school-books, setting forth 'The Wonders of the World.' Like most
things connected in their first associations with school-books and
school-times, it was too small. I felt it keenly. It was nothing
like so high above the wall as I had hoped. It was another of the
many deceptions practised by Mr. Harris, Bookseller, at the corner
of St. Paul's Churchyard, London. HIS Tower was a fiction, but
this was a reality - and, by comparison, a short reality. Still,
it looked very well, and very strange, and was quite as much out of
the perpendicular as Harris had represented it to be. The quiet
air of Pisa too; the big guard-house at the gate, with only two
little soldiers in it; the streets with scarcely any show of people
in them; and the Arno, flowing quaintly through the centre of the
town; were excellent. So, I bore no malice in my heart against Mr.
Harris (remembering his good intentions), but forgave him before
dinner, and went out, full of confidence, to see the Tower next
morning.
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I might have known better; but, somehow, I had expected to see it,
casting its long shadow on a public street where people came and
went all day. It was a surprise to me to find it in a grave
retired place, apart from the general resort, and carpeted with
smooth green turf. But, the group of buildings, clustered on and
about this verdant carpet: comprising the Tower, the Baptistery,
the Cathedral, and the Church of the Campo Santo: is perhaps the
most remarkable and beautiful in the whole world; and from being
clustered there, together, away from the ordinary transactions and
details of the town, they have a singularly venerable and
impressive character. It is the architectural essence of a rich
old city, with all its common life and common habitations pressed
out, and filtered away.
SIMOND compares the Tower to the usual pictorial representations in
children's books of the Tower of Babel. It is a happy simile, and
conveys a better idea of the building than chapters of laboured
description. Nothing can exceed the grace and lightness of the
structure; nothing can be more remarkable than its general
appearance. In the course of the ascent to the top (which is by an
easy staircase), the inclination is not very apparent; but, at the
summit, it becomes so, and gives one the sensation of being in a
ship that has heeled over, through the action of an ebb-tide. The
effect UPON THE LOW SIDE, so to speak - looking over from the
gallery, and seeing the shaft recede to its base - is very
startling; and I saw a nervous traveller hold on to the Tower
involuntarily, after glancing down, as if he had some idea of
propping it up. The view within, from the ground - looking up, as
through a slanted tube - is also very curious. It certainly
inclines as much as the most sanguine tourist could desire. The
natural impulse of ninety-nine people out of a hundred, who were
about to recline upon the grass below it, to rest, and contemplate
the adjacent buildings, would probably be, not to take up their
position under the leaning side; it is so very much aslant.
The manifold beauties of the Cathedral and Baptistery need no
recapitulation from me; though in this case, as in a hundred
others, I find it difficult to separate my own delight in recalling
them, from your weariness in having them recalled. There is a
picture of St. Agnes, by Andrea del Sarto, in the former, and there
are a variety of rich columns in the latter, that tempt me
strongly.
It is, I hope, no breach of my resolution not to be tempted into
elaborate descriptions, to remember the Campo Santo; where grassgrown
graves are dug in earth brought more than six hundred years
ago, from the Holy Land; and where there are, surrounding them,
such cloisters, with such playing lights and shadows falling
through their delicate tracery on the stone pavement, as surely the
dullest memory could never forget. On the walls of this solemn and
lovely place, are ancient frescoes, very much obliterated and
decayed, but very curious. As usually happens in almost any
collection of paintings, of any sort, in Italy, where there are
many heads, there is, in one of them, a striking accidental
likeness of Napoleon. At one time, I used to please my fancy with
the speculation whether these old painters, at their work, had a
foreboding knowledge of the man who would one day arise to wreak
such destruction upon art: whose soldiers would make targets of
great pictures, and stable their horses among triumphs of
architecture. But the same Corsican face is so plentiful in some
parts of Italy at this day, that a more commonplace solution of the
coincidence is unavoidable.
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If Pisa be the seventh wonder of the world in right of its Tower,
it may claim to be, at least, the second or third in right of its
beggars. They waylay the unhappy visitor at every turn, escort him
to every door he enters at, and lie in wait for him, with strong
reinforcements, at every door by which they know he must come out.
The grating of the portal on its hinges is the signal for a general
shout, and the moment he appears, he is hemmed in, and fallen on,
by heaps of rags and personal distortions. The beggars seem to
embody all the trade and enterprise of Pisa. Nothing else is
stirring, but warm air. Going through the streets, the fronts of
the sleepy houses look like backs. They are all so still and
quiet, and unlike houses with people in them, that the greater part
of the city has the appearance of a city at daybreak, or during a
general siesta of the population. Or it is yet more like those
backgrounds of houses in common prints, or old engravings, where
windows and doors are squarely indicated, and one figure (a beggar
of course) is seen walking off by itself into illimitable
perspective.
Not so Leghorn (made illustrious by SMOLLETT'S grave), which is a
thriving, business-like, matter-of-fact place, where idleness is
shouldered out of the way by commerce. The regulations observed
there, in reference to trade and merchants, are very liberal and
free; and the town, of course, benefits by them. Leghorn had a bad
name in connection with stabbers, and with some justice it must be
allowed; for, not many years ago, there was an assassination club
there, the members of which bore no ill-will to anybody in
particular, but stabbed people (quite strangers to them) in the
streets at night, for the pleasure and excitement of the
recreation. I think the president of this amiable society was a
shoemaker. He was taken, however, and the club was broken up. It
would, probably, have disappeared in the natural course of events,
before the railroad between Leghorn and Pisa, which is a good one,
and has already begun to astonish Italy with a precedent of
punctuality, order, plain dealing, and improv
ement - the most
dangerous and heretical astonisher of all. There must have been a
slight sensation, as of earthquake, surely, in the Vatican, when
the first Italian railroad was thrown open.
Returning to Pisa, and hiring a good-tempered Vetturino, and his
four horses, to take us on to Rome, we travelled through pleasant
Tuscan villages and cheerful scenery all day. The roadside crosses
in this part of Italy are numerous and curious. There is seldom a
figure on the cross, though there is sometimes a face, but they are
remarkable for being garnished with little models in wood, of every
possible object that can be connected with the Saviour's death.
The cock that crowed when Peter had denied his Master thrice, is
usually perched on the tip-top; and an ornithological phenomenon he
generally is. Under him, is the inscription. Then, hung on to the
cross-beam, are the spear, the reed with the sponge of vinegar and
water at the end, the coat without seam for which the soldiers cast
lots, the dice-box with which they threw for it, the hammer that
drove in the nails, the pincers that pulled them out, the ladder
which was set against the cross, the crown of thorns, the
instrument of flagellation, the lanthorn with which Mary went to
the tomb (I suppose), and the sword with which Peter smote the
servant of the high priest, - a perfect toy-shop of little objects,
repeated at every four or five miles, all along the highway.
On the evening of the second day from Pisa, we reached the
beautiful old city of Siena. There was what they called a
Carnival, in progress; but, as its secret lay in a score or two of
melancholy people walking up and down the principal street in
common toy-shop masks, and being more melancholy, if possible, than
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the same sort of people in England, I say no more of it. We went
off, betimes next morning, to see the Cathedral, which is
wonderfully picturesque inside and out, especially the latter -
also the market-place, or great Piazza, which is a large square,
with a great broken-nosed fountain in it: some quaint Gothic
houses: and a high square brick tower; OUTSIDE the top of which -
a curious feature in such views in Italy - hangs an enormous bell.
It is like a bit of Venice, without the water. There are some
curious old Palazzi in the town, which is very ancient; and without
having (for me) the interest of Verona, or Genoa, it is very dreamy
and fantastic, and most interesting.
We went on again, as soon as we had seen these things, and going
over a rather bleak country (there had been nothing but vines until
now: mere walking-sticks at that season of the year), stopped, as
usual, between one and two hours in the middle of the day, to rest
the horses; that being a part of every Vetturino contract. We then
went on again, through a region gradually becoming bleaker and
wilder, until it became as bare and desolate as any Scottish moors.
Soon after dark, we halted for the night, at the osteria of La
Scala: a perfectly lone house, where the family were sitting round
a great fire in the kitchen, raised on a stone platform three or
four feet high, and big enough for the roasting of an ox. On the
upper, and only other floor of this hotel, there was a great, wild,
rambling sala, with one very little window in a by-corner, and four
black doors opening into four black bedrooms in various directions.
To say nothing of another large black door, opening into another
large black sala, with the staircase coming abruptly through a kind
of trap-door in the floor, and the rafters of the roof looming
above: a suspicious little press skulking in one obscure corner:
and all the knives in the house lying about in various directions.
The fireplace was of the purest Italian architecture, so that it
was perfectly impossible to see it for the smoke. The waitress was
like a dramatic brigand's wife, and wore the same style of dress
upon her head. The dogs barked like mad; the echoes returned the
compliments bestowed upon them; there was not another house within
twelve miles; and things had a dreary, and rather a cut-throat,
appearance.
They were not improved by rumours of robbers having come out,
strong and boldly, within a few nights; and of their having stopped
the mail very near that place. They were known to have waylaid
some travellers not long before, on Mount Vesuvius itself, and were
the talk at all the roadside inns. As they were no business of
ours, however (for we had very little with us to lose), we made
ourselves merry on the subject, and were very soon as comfortable
as need be. We had the usual dinner in this solitary house; and a
very good dinner it is, when you are used to it. There is
something with a vegetable or some rice in it which is a sort of
shorthand or arbitrary character for soup, and which tastes very
well, when you have flavoured it with plenty of grated cheese, lots
of salt, and abundance of pepper. There is the half fowl of which
this soup has been made. There is a stewed pigeon, with the
gizzards and livers of himself and other birds stuck all round him.
There is a bit of roast beef, the size of a small French roll.
There are a scrap of Parmesan cheese, and five little withered
upon the other, as if each were trying to save itself from the
chance of being eaten. Then there is coffee; and then there is
bed. You don't mind brick floors; you don't mind yawning doors,
nor banging windows; you don't mind your own horses being stabled
under the bed: and so close, that every time a horse coughs or
sneezes, he wakes you. If you are good-humoured to the people
about you, and speak pleasantly, and look cheerful, take my word
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for it you may be well entertained in the very worst Italian Inn,
and always in the most obliging manner, and may go from one end of
the country to the other (despite all stories to the contrary)
without any great trial of your patience anywhere. Especially,
when you get such wine in flasks, as the Orvieto, and the Monte
Pulciano.
It was a bad morning when we left this place; and we went, for
twelve miles, over a country as barren, as stony, and as wild, as
Cornwall in England, until we came to Radicofani, where there is a
ghostly, goblin inn: once a hunting-seat, belonging to the Dukes
of Tuscany. It is full of such rambling corridors, and gaunt
rooms, that all the murdering and phantom tales that ever were
written might have originated in that one house. There are some
horrible old Palazzi in Genoa: one in particular, not unlike it,
outside: but there is a winding, creaking, wormy, rustling, dooropening,
foot-on-staircase-falling character about this Radicofani
Hotel, such as I never saw, anywhere else. The town, such as it
is, hangs on a hill-side above the house, and in front of
it. The
inhabitants are all beggars; and as soon as they see a carriage
coming, they swoop down upon it, like so many birds of prey.
When we got on the mountain pass, which lies beyond this place, the
wind (as they had forewarned us at the inn) was so terrific, that
we were obliged to take my other half out of the carriage, lest she
should be blown over, carriage and all, and to hang to it, on the
windy side (as well as we could for laughing), to prevent its
going, Heaven knows where. For mere force of wind, this land-storm
might have competed with an Atlantic gale, and had a reasonable
chance of coming off victorious. The blast came sweeping down
great gullies in a range of mountains on the right: so that we
looked with positive awe at a great morass on the left, and saw
that there was not a bush or twig to hold by. It seemed as if,
once blown from our feet, we must be swept out to sea, or away into
space. There was snow, and hail, and rain, and lightning, and
thunder; and there were rolling mists, travelling with incredible
velocity. It was dark, awful, and solitary to the last degree;
there were mountains above mountains, veiled in angry clouds; and
there was such a wrathful, rapid, violent, tumultuous hurry,
everywhere, as rendered the scene unspeakably exciting and grand.
It was a relief to get out of it, notwithstanding; and to cross
even the dismal, dirty Papal Frontier. After passing through two
little towns; in one of which, Acquapendente, there was also a
'Carnival' in progress: consisting of one man dressed and masked
as a woman, and one woman dressed and masked as a man, walking
ankle-deep, through the muddy streets, in a very melancholy manner:
we came, at dusk, within sight of the Lake of Bolsena, on whose
bank there is a little town of the same name, much celebrated for
malaria. With the exception of this poor place, there is not a
cottage on the banks of the lake, or near it (for nobody dare sleep
there); not a boat upon its waters; not a stick or stake to break
the dismal monotony of seven-and-twenty watery miles. We were late
in getting in, the roads being very bad from heavy rains; and,
after dark, the dulness of the scene was quite intolerable.
We entered on a very different, and a finer scene of desolation,
next night, at sunset. We had passed through Montefiaschone