hardly be observed among any class of men in the world.
MR. PEPYS once heard a clergyman assert in his sermon, in
illustration of his respect for the Priestly office, that if he
could meet a Priest and angel together, he would salute the Priest
first. I am rather of the opinion of PETRARCH, who, when his pupil
BOCCACCIO wrote to him in great tribulation, that he had been
visited and admonished for his writings by a Carthusian Friar who
claimed to be a messenger immediately commissioned by Heaven for
that purpose, replied, that for his own part, he would take the
liberty of testing the reality of the commission by personal
observation of the Messenger's face, eyes, forehead, behaviour, and
discourse. I cannot but believe myself, from similar observation,
that many unaccredited celestial messengers may be seen skulking
through the streets of Genoa, or droning away their lives in other
Italian towns.
Perhaps the Cappuccini, though not a learned body, are, as an
order, the best friends of the people. They seem to mingle with
them more immediately, as their counsellors and comforters; and to
go among them more, when they are sick; and to pry less than some
other orders, into the secrets of families, for the purpose of
establishing a baleful ascendency over their weaker members; and to
be influenced by a less fierce desire to make converts, and once
made, to let them go to ruin, soul and body. They may be seen, in
their coarse dress, in all parts of the town at all times, and
begging in the markets early in the morning. The Jesuits too,
muster strong in the streets, and go slinking noiselessly about, in
pairs, like black cats.
In some of the narrow passages, distinct trades congregate. There
is a street of jewellers, and there is a row of booksellers; but
even down in places where nobody ever can, or ever could, penetrate
in a carriage, there are mighty old palaces shut in among the
gloomiest and closest walls, and almost shut out from the sun.
Very few of the tradesmen have any idea of setting forth their
goods, or disposing them for show. If you, a stranger, want to buy
anything, you usually look round the shop till you see it; then
clutch it, if it be within reach, and inquire how much. Everything
is sold at the most unlikely place. If you want coffee, you go to
a sweetmeat shop; and if you want meat, you will probably find it
behind an old checked curtain, down half-a-dozen steps, in some
sequestered nook as hard to find as if the commodity were poison,
and Genoa's law were death to any that uttered it.
Most of the apothecaries' shops are great lounging-places. Here,
grave men with sticks, sit down in the shade for hours together,
passing a meagre Genoa paper from hand to hand, and talking,
Page 28
Dickens, Charles - Pictures From Italy
drowsily and sparingly, about the News. Two or three of these are
poor physicians, ready to proclaim themselves on an emergency, and
tear off with any messenger who may arrive. You may know them by
the way in which they stretch their necks to listen, when you
enter; and by the sigh with which they fall back again into their
dull corners, on finding that you only want medicine. Few people
lounge in the barbers' shops; though they are very numerous, as
hardly any man shaves himself. But the apothecary's has its group
of loungers, who sit back among the bottles, with their hands
folded over the tops of their sticks. So still and quiet, that
either you don't see them in the darkened shop, or mistake them -
as I did one ghostly man in bottle-green, one day, with a hat like
a stopper - for Horse Medicine.
On a summer evening the Genoese are as fond of putting themselves,
as their ancestors were of putting houses, in every available inch
of space in and about the town. In all the lanes and alleys, and
up every little ascent, and on every dwarf wall, and on every
flight of steps, they cluster like bees. Meanwhile (and especially
on festa-days) the bells of the churches ring incessantly; not in
peals, or any known form of sound, but in a horrible, irregular,
fifteenth dingle or so, which is maddening. This performance is
usually achieved by a boy up in the steeple, who takes hold of the
clapper, or a little rope attached to it, and tries to dingle
louder than every other boy similarly employed. The noise is
supposed to be particularly obnoxious to Evil Spirits; but looking
up into the steeples, and seeing (and hearing) these young
Christians thus engaged, one might very naturally mistake them for
the Enemy.
Festa-days, early in the autumn, are very numerous. All the shops
were shut up, twice within a week, for these holidays; and one
night, all the houses in the neighbourhood of a particular church
were illuminated, while the church itself was lighted, outside,
with torches; and a grove of blazing links was erected, in an open
space outside one of the city gates. This part of the ceremony is
prettier and more singular a little way in the country, where you
can trace the illuminated cottages all the way up a steep hillside;
and where you pass festoons of tapers, wasting away in the
starlight night, before some lonely little house upon the road.
On these days, they always dress the church of the saint in whose
honour the festa is holden, very gaily. Gold-embroidered festoons
of different colours, hang from the arches; the altar furniture is
set forth; and sometimes, even the lofty pillars are swathed from
top to bottom in tight-fitting draperies. The cathedral is
dedicated to St. Lorenzo. On St. Lorenzo's day, we went into it,
just as the sun was setting. Although these decorations are
usually in very indifferent taste, the effect, just then, was very
superb indeed. For the whole building was dressed in red; and the
sinking sun, streaming in, through a great red curtain in the chief
doorway, made all the gorgeousness its own. When the sun went
down, and it gradually grew quite dark inside, except for a few
twinkling tapers on the principal altar, and some small dangling
silver lamps, it was very mysterious and effective. But, sitting
in any of the churches towards evening, is like a mild dose of
opium.
With the money collected at a festa, they usually pay for the
dressing of the church, and for the hiring of the band, and for the
tapers. If there be any left (which seldom happens, I believe),
the souls in Purgatory get the benefit of it. They are also
supposed to have the benefit of the exertions of certain small
Page 29
Dickens, Charles - Pictures From Italy
boys, who shake money-boxes before some mysterious little buildings
like rural turnpikes, which (usually shut up close) fly open on
Red-letter days, and disclose an image and some flowers inside.
Just without the city gate, on the Albara road, is a small house,
with an altar in it, and a
stationary money-box: also for the
benefit of the souls in Purgatory. Still further to stimulate the
charitable, there is a monstrous painting on the plaster, on either
side of the grated door, representing a select party of souls,
frying. One of them has a grey moustache, and an elaborate head of
grey hair: as if he had been taken out of a hairdresser's window
and cast into the furnace. There he is: a most grotesque and
hideously comic old soul: for ever blistering in the real sun, and
melting in the mimic fire, for the gratification and improvement
(and the contributions) of the poor Genoese.
They are not a very joyous people, and are seldom seen to dance on
their holidays: the staple places of entertainment among the
women, being the churches and the public walks. They are very
good-tempered, obliging, and industrious. Industry has not made
them clean, for their habitations are extremely filthy, and their
usual occupation on a fine Sunday morning, is to sit at their
doors, hunting in each other's heads. But their dwellings are so
close and confined that if those parts of the city had been beaten
down by Massena in the time of the terrible Blockade, it would have
at least occasioned one public benefit among many misfortunes.
The Peasant Women, with naked feet and legs, are so constantly
washing clothes, in the public tanks, and in every stream and
ditch, that one cannot help wondering, in the midst of all this
dirt, who wears them when they are clean. The custom is to lay the
wet linen which is being operated upon, on a smooth stone, and
hammer away at it, with a flat wooden mallet. This they do, as
furiously as if they were revenging themselves on dress in general
for being connected with the Fall of Mankind.
It is not unusual to see, lying on the edge of the tank at these
times, or on another flat stone, an unfortunate baby, tightly
swathed up, arms and legs and all, in an enormous quantity of
wrapper, so that it is unable to move a toe or finger. This custom
(which we often see represented in old pictures) is universal among
the common people. A child is left anywhere without the
possibility of crawling away, or is accidentally knocked off a
shelf, or tumbled out of bed, or is hung up to a hook now and then,
and left dangling like a doll at an English rag-shop, without the
least inconvenience to anybody.
I was sitting, one Sunday, soon after my arrival, in the little
country church of San Martino, a couple of miles from the city,
while a baptism took place. I saw the priest, and an attendant
with a large taper, and a man, and a woman, and some others; but I
had no more idea, until the ceremony was all over, that it was a
baptism, or that the curious little stiff instrument, that was
passed from one to another, in the course of the ceremony, by the
handle - like a short poker - was a child, than I had that it was
my own christening. I borrowed the child afterwards, for a minute
or two (it was lying across the font then), and found it very red
in the face but perfectly quiet, and not to be bent on any terms.
The number of cripples in the streets, soon ceased to surprise me.
There are plenty of Saints' and Virgin's Shrines, of course;
generally at the corners of streets. The favourite memento to the
Faithful, about Genoa, is a painting, representing a peasant on his
knees, with a spade and some other agricultural implements beside
Page 30
Dickens, Charles - Pictures From Italy
him; and the Madonna, with the Infant Saviour in her arms,
appearing to him in a cloud. This is the legend of the Madonna
della Guardia: a chapel on a mountain within a few miles, which is
in high repute. It seems that this peasant lived all alone by
himself, tilling some land atop of the mountain, where, being a
devout man, he daily said his prayers to the Virgin in the open
air; for his hut was a very poor one. Upon a certain day, the
Virgin appeared to him, as in the picture, and said, 'Why do you
pray in the open air, and without a priest?' The peasant explained
because there was neither priest nor church at hand - a very
uncommon complaint indeed in Italy. 'I should wish, then,' said
the Celestial Visitor, 'to have a chapel built here, in which the
prayers of the Faithful may be offered up.' 'But, Santissima
Madonna,' said the peasant, 'I am a poor man; and chapels cannot be
built without money. They must be supported, too, Santissima; for
to have a chapel and not support it liberally, is a wickedness - a
deadly sin.' This sentiment gave great satisfaction to the
visitor. 'Go!' said she. 'There is such a village in the valley
on the left, and such another village in the valley on the right,
and such another village elsewhere, that will gladly contribute to
the building of a chapel. Go to them! Relate what you have seen;
and do not doubt that sufficient money will be forthcoming to erect
my chapel, or that it will, afterwards, be handsomely maintained.'
All of which (miraculously) turned out to be quite true. And in
proof of this prediction and revelation, there is the chapel of the
Madonna della Guardia, rich and flourishing at this day.
The splendour and variety of the Genoese churches, can hardly be
exaggerated. The church of the Annunciata especially: built, like
many of the others, at the cost of one noble family, and now in
slow progress of repair: from the outer door to the utmost height
of the high cupola, is so elaborately painted and set in gold, that
it looks (as SIMOND describes it, in his charming book on Italy)
like a great enamelled snuff-box. Most of the richer churches
contain some beautiful pictures, or other embellishments of great
price, almost universally set, side by side, with sprawling
effigies of maudlin monks, and the veriest trash and tinsel ever
seen.
It may be a consequence of the frequent direction of the popular
mind, and pocket, to the souls in Purgatory, but there is very
little tenderness for the BODIES of the dead here. For the very
poor, there are, immediately outside one angle of the walls, and
behind a jutting point of the fortification, near the sea, certain
common pits - one for every day in the year - which all remain
closed up, until the turn of each comes for its daily reception of
dead bodies. Among the troops in the town, there are usually some
Swiss: more or less. When any of these die, they are buried out
of a fund maintained by such of their countrymen as are resident in
Genoa. Their providing coffins for these men is matter of great
astonishment to the authorities.
Certainly, the effect of this promiscuous and indecent splashing
down of dead people in so many wells, is bad. It surrounds Death
with revolting associations, that insensibly become connected with
those whom Death is approaching. Indifference and avoidance are
the natural result; and all the softening influences of the great
sorrow are harshly disturbed.
There is a ceremony
when an old Cavaliere or the like, expires, of
erecting a pile of benches in the cathedral, to represent his bier;
covering them over with a pall of black velvet; putting his hat and
sword on the top; making a little square of seats about the whole;
and sending out formal invitations to his friends and acquaintances
Page 31
Dickens, Charles - Pictures From Italy
to come and sit there, and hear Mass: which is performed at the
principal Altar, decorated with an infinity of candles for that
purpose.
When the better kind of people die, or are at the point of death,
their nearest relations generally walk off: retiring into the
country for a little change, and leaving the body to be disposed
of, without any superintendence from them. The procession is
usually formed, and the coffin borne, and the funeral conducted, by
a body of persons called a Confraternita, who, as a kind of
voluntary penance, undertake to perform these offices, in regular
rotation, for the dead; but who, mingling something of pride with
their humility, are dressed in a loose garment covering their whole
person, and wear a hood concealing the face; with breathing-holes
and apertures for the eyes. The effect of this costume is very
ghastly: especially in the case of a certain Blue Confraternita
belonging to Genoa, who, to say the least of them, are very ugly
customers, and who look - suddenly encountered in their pious
ministration in the streets - as if they were Ghoules or Demons,
bearing off the body for themselves.
Although such a custom may be liable to the abuse attendant on many
Italian customs, of being recognised as a means of establishing a
current account with Heaven, on which to draw, too easily, for
future bad actions, or as an expiation for past misdeeds, it must
be admitted to be a good one, and a practical one, and one
involving unquestionably good works. A voluntary service like
this, is surely better than the imposed penance (not at all an
infrequent one) of giving so many licks to such and such a stone in
the pavement of the cathedral; or than a vow to the Madonna to wear
nothing but blue for a year or two. This is supposed to give great
delight above; blue being (as is well known) the Madonna's
favourite colour. Women who have devoted themselves to this act of
Faith, are very commonly seen walking in the streets.