excellent wine, holding a quart at least; and produces, among halfa-
dozen other dishes, two-thirds of a roasted kid, smoking hot.
She is as good-humoured, too, as dirty, which is saying a great
deal. So here's long life to her, in the flask of wine, and
prosperity to the establishment.
Rome gained and left behind, and with it the Pilgrims who are now
repairing to their own homes again - each with his scallop shell
and staff, and soliciting alms for the love of God - we come, by a
fair country, to the Falls of Terni, where the whole Velino river
dashes, headlong, from a rocky height, amidst shining spray and
rainbows. Perugia, strongly fortified by art and nature, on a
lofty eminence, rising abruptly from the plain where purple
mountains mingle with the distant sky, is glowing, on its marketday,
with radiant colours. They set off its sombre but rich Gothic
buildings admirably. The pavement of its market-place is strewn
with country goods. All along the steep hill leading from the
town, under the town wall, there is a noisy fair of calves, lambs,
pigs, horses, mules, and oxen. Fowls, geese, and turkeys, flutter
vigorously among their very hoofs; and buyers, sellers, and
spectators, clustering everywhere, block up the road as we come
shouting down upon them.
Suddenly, there is a ringing sound among our horses. The driver
stops them. Sinking in his saddle, and casting up his eyes to
Heaven, he delivers this apostrophe, 'Oh Jove Omnipotent! here is a
horse has lost his shoe!'
Notwithstanding the tremendous nature of this accident, and the
utterly forlorn look and gesture (impossible in any one but an
Italian Vetturino) with which it is announced, it is not long in
being repaired by a mortal Farrier, by whose assistance we reach
Castiglione the same night, and Arezzo next day. Mass is, of
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course, performing in its fine cathedral, where the sun shines in
among the clustered pillars, through rich stained-glass windows:
half revealing, half concealing the kneeling figures on the
pavement, and striking out paths of spotted light in the long
aisles.
But, how much beauty of another kind is here, when, on a fair clear
morning, we look, from the summit of a hill, on Florence! See
where it lies before us in a sun-lighted valley, bright with the
winding Arno, and shut in by swelling hills; its domes, and towers,
and palaces, rising from the rich country in a glittering heap, and
shining in the sun like gold!
Magnificently stern and sombre are the streets of beautiful
Florence; and the strong old piles of building make such heaps of
shadow, on the ground and in the river, that there is another and a
different city of rich forms and fancies, always lying at our feet.
windows heavily barred, and walls of great thickness formed of huge
masses of rough stone, frown, in their old sulky state, on every
street. In the midst of the city - in the Piazza of the Grand
Duke, adorned with beautiful statues and the Fountain of Neptune -
rises the Palazzo Vecchio, with its enormous overhanging
battlements, and the Great Tower that watches over the whole town.
In its court-yard - worthy of the Castle of Otranto in its
ponderous gloom - is a massive staircase that the heaviest waggon
and the stoutest team of horses might be driven up. Within it, is
a Great Saloon, faded and tarnished in its stately decorations, and
mouldering by grains, but recording yet, in pictures on its walls,
the triumphs of the Medici and the wars of the old Florentine
people. The prison is hard by, in an adjacent court-yard of the
building - a foul and dismal place, where some men are shut up
close, in small cells like ovens; and where others look through
bars and beg; where some are playing draughts, and some are talking
to their friends, who smoke, the while, to purify the air; and some
are buying wine and fruit of women-vendors; and all are squalid,
dirty, and vile to look at. 'They are merry enough, Signore,' says
the jailer. 'They are all blood-stained here,' he adds,
indicating, with his hand, three-fourths of the whole building.
Before the hour is out, an old man, eighty years of age,
quarrelling over a bargain with a young girl of seventeen, stabs
her dead, in the market-place full of bright flowers; and is
brought in prisoner, to swell the number.
Among the four old bridges that span the river, the Ponte Vecchio -
that bridge which is covered with the shops of Jewellers and
Goldsmiths - is a most enchanting feature in the scene. The space
of one house, in the centre, being left open, the view beyond is
shown as in a frame; and that precious glimpse of sky, and water,
and rich buildings, shining so quietly among the huddled roofs and
gables on the bridge, is exquisite. Above it, the Gallery of the
Grand Duke crosses the river. It was built to connect the two
Great Palaces by a secret passage; and it takes its jealous course
among the streets and houses, with true despotism: going where it
lists, and spurning every obstacle away, before it.
The Grand Duke has a worthier secret passage through the streets,
in his black robe and hood, as a member of the Compagnia della
Misericordia, which brotherhood includes all ranks of men. If an
accident take place, their office is, to raise the sufferer, and
bear him tenderly to the Hospital. If a fire break out, it is one
of their functions to repair to the spot, and render their
assistance and protection. It is, also, among their commonest
offices, to attend and console the sick; and they neither receive
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purpose. Those who are on duty for the time, are all called
together, on a moment's notice, by the tolling of the great bell of
the Tower; and it is said that the Grand Duke has been seen, at
this sound, to rise from his seat at table, and quietly withdraw to
attend the summons.
In this other large Piazza, where an irregular kind of market is
held, and stores of old iron and other small merchandise are set
out on stalls, or scattered on the pavement, are grouped together,
the Cathedral with its great Dome, the beautiful Italian Gothic
Tower the Campanile, and the Baptistery with its wrought bronze
doors. And here, a small untrodden square in the pavement, is 'the
Stone of DANTE,' where (so runs the story) he was used to bring his
stool, and sit in contemplation. I wonder was he ever, in his
bitter exile, withheld from cursing the very stones in the streets
of Florence the ungrateful, by any kind remembrance of this old
musing-place, and its association with gentle thoughts of little
Beatrice!
The chapel of the Medici, the Good and Bad Angels, of Florence; the
church of Santa Croce where Michael Ang
elo lies buried, and where
every stone in the cloisters is eloquent on great men's deaths;
innumerable churches, often masses of unfinished heavy brickwork
externally, but solemn and serene within; arrest our lingering
steps, in strolling through the city.
In keeping with the tombs among the cloisters, is the Museum of
Natural History, famous through the world for its preparations in
wax; beginning with models of leaves, seeds, plants, inferior
animals; and gradually ascending, through separate organs of the
human frame, up to the whole structure of that wonderful creation,
exquisitely presented, as in recent death. Few admonitions of our
frail mortality can be more solemn and more sad, or strike so home
upon the heart, as the counterfeits of Youth and Beauty that are
lying there, upon their beds, in their last sleep.
Beyond the walls, the whole sweet Valley of the Arno, the convent
at Fiesole, the Tower of Galileo, BOCCACCIO'S house, old villas and
retreats; innumerable spots of interest, all glowing in a landscape
of surpassing beauty steeped in the richest light; are spread
before us. Returning from so much brightness, how solemn and how
grand the streets again, with their great, dark, mournful palaces,
and many legends: not of siege, and war, and might, and Iron Hand
alone, but of the triumphant growth of peaceful Arts and Sciences.
What light is shed upon the world, at this day, from amidst these
rugged Palaces of Florence! Here, open to all comers, in their
beautiful and calm retreats, the ancient Sculptors are immortal,
side by side with Michael Angelo, Canova, Titian, Rembrandt,
Raphael, Poets, Historians, Philosophers - those illustrious men of
history, beside whom its crowned heads and harnessed warriors show
so poor and small, and are so soon forgotten. Here, the
imperishable part of noble minds survives, placid and equal, when
strongholds of assault and defence are overthrown; when the tyranny
of the many, or the few, or both, is but a tale; when Pride and
Power are so much cloistered dust. The fire within the stern
streets, and among the massive Palaces and Towers, kindled by rays
from Heaven, is still burning brightly, when the flickering of war
is extinguished and the household fires of generations have
decayed; as thousands upon thousands of faces, rigid with the
strife and passion of the hour, have faded out of the old Squares
and public haunts, while the nameless Florentine Lady, preserved
from oblivion by a Painter's hand, yet lives on, in enduring grace
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and youth.
Let us look back on Florence while we may, and when its shining
Dome is seen no more, go travelling through cheerful Tuscany, with
a bright remembrance of it; for Italy will be the fairer for the
recollection. The summer-time being come: and Genoa, and Milan,
and the Lake of Como lying far behind us: and we resting at Faido,
a Swiss village, near the awful rocks and mountains, the
everlasting snows and roaring cataracts, of the Great Saint
Gothard: hearing the Italian tongue for the last time on this
journey: let us part from Italy, with all its miseries and wrongs,
affectionately, in our admiration of the beauties, natural and
artificial, of which it is full to overflowing, and in our
tenderness towards a people, naturally well-disposed, and patient,
and sweet-tempered. Years of neglect, oppression, and misrule,
have been at work, to change their nature and reduce their spirit;
miserable jealousies, fomented by petty Princes to whom union was
destruction, and division strength, have been a canker at their
root of nationality, and have barbarized their language; but the
good that was in them ever, is in them yet, and a noble people may
be, one day, raised up from these ashes. Let us entertain that
hope! And let us not remember Italy the less regardfully, because,
in every fragment of her fallen Temples, and every stone of her
deserted palaces and prisons, she helps to inculcate the lesson
that the wheel of Time is rolling for an end, and that the world
is, in all great essentials, better, gentler, more forbearing, and
more hopeful, as it rolls!
End of the Project Gutenberg eText Pictures from Italy
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