecting it with times of which there are no more traces than of the mammoth or mastodon." We have already seen that there are but few works of the kings remaining; we shall now see that there are no great number that we can refer even to the republic. * Perhaps Virgil may be quoted as countenancing the opinion that there was a city here before the time of Romulus. Evander, while shewing his city to Mneas, is made to say: Hsec duo prseterea disjectis oppida muris Reliquias veterumque vides monumenta virorum : Hanc Janus pater, hanc Saturnus condidit urbem, Janiculum huic, illi fuerat Saturnia nomen. ;En. viii. 355. And yet, so vague and contradictory was tradition upon this subject, that, according to Ovid, when Evander first set foot in Italy, there were only a few huts on the spot where Rome afterwards stood. Fast. Lib. v. 93. 232 ROME. The earliest as might, indeed, have been expected among men whose thoughts were principally bent on conquest are military ways. " For a while," observes Forsyth, " the republicans emulated the kings in the so- lidity of their constructions. Appius Claudius founded his great way, built it like a mole, and paved it with dressed basaltic stones. In the next century the roads of Flaccus and Albinus were only covered with gravel. Their successors, improving in economy, took advantage of hard soils, and in some parts omitted the ruderation, in others the statumen, in others both. The pavement of these ways is generally hidden under a modern coat of gravel. Where it is uncovered, as on the road to Tivoli, at Capo di Bove, at Fondi, &c., the stones, though irregular, are large and even flat; but their edges being worn into hollows, they jolt a carriage unmerci- fully." It is difficult to believe that Procopius could really have found those stones so compactly even as he represents them; or that any stones could, for nine hun- dred years, sustain the action of wheels without injury; yet he tells us, " though they have been travelled over for such a length of time by so many carriages and ani- mals, yet we do not perceive that they have become dis- united or broken, or that they have lost any thing of their polish," (Lib. iii.) AQUEDUCTS, the only luxury of the republic, as Mad. de Stael calls them, immediately followed. But of the various structures of this kind that still remain, none are supposed to be referable to the republic, except the ar- WORKS OF THE REPUBLIC. 233 cades which conveyed the Aqua Martia; and the grand- est even of these are thought to be due to the repairs of Augustus. These magnificent works, which form the most pro- minent feature in the landscape to the south-east of Rome for there you meet, at every turn, Aqueducts Among the groves and glades rolling along Rivers, on many an arch high over-head " have," as Burton observes, " been cited as a proof that the Romans were ignorant of that principle in hydrostatics, that water will always rise to the level of its source; and their patient industry has been ridiculed, in taking so much trouble to convey, upon arches of brick or stone, what might have been brought in pipes underground .... Perhaps, when they first erected arches for this pur- pose, they were not aware that the labour might have been spared,- but it is difficult to deny that many Roman aqueducts were constructed in this manner after the principle was known. The Meta Sudans, a fragment of which still exists near the Coliseum, is said to have been a fountain; and it is evident that the water which sup- plied it was not raised by mere mechanical means. Pliny mentions one hundred and five fountains* (salientes) in Rome; and, from the Latin term for a fountain, it ap- pears certain that they resembled those of modern times, * Agrippa .... lacus septingentos fecit, praeterea salientes cen- tum quinque, castella centum triginta. (Lib. xxxvi. c. 24). 234 ROME. and that the water was thrown up merely by its own pressure. But another passage of Pliny is more decisive, and ought to set the question at rest as to the science of his days. He says, (Lib. xxxi. c, 31), The water, which is wanted to rise to any height, should come out of lead. It rises to the height of its source.' In an- other place he observes, ' The ancients carried their streams in a lower course, either because they were un- acquainted with the exact principle of keeping a level, or because they purposely sunk them underground, that they might not easily be interrupted by the enemy.' We may add a passage from Frontinus, (Lib. i.), * There are five different levels to the streams, two of which are raised to every part of the city; but, of the rest, some are forced by greater, some by less pressure.' " PANTHEON.-" The city of Rome," observes Spence, in his Polymetisj " like its inhabitants, was in the begin- ning rude and unadorned. Those old rough soldiers looked on the effects of the politer arts as things fit only for an effeminate people: as too apt to soften and unnerve men; and to take from that martial temper and ferocity, which they encouraged so much and so universally in the infancy of their state. Their houses were (what the name they gave them signified) only a covering* for them, and a defence against bad weather. These sheds of theirs were more like the caves of wild beasts than * Tecta. In the same manner perhaps the word culmina, for the roofs of their houses, shews their old method of covering them with straw. Spence. WORKS OF THE REPUBLIC. 235 the habitations of men; and were rather flung together as chance led them, than formed into regular streets and openings. Their walls were half mud; and their roofs, pieces of board stuck together: nay, even this was an after-improvement; for, in Romulus's time, their houses were only covered with straw*. If they had any thing that was finer than ordinary, that was chiefly taken up in setting off the temples of their gods : and when these began to be furnished with statues (for they had none till long after Numa's time) they were probably more fit to give terror than delight; and seemed rather formed so as to be horrible enough to strike awe into those who worshipped them, than handsome enough to invite any one to look upon them for pleasure. Their design, I suppose, was answerable to the materials they were made of; and, if their gods were of earthen-waref, they were * One may guess a little at their other buildings, from the palace of their kings. It was a little thatched house; and very ill fur- nished : Romuleoque recens horrebat regia culmo. JEn. viii. 654. Quae fuerit nostri si quaeris regia nati, Aspice de canna straminibusque domum : In stipula placidi carpebat munera somni. Ovid. Fast. iii. 185. t Fictilibus crevere deis haec aurea templa; Nee fuit opprobrio facta sine arte casa. Propert. iv. El. i. 6. Jupiter antiqua vix totus stabat in aede; Inque Jovis dextra fictile fulmen erat. Ovid. Fast. L. i. 202. Fictilis et nullo violatus Jupiter auro. Juv. Sat. ii. 116. Lignea aut nctilia deorum simulacra in delubris dim! a usque ad devictam Asiam. Plin. N. H. xxxiv. 7. Spence's Polymetis. 236 ROME. reckoned better than ordinary; for many of them were chopped out of wood." " Conquest, which was ever dearer to the Roman re- public than its own liberty, spread at last to Greece, and brought home the fine arts in objects of plunder. Their captive gods, too beautiful or sublime for the rude old structures of Italy, obliged the Romans to raise for them temples in imitation of the Greek*." Some of these temples, and among them the Pantheon, had the good luck to be preserved as churches. The donation, however, of the Pantheon for a Christian church, by the Emperor Phocas, and its consecration by Boniface IV., seem to have afforded it little protection against the subsequent spoliations both of emperors and popes. The plates of gilded bronze that covered the roof, the bronze relievos of the pediment, and the silver that adorned the interior of the dome, were carried off by Constans II., who destined them for his palace at Constantinople; but, being assassinated at Syracuse on his way back, his booty was conveyed to Alexandria; and thus the spoils of the Pantheon, formed out of the plunder of Egypt after the battle of Actium, reverted to their original source. Urban VIII. carried off all that was left the bronze beams of the Portico and melted it down into the Baldacchino of St. Peter's, and the useless cannon of the castle of St. Angelo. It was under his auspices, too, that Bernini erected the two brick belfries that now deform the front of the building. It is the prevailing fashion with antiquaries to call * Forsyth. WORKS OF THE REPUBLIC. 237 every round edifice the " exhedra" or the " caldarium" of ancient baths. Such is the temple of Minerva Medica; and, according to the Abate Lazeri*, such originally was the Pantheon. " The Pantheon a bath ! Could that glori- ous combination of beauty and magnificence have been raised for so sordid an office? Yet, (continues Forsyth), consider it historically, detach the known additions, such as the portals, the columns, the altars; strip the im- mense cylinder and its niches of their present ornaments, and you will then arrive at the exact form of the caldaria now existing in Rome." Whoever comes to the Pantheon with expectations excited by engravings will probably be disappointed; and yet it is a noble portico; too grand, perhaps, for the temple to which it leads. " The cell and the portal, in- deed," as Forsyth observes, " are two beauties indepen- dent of their unionf . ' The portal shines inimitable on * Discorso del Pietro Lazeri della consecrazione del Panteone fatta da Bonifazio IV. Roma, 1749. t The most inexperienced eye would observe a want of agree- ment between the portico and the body of the building. The cor- nice of the one does not accord with that of the other; and a singular effect is produced by there being a pediment on the temple, which rises above that of the portico; so that, in fact, there are two pedi- ments. This has caused some controversy among the antiquaries. But it is now generally supposed that Agrippa built the whole, though perhaps at different times, and the portico may have been an after-thought. The inscription, which ascribes the building to Agrippa, stands over the portico: M. Agrippa. L. F. Cos. Tertium. Fecit. Burton. 238 ROME. earth.' Viewed alone it is faultless. If the pediment should appear too high, from the present vacancy of its tympan, that tympan was originally full of the richest sculp- ture. If the columns are not all mathematically equal, yet inequalities, which nothing but measurement can de- tect, are not faults to the eye, which is sole judge. But the portal is more than faultless; it is positively the most sublime result ever produced by so little architecture*. Its general design is best seen diagonally from the Gius- tiniani Palace. In the obscene hole where it stands, you run more into the analysis of parts, the details of orna- ment, the composition of the entablature, the swell and proportions of the columns." You enter the Pantheon by doors, cased in bronze, not unworthy of the temple itself; though it has been said that the original doors were carried away by Genseric, and that these were supplied from some other edifice. " I do not believe," says Woods, " that there is any per- son so insensible to the effect of architecture as not to * The portico is one hundred and ten feet long by forty-four deep, supported by sixteen columns of the Corinthian order. Each con- sists of a single piece of oriental granite, forty-four feet in height, independent of the bases and capitals, which are of white marble : the circumference of the pillars is about fifteen feet. The space be- tween the two middle pillars is somewhat greater than that between the others. Vitruvius leads us to expect this ; for he tells us, that each intercolumniation in a portico should equal two diameters and a fourth; but that the central intercolumniation should equal three diameters. A temple so constructed he denominates Eustylos. (Lib. iii. c. 2.) WORKS OF THE REPUBLIC. 289 feel the surpassing beauty of this building internally. The simplicity and gracefulness of its form, the beauti- ful colour of its marbles, (principally of the giallo antico), and the delightful effect of its single central light* force themselves upon our admiration." Forsyth seems to think that the elevation is beautiful where it should be grand; and that its Corinthian, though exquisite, made the Attic here a necessary evil. " Had Hadrian caught the full majesty of the naked dome, and embellished its walls with one grand order that rose to the origin of the vault; so full a support would have balanced the vast lacunaria of that vault, which now overpower us, and the whole temple would have been ' more simply, more se- verely great.' Vast as they appear, those deep coffers are really not disproportioned to the hemisphere, and, diminishing as they ascend, they stop just at the point where they would cease to be noble or entire. " Though plundered of all its brass, except the ring which was necessary to preserve the aperture above; though exposed to repeated fire; though sometimes flooded by the river, and always open to the rain, no monument of equal antiquity is so well preserved as this rotunda. It passed with little alteration from the Pagan into the present worship; and so convenient were its niches for the Christian altar, that M. Angelo, ever studious of ancient beauty, introduced their design as a model in the Catholic church*." . .. * Forsyth. 240 ROME. Formerly the temple of all the gods, for such at least is the popular notion of this edifice*, it is now consecra- ted to all the saints; " and the great and invisible Spirit, the source of all things, is perhaps as little in the con- templation of the modern, as of the ancient worshippers of the Pantheon. The open skylight, communicating at once with the glorious firmament, and letting in a portion of the vault of the heavens, produces a sublime * " The name, the form, tradition, or some other cause," says the author of Rome in the Nineteenth Century, " has given rise to the belief that it was dedicated to Jupiter and all the gods: but of this there is no proof; and it is contrary to the principles of the Pagan religion, which forbade a temple to be dedicated to more than one divinity ; and enjoined that, even when vowed to two, as in the case of Virtue and Honour, Venus and Rome, Isis and Serapis, a double temple should be raised." Plutarch, in his life of Marcellus, says, that when that general wished to erect a temple to Glory and Valour conjointly, he was prevented by the priests, who objected to put two gods into one temple. Yet sometimes we find them less scrupulous : for, " though a temple could only be dedicated to one god, it might con- tain small aedicolaB, or chapels, for the worship of others; as the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, though dedicated to himself alone, contained the aedicolae of Juno and Minerva, and the altar of Terminus; just as Catholic churches are dedicated to the Virgin, or some particular saint, but have small chapels appropriated to others. The recesses of the Pantheon of which there are twelve, four large and eight smaller ones seem to indicate that they were formerly the aedicolae of Pagan gods." (Rome in the Nineteenth Century'). Referring to the origin of the term Pantheon, Dio observes : " It is perhaps called so, because in the statues of Mars and Venus, it re- ceived the images of several deities. But, as it appears to me, it de- rives its name from the convex form of its roof, which gives, as it were, a representation of the heavens." (Lib. iii.) WORKS OF THE REPUBLIC. 241 effect. It is, as it were, the eye of the Divinity im- parting light and life and penetrating the most secret thoughts of those that repair to his altar*." The Pantheon is no longer made the receptacle of the busts of distinguished men. " The ill-assorted modern contemporary heads," as Hobhouse calls them, " which glared in all the niches of the rotonda; the little white Hermsean busts ranged on ledges side by side, and giv- ing this temple of immortality the air of a sculptor's study," have all been removed, and even the sacred image of the divine Raphael has not escaped the gene- ral proscription. His epitaph, however, by Cardinal Bembo, of which Pope has given us an imitation in the conclusion of his epitaph on Kneller, still remains : Ille hie est Raphael, timuit, quo sospite, vinci, Rerum magna parens, et moriente, mori. Living, great Nature feared he might outvie Her works; and, dying, fears herself may die. POPE. This epitaph on Raphael, though generally admired * Mathews, from whom this remark is taken, may perhaps, in this instance, be accused of indulging a little in the fanciful. He may, however, plead prescription in his excuse. " I know," says Addison, " that such as are professed admirers of the ancients will find abundance of chimerical beauties, the architects themselves never thought of; as one of the most famous of the moderns in that art tells us, the hole in the roof of the Rotonda is so admirably con- trived, that it makes those who are in the temple look like angels, by diffusing the light equally on all sides of them!" VOL. I. R ROME. for its terseness and brevity, was not, it seems, to the taste of the profound Dupaty; who objects to it, that it betrays wit rather than sorrow. " Le Cardinal," says he, " a mis de 1'esprit dans ces vers: il n'auroit du y mettre que de la douleur. Que ne se bornoit-il a dire: Hie est Raphael Raphael est ici!" TOMBS. As if these mementos of mortality were less productive of melancholy sensations among Pagans than among Christians, the tombs of the ancients were spread abroad in the most conspicuous places, and by the sides of the public ways; with the double view, perhaps, of thus diminishing the gloomy horrors of eternal separa- tion, and of exciting youth to emulation and the love of glory*. Juvenal and Horace have censured the pomp and splendour of the tombs, especially of those on the Appian Way. On that " Queen of Ways " were crowded the proud sepulchres of the most distinguished Romans; and their mouldering remains still attest their ancient grandeur. Addison has noticed the absurdity of beginning our mo- dern epitaphs, which are to be met with only in churches or churchyards, with a " Siste, Viator;" " Viator pre- * Loin que chez les anciens 1'aspect des tombeaux decourageat les vivants, on croyoit inspirer une emulation nouvelle en pla