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A UTHOR: 
 
 FORSYTH, JOSEPH 
 
 TITLE: 
 
 REMARKS ON 
 ANTIQUITIES, ARTS 
 
 PLACE: 
 
 LONDON 
 
 DA TE: 
 
 1835 
 
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 PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT 
 
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 F771 
 
 Forsyth, Joseph, 170:3-1815. 
 
 Kciujirks on aiiti<]uities, arts, :in«l liUttirs, «Iiirini^ :ui cxcMir- 
 sioii in Italy, in the years 1802 and m)'-\. By Joseph Forsyth, 
 esfj. 4th ed. London, J. Murray, 18:55. 
 
 3 I). I., tvj-xvi, Km. tl| p. n-oiit. n;j^«. 
 
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 CoutaliiM a nit'inoir of tlio aiKhor l.y his hroHi.M. Isaa.r ForsyMi. 
 
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 « * • 
 
 FOURTH EDITION. 
 
 rONTE SANTA TRINITA, FLORENCE. 
 
 JOHN MUR 
 
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 FOURTH EDITION. 
 
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 I'ONTE SAXTA TUiXlTA, FLORENCE. 
 
 I.ONDON: . , 
 
 JOHN Murray; 'AV.BKiiARt^' sjreiiit. 
 
 .'ILC'JJXXXV. 
 
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 I I 
 
REMARKS 
 
 ON 
 
 ANTIQUITIES, ARTS, AND LETTERS, 
 
 
 DUUING AN EXCLUSION IN 
 
 ITALY, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 Years 1802 and 1S03. 
 
 By JOSEPH FORSYTH, Esq. 
 
 FOURTH EDITION. 
 
 1 1 
 
 ,• • , • • • 
 
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 • .' •:•; .". .•: ••* . 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET. 
 
 MDCCCXXXV. 
 
 * • • • • 
 
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 ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 Priuted by William Clowes and Sons, 
 Stamford-street. 
 
 
 •!0 
 
 xD 
 
 3 
 
 I LEFT England in November, 1801, without any 
 intention of sporting my pen on so beaten a field 
 as Italy, and had reached Pisa before I began 
 to commit to paper such remarks as are usual 
 in travelling. Materials of this kind readily ac- 
 cumulate. From these I have been recently 
 prevailed upon to select, and to offer to the 
 Public, what relates to Antiquities, Arts, and 
 Letters. I design my observations chiefly for those 
 persons who have already examined the objects I 
 review ; but not without the anxiety which the 
 lateness of their appearance is but too well cal- 
 culated to excite. How far they may have lost 
 their interest, or been anticipated by publica- 
 tions in England during my long captivity, I 
 have no means of knowing. My misfortune 
 denies me all acquaintance with the works of 
 others, and may perhaps claim some indulgence 
 for the many defects of mine. 
 
 *^* The Publisher is indebted for a few addi- 
 tional notes in this edition to a Lady, whose good 
 taste and knowledge of art and Italy are suffici- 
 ent guarantees for their correctness. They are 
 principally intended to point out the omissions of 
 Forsyth, and the changes which have taken place 
 since the time when he visited Italy. 
 
 A 2 
 
 )'* 
 
 u^ 
 
 ^ 
 
The first sheets were pnntt'd off before the following 
 Notes were inserted in their proper places : — 
 
 P. \,lasf line, to the word " Inn*" 
 
 • Tlie inns und beds are much improved since the opening of the 
 fine new road between Nice and Genoa. — C. 
 
 P. 2. note. 
 Tliis passa<;o n^tf^es rather with the pass of Finale, the next stage 
 on the road to Nice. — C. 
 
 P. 3, line 12, •' Coffureto.*" 
 
 * Called also in the country dialect Cuculetto or Cugoleto.—C. 
 
 P. 7. note— note. 
 It is the mode in whicli all heavy burthens are carried in 
 India. — C. 
 
 P. 14, line 2, " engravers.*'^ 
 
 • The engravings from the Campo Santo, by Lasinio, are now 
 finished, and in good time to preserve the remembrance of most of 
 the best pictures. — C. 
 
 P.29,lastline,"nnve.**' 
 
 • On the face of the church of Sau Frediano are curious mosaics 
 of the thirteenth century, and within are ver>- interesting pictures by 
 the early masters. One chapel in particular, by Maestro Amico Asper- 
 tini, is well worth visiting. The church of St*. Maria is distinguished 
 by two fine pictures by Guido, a Crucifixion and Our Lady of the 
 Snow. 
 
 In the church of San Romano, is Fra Bartolomeo's celebrated 
 picture of Tlie Virgin sheltering the People of Lucca. 
 
 In the cathedral is a very fine Fra liartolomeo. 
 
 In the palace are now placed most of Lucien Buonaparte's pictures. 
 Eaphael's Madonna of the Candelabras is in a room apart. — C. 
 
 P. 37, line 3 from bottom, " vacant frame.*" 
 
 • The frames are again filled, and the statues restored to their 
 pedestals. — C. 
 
 P. 64, line 15, " sculpture.*" 
 
 • The author has unaccountably overlooked Michael Angelo's 
 Christ, and B. Bandinelli's beautiful figures in bas relief. The paint- 
 ing is very ancient — it is by Lorenzo Bicci, one of the contributors to 
 the restoration of taste in art. — C. 
 
 P. 64, line 19, " cut out.*" 
 
 • Not cut out, but, as was frequently the case in old Italian paint- 
 ings, parts are actually executed in coloured relief. — C. 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 Joseph Forsyth was born in EI<rin, county of 
 Moray, North Britain, on the 18th of February, 
 1 763. His parents were respectable and virtuous. 
 His father, Alexander Forsyth, carried on bu- 
 siness as a merchant in that place for fifty years, 
 with the greatest credit to himself, and which has 
 been continued in succession by his eldest and 
 youngest sons for nearly a century. 
 
 Joseph, while at the Grammar-school of Elgin, 
 was distinguished both by his assiduity and 
 genius. At twelve years of age he was pro- 
 nounced by his master to be qualified for the 
 University. Being entered a student of King's 
 College, Aberdeen, he soon attracted the attention 
 and kindness of Professor Ogilvy by the superior 
 performance of his exercises, and by the gentleness 
 of his manners. As he successively passed under 
 the care of the other professors, he found himself 
 the object of their approbation and solicitude. 
 Returning every summer to the bosom of his 
 family, he devoted his whole time to study ; and 
 thus laid the foundation of that eminent know- 
 ledge of the Greek and Roman classics, which it 
 
 ^. , 
 
'.»«,^ y j 4» K ' ."^ ,-. 
 
 >. 
 
 The first sheets were printed off before the following 
 Notes were inserted in their proper places : — 
 
 P. 1, lasf line, to the word " Inn*" 
 
 * Tlie inns und beds are much improved since the opening of the 
 fine new road between Nice and Genoa. — C. 
 
 P. 2. note. 
 Tliis passacrc aj^rccs rather with the pass of Finale, the next sta.;e 
 on the road to Nice. — C. 
 
 P. 3, line 12. " Cntjnreto*" 
 
 * Called also in the country dialect Cuculettn or Cogoleto. — C. 
 
 P. 7. note— note. 
 It is the mode in wliich all heavy burthens are carried in 
 India. — C. 
 
 P. 14, line 2, " engravers*'* 
 
 * The enfp-avings from the Campo Panto, by Lasinio, are now 
 finished, and in good time to preserve the remembrance of most of 
 the best pictures. — C. 
 
 P. 29, last line. " nave**' 
 
 * On the face of the church of San Frediano are curious mosaics 
 of the thirteenth century-, and within arc verj- interesting pictures by 
 the early masters. One chapel in particular, by Maestro Amico Asjjer- 
 tini, is well worth visiting. The church of St». Maria is distinguished 
 by two fine pictxxres by Guido, a Crucifixion and Our Lady of the 
 Snow. 
 
 In the church of San Romano, is Fra Bartolomeo's celebrated 
 picture of The Virgin sheltering the People of Lucca. 
 
 In the cathedral is a very fine Fra Bartolomeo. 
 
 In the palace are now placed most of Lucien Buonaparte's pictures. 
 ■Raphael's Madonna of the Candelabras is in a room apart. — C. 
 
 P. 37, line 3 from bottom, " vacant frame.*" 
 
 * The frames are again filled, and the statues restored to their 
 pedestals. — C. 
 
 P. 64, line 15, " sculpture.*" 
 •The author has unaccountably overlooked Michael Angelo's 
 Christ, and B. Bandinelli's beautiful figures in bas relief. The paint- 
 ing is very ancient — it is by Lorenzo Bicci, one of the contributors to 
 the restoration of taste in art. — C. 
 
 P. 64, line 19, " cut out.*" 
 
 * Not cut out, but, as was frequently the case in old Italian paint* 
 ings, parts are actually executed iu coloured relief. — C. 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 Joseph Forsyth was bom in Elj^in, county of 
 Moray, North Britain, on the 18th of February, 
 1 763. His parents were respectable and virtuous. 
 His father, Alexander Forsyth, carried on bu- 
 siness as a merchant in that place for fifty years, 
 with the greatest credit to himself, and which has 
 been continued in succession by his eldest and 
 youngest sons for nearly a century. 
 
 Joseph, while at the Grammar-school of Elgin, 
 was distinguished both by his assiduity and 
 genius. At twelve years of age he was pro- 
 nounced by his master to be qualified for the 
 University. Being entered a student of King's 
 College, Aberdeen, he soon attracted the attention 
 and kindness of Professor Ogilvy by the superior 
 performance of his exercises, and by the gentleness 
 of his manners. As he successively passed under 
 the care of the other professors, he found himself 
 the object of their approbation and solicitude. 
 Returning every summer to the bosom of his 
 family, he devoted his whole time to study ; and 
 thus laid the foundation of that eminent know- 
 ledge of the Greek and Roman classics, which it 
 
VI 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 was the business and chief pleasure of his life 
 afterwards to complete. On concluding the four 
 years usually employed in the Scotch univer- 
 sities, his parents left to himself the choice of 
 a profession, but with a secret hope that he would 
 prefer the church; his natural diffidence, and 
 the little prospect he then saw of obtaining a 
 patron, determined him on trying to turn his 
 classical acquirements to some account in that 
 universal mart — London. Here he soon formed 
 a connexion with the master of one of the most 
 respectable academies about town, at Newington 
 Butts ; and entering as assistant and successor, 
 purchased the establishment and conducted it 
 for thirteen vears on his own account, with the 
 highest reputation and success. The drudgery 
 and irksomeness of this business were too much 
 for his strength and spirits. Having a tendency 
 to pulmonary complaints, he was, during this 
 period, twice reduced by them to the brink of the 
 grave. Seeing the impossibility of struggling 
 lonjrer with such incons^ruous duties as the care 
 of his health and the conscientious superinten- 
 dence of the education of nearly a hundred 
 boarders, he resigned the charge, and retired to 
 Devonshire in the spring of 1801, to recruit his 
 constitution. 
 
 After restoring his health by a residence of some 
 months in Devonshire, he came, in July, 1801, to 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 VH 
 
 Elgin, to visit his aged and beloved mother, and 
 remained until autumn. During this interval of 
 " learned leisure," his mind was anxiouslv bent 
 on enjoying the grand object of all the wishes 
 and hopes of his hfe — a tour through Italy. His 
 intimate acquaintance with the poets and his- 
 torians of that classic country, both in its an- 
 cient and modern state, had already familiarized 
 him with every scene, and almost with every 
 building it contained. But at this period an in- 
 superable barrier was interposed by Buonaparte ; 
 — no Briton might tread with safety the soil over 
 which he bore sway. Thus, in the midst of leisure, 
 renovated health, and easy circumstances, was his 
 ardent imagination left, almost in despair, to lan- 
 guish over his favourite object. It may be easily 
 conceived with what rapture he hailed the un- 
 expected happiness which the peace of Amiens 
 brought to every heart. That event took place 
 on the 1st October, was known at Elgin on the 
 7th, and Mr. Forsyth was already on his journey 
 to London for Italy on the 12th. He was in 
 France at the celebration of the extravagant and 
 tumultuous festival that took place in honour of 
 that hollow treaty. After spending a few weeks 
 in Paris, where he had been twice before, he 
 pushed on to the land of promise, and arrived at 
 Nice on Christmas-day, 1801. Here his "Re- 
 marks" will best enable those who may feel an 
 
VIU 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 interest in his progress through life to trace it for 
 the two succeeding years. 
 
 In consequence of the rupture between Eng- 
 land and France in 1S02, and that xiruel and 
 unjust order of Buonaparte to arrest all British 
 subjects travelling in his dominions, Mr. For- 
 syth was seized by the police, at Turin, on 
 the 25th May, 1803, while on his return home 
 throuffh Switzerland, and with no intention 
 whatever of entering France. He was car- 
 ried to Nismes, and found his situation there 
 as pleasant as under restraint it could be. 
 There were soon collected from Italy and the 
 southern provinces of France a great many 
 English at this depot ; and, in this early stage 
 of their confinement, a considerable degree of 
 relaxation and indulgence was granted. Feeling 
 themselves unjustly detained, many of the more 
 adventurous made their escape in different 
 directions; and Mr. Forsyth, encouraged by the 
 general practice, withdrew to Marseilles with the 
 intention of passing, in an American ship, to 
 Malta and thence to England. Here, however, 
 the broker who negociated for his passage sold 
 him to the police ; by whom he was arrested 
 when stepping on board, and conveyed, under 
 guard, back to Nismes. For this venial trans- 
 gression he was visited with a dreadful punish- 
 ment. In the depth of a most severe winter 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 IX 
 
 i 
 
 *, 
 
 f 
 
 \ 
 
 i 
 
 he was marched from one extremity of France to 
 the other, (a distance of 600 miles,) to that most 
 execrable dungeon, Fort de Bitche. His confine- 
 ment at first was intolerably strict, but, by degrees, 
 was softened into something more bearable. His 
 mild and gentle demeanour, the extent and variety 
 of his information, and his facility in the French 
 language, at length procured him the notice and 
 esteem of the commandant, who afterwards paid 
 him particular attention. He continued there two 
 years ; but in consequence of earnest applications 
 to the French government by some of his friends 
 who had been removed from Bitche to Verdun, 
 he was at last permitted to join them ; where he 
 remained five years. The dissipation and riot, in 
 which the English prisoners in general indulged, 
 were so repugnant to his habits and feelings, that 
 he lived almost in solitude. He was well known 
 by the more regular part of his countrymen there, 
 who esteemed him for that fund of inteUigence he 
 possessed, and for his benevolence to hundreds 
 of our poor prisoners whose allowances scarcely 
 afforded the means of existence. At this time 
 his most anxious desire, next to the recovery of 
 freedom, was to be permitted to reside in Paris. 
 The easy access to the society of learned French- 
 men, the public institutions, the museums, the 
 National Library, and, above all, the glorious col- 
 lection in the Louvre were his excitements. After 
 
X MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 many fruitless endeavours, he at last accomplished 
 his wish in the spring of 1811, throui^h the influ- 
 ence of a lady in the suite of the King- of Holland, 
 then a kind of state-prisoner at Paris. His per- 
 mission was no sooner granted, than he set off for 
 the capital, and found himself established in every 
 respect, except his darling object liberty, to his 
 heart's content. Four months had scarcely elapsed, 
 when an order from government was secretly 
 issued to send off instantly every Englishman from 
 Paris to his respective depot. 
 
 Mr. Forsyth's astonishment and disappointment 
 were extreme when two gendarmes drew aside his 
 curtain at four o'clock in the morning of the 22nd 
 July, presented the order, and desired him to 
 dress immediately and follow them. He waited on 
 two friends, members of the National Institute, 
 who accompanied him to the Minister of Police, 
 and who, by way of special indulgence, gave him 
 two days to prepare for his departure, with the 
 choice of Verdun or Valenciennes as his future 
 residence. He fixed on the latter, and after three 
 years' abode was well pleased with the preference 
 which he had given it. Here he enjoyed the 
 advantasce of riding; into the countrv, and even of 
 living, during the summer months, in a cottage 
 several miles from the town. These favours seem 
 to have been conceded from the estimation in 
 which he was held by the commandant, by whom 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 XI 
 
 ,!i 
 
 he was appointed one of the five commissioners 
 who superintended the appropriation of the allow- 
 ances given to the mass of prisoners by the French 
 government, and the Patriotic Fund at Lloyd's. 
 
 Mr. Forsyth's favourite pursuits during his 
 detention seem to have been the classics, Italian 
 poetry, and architecture : but the anxiety which 
 he incessantly felt to be delivered from restraint 
 absorbed every other consideration, and prevented 
 the application of his mind to any fixed subject, 
 or to composition of any kind. His correspon- 
 dence at this time shews unwearied applications to 
 his friends at Paris, to the government, and even 
 personally to the Emperor, but without any effect. 
 Nor were his friends in Britain less anxious, 
 or less zealous in the same good cause ; yet, 
 although persons of high rank and influence lent 
 their earnest assistance, no beneficial effect resulted 
 from it. Having seen some of the detenus obtain 
 their release in consequence of appearing before the 
 public in the character of authors — (Buonaparte 
 affecting to be considered the patron and protector 
 of literature) — Mr. Forsyth was induced to prepare 
 the notes he had made while on his tour in Italy, 
 and publish them in England, copies of which 
 were forwarded to the leading members of the 
 National Institute at Paris, with solicitations in 
 his favour by some of the most eminent literary 
 characters in London. Even this last effort for 
 
 J 
 
XII 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 freedom failed, and he never, to his dying day, 
 ceased to regret that it had been made. He 
 considered his " Remarks" as not sufficiently 
 worthy of himself, put together as they were on 
 the spur of the moment, to attain a particular 
 object, dearer to him than fame itself Had he 
 embodied his whole mind, with his ample store 
 of materials, in a period of personal satisfaction 
 and self-possession, his work would have displayed 
 his erudition and talents in a far more favourable 
 light. 
 
 At length the long wished -for moment of de- 
 liverance approached. The appearance of the 
 allies on the north-eastern frontier of France, in 
 the end of 1813, made it necessary that the 
 English depots should be removed farther into 
 the interior. They were ordered first to Mons, 
 then to Orleans, and lastly to Blois. At Orleans, 
 on the 6th April, 1814, Mr. Forsyth first heard 
 the welcome news of the allies having entered 
 Paris on the 31st March. His chains were now 
 broken ; freedom and heme burst upon him with 
 all their endearing force, and for two days he 
 seems to have been almost wild with joy. The 
 first moments of recollection were devoted to his 
 journey to Paris ; there he had the satisfaction 
 of finding himself in the midst of the deliverers 
 of Europe, and surrounded by the most extraor- 
 dinary assemblage of princes, statesmen, and sol- 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 xni 
 
 U 
 A i 
 
 .1 
 
 ■\ 
 
 diers, that had ever before met on one spot. In 
 May he arrived in England ; and after an ab- 
 sence of thirteen years, came to Elgin, in July, 
 to visit his only surviving brother, and the friends 
 of his earliest days. Fearing to encounter the se- 
 verity of a northern winter, he returned to London 
 in October, and spent that season in the family 
 of a friend in Queen-square, Bloomsbury, where 
 every attention that kindness or affection could 
 dictate was paid to his comfort. His time was 
 employed chiefly in the reading-room of the 
 British Museum, and in intercourse with men 
 of letters. In April, 1815, he came down again 
 to Elgin, to establish himself with his brother, 
 and take possession of his extensive collection of 
 books, from which he had been divorced for the 
 last fourteen years. After so long a privation, 
 he seemed almost to devour them by the eager- 
 ness of his enjoyment, and his incessant devotion 
 to them. It was, however, evident, that his con- 
 stitution, originally delicate, had been undermined 
 by the harassing confinement which he had un- 
 dergone, and that the irritation of so painful a 
 cause of distress to a mind of the greatest suscep- 
 tibility had fatally injured the body. His rela- 
 tions observed, particularly in the summer of 1815, 
 a weakness of nerve, and a lassitude of mind, that 
 gave them the greatest alarm. With the view of 
 rousing his spirits, and improving his health, by 
 
!l 
 
 XIV 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 moderate exercise and varied scenery, his brother 
 accompanied him in an excursion through the 
 Hijrhlands of Inverness-shire and Argyll to the 
 island of Staffa. The grandeur and sublimity of 
 the objects which present themselves in that tour, 
 and the wonders of Staffa, delighted and interested 
 him exceedingly, and he returned home appa- 
 rently invigorated in body, and cheered in mind. 
 How uncertain is the tenure of any temporal 
 good! This amiable man, and most accom- 
 plished scholar, who was now thought to have 
 laid the foundation of better health, vvas on the 
 very eve of removal to another and a better world ! 
 On Friday night, the 17th September, a few days 
 after his return, having spent the evening with 
 more than usual gaiety, he was struck speechless 
 and nearly insensible by a fit of apoplexy, in which 
 he lingered till Monday the 20th, and then died, 
 to the irreparable loss of his relations, and the 
 sincere regret" of all who had an opportunity of 
 admiring his highly cultivated talents, and the 
 amiable and polished expression of the heart 
 which shone so conspicuously in him. 
 
 Isaac Forsyth. 
 
 Elgin, May, 1816. 
 
 < 
 
 S 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 Journey to Genoa . . 1 
 
 Genoa 4 
 
 Pisa, Edifices ... 7 
 — — University . . 14 
 
 Poets . . • . 1 7 
 
 Climate ... 24 
 
 Lucca • . • . • 27 
 Tuscan Republics . . 30 
 Florence, Gabinetto Fi- 
 sico ..... 33 
 
 Royal Gallery 37 
 
 Libraries . . 44 
 
 Improvvisatori 48 
 
 Theatre . . 53 
 
 - Arcliiteciure . 62 
 — ^_ Environs . . 70 
 Vallombrosa • . . 79 
 Camaldoli • . . • 85 
 La Verna .... 90 
 Excursion to Cortona . 93 
 Siena, City . . .100 
 Assumption . .107 
 
 Country . .113 
 Journey to Rome . .118 
 
 Rome, Topography 
 — — Works of the Re- 
 public .... 
 Works of the Em- 
 
 pire 
 
 -Works of the Mid- 
 
 dle Ages 
 
 — Modern Architec- 
 ture 
 
 Churches . 
 
 Palaces . 
 
 Vatican . • 
 
 Capitol , 
 
 Villas . 
 
 Relievos 
 
 Letters and Arts. 
 
 The Campagna . 
 
 Tivoli . • 
 
 Journey to Naples . 
 
 Naples, City 
 
 Page 
 123 
 
 131 
 
 140 
 
 158 
 
 165 
 179 
 192 
 202 
 210 
 219 
 231 
 240 
 246 
 251 
 263 
 271 
 
 Phlegraean Fields 
 
 Portici . 
 ' Caserta 
 
 280 
 292 
 299 
 
XYl 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Naples, Pompeii . 
 Excursion to Poestum 
 Journey to Ancona 
 Journey to Venice 
 Venice . 
 Journey to Turin 
 Turin . • • 
 Leghorn • • 
 Florence • • 
 
 Manners 
 
 Leopold . . 
 Siena . . . 
 
 The People 
 
 Rome, Easter . 
 
 Character 
 
 Naples, Society 
 Turin . • • 
 Genoa . • • 
 Certosa . • 
 
 Page 
 306 
 314 
 322 
 32S 
 336 
 347 
 360 
 361 
 3Go 
 365 
 381 
 390 
 391 
 391) 
 404 
 410 
 421 
 424 
 
 , 427 
 
 Seta • 
 Lucca . 
 Doccia 
 Arezzo . 
 Cortona 
 Frascali 
 Terracina 
 Civita Caste 
 Faenza . 
 Vicenza 
 Milan . 
 Padua . 
 Pavia 
 Pisa . 
 Casenna 
 Forli 
 Verona . 
 General Ita 
 
 Ih: 
 
 ana 
 
 Pa?e 
 
 428 
 
 430 
 
 431 
 
 432 
 
 433 
 
 435 
 
 439 
 
 440 
 
 440 
 
 442 
 
 443 
 
 443 
 
 444 
 
 444 
 
 466 
 
 467 
 
 469 
 
 470 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 106, /or Ruzzi, read Razz;. 
 
 132, fjr Paleutrina, read Paiestrina. 
 
 ITALY. 
 
 JOURNEY TO GENOA. 
 
 Mihi nunc Ligus era 
 
 Intepet, hybernatque meum mare. — Peusius. 
 
 I TRAVELLED tliroiig-h France, and stopped some 
 weeks at Paris, engaged by the great museum, 
 and the revolutions which that capital had under- 
 gone since my former visit. I then proceeded to 
 Lyons, and embarked at Marseilles in a felucca 
 for Nice ; but being driven into Toulon, I left 
 the vessel there, and continued my journey by 
 land. 
 
 On Christmas day, 1801, I arrived at Nice, 
 where a soft and balmy air, oranges growing* in 
 every garden, lodgings without a chimney, and 
 beds with mosquito-curtains, presented the first 
 signs of Italy. 
 
 At Nice I embarked for Genoa in a felucca : 
 but the wind, though fair, raised too heavy a sea 
 for so slender a vessel, and drove our timid crew 
 into Noli. In the only inn of this city four of 
 
JOURNEY TO GENOA. 
 
 US passed a sleepless nijrht on two filthy beds, 
 devoured by fleas, and tormented by passengers 
 who could find no bed at all. 
 
 Here we left the felucca, and crossed on foot a 
 mountain, which modern j?eojrraphers class among 
 the Apennines, thourrh D. Brutus describes it as 
 the last of the Alps*. This pass, whicli appeared 
 to Dante one of the four worst in Italy, brought 
 us round the promontory to a gap in the summit, 
 where a hurricane, meeting us with all the advan- 
 tage of a blast-tube, threatened to blow us back 
 into the sea. 
 
 Tlie population of this state runs into a line of 
 narrow towns, forming one row of white houses, 
 drawn along the strand, and interrupted only 
 where the sea denies footing. 
 
 Savona is a crowded, irregular town, with 
 an excellent harbour. The shipping lies safely 
 moored under the Blessed Virgin, on the pedestal 
 of whose statue is an inscri])tiou at once Latin 
 and Italian, which the Mediterranean seamen 
 sing in storms, — 
 
 In mare irato, in subita procella, 
 Invoco te, nostra Benigna Stella I 
 
 We now hired mules and rode alouir the Cor- 
 
 • Ad Vada venit, qtiem locum volo tilii esse notum. 
 Jacet inter Apenninum et Aljws, impeditissirai.s ad iter 
 facieudum.— Cicero. Episl. Fam. 11. 13. 
 
 JOURNEY TO GENOA. 3 
 
 nice, amid the gra.ulest combinations of monn- 
 
 top^ o the Apenmnes, the sides of which were 
 c.. nuo nanow ten-aces, and planted with oS 
 
 t.on, and fin.l.s that schistous, slaty, loose, broken 
 ground, and those craggy hills, which Vir^i, re- 
 commends for the tree. The spolverino indeed 
 when salted by winds from the'sea, may or.o J 
 
 a:yf:;:r""^""'^'^-^'''^ ''•-'>- '--p^ 
 
 VVe passed through Coouketo, a small fishino- 
 towu, generally supposed to be the birth-place :f 
 Columbus. Some, indeed, „.aintai„ that he :: 
 born at Gnoa of parents who, though originally 
 
 a 2::"' T^ '"''^'^ ""'•^" ■^'^ vvool-combers 
 at Savona. Three other towns, Qui„to Nervi 
 
 ,a;,dPradiI,o, have laid pretensi;,; to his toh' 
 rhe Redmontese, however, claim Columbus as 
 he.r countryman on authority more positive than 
 , ■ f"' *^ ^"l"'^'"'^ Council of the Indies so- 
 
 ^mnlydecidedthathewasbornatCuccaro.. 
 Montferra^ .-the Chroniclers of the 17th century, 
 Alglns,, Malabaila, Donesmundi, Delia ChiesV 
 support this assertion ; and a judicial plea, pub-' 
 ■shea at Venice in 1589, claimed for a Coli 
 topL:"" ""'""'""^ "*■ "'^ ^--' Chris- 
 
 B 2 
 
 ,■ ; 
 
 t. 
 
GENOA. 
 
 Ecco ! vediam la maestosa immensa 
 
 Citta, che al mar le spomle, il dorso ai monti 
 
 Occupa tutta, e tutta a cerchio ailorna. 
 
 Qui volanti barchette, ivi ancorate 
 
 Navi contemplo, e a poco a poco in alto 
 
 Infra i lucidi tetti, infra I'eccelse 
 
 Cupole e torri, il guardo er<:jendo a I'ampie 
 
 Girevol mura triplicate, i chiusi 
 
 Monti da loro, e le munite rocche 
 
 A luoi;o a luogo, e i ben posti ripari 
 
 Aramiro intorno: inusitata intanto 
 
 Vai^hezza aT occhio. e bell' intreccio fanno 
 
 Col trenaolar de le frondose cime, 
 
 Col torreggiar de 1' appuntate m^li.— Bettinelli. 
 
 Such is Genoa sketched from the sea: but in 
 this general picture the palaces shoultl perhaps 
 be more prominent than the poet makes them. 
 The palaces, I apprehend, jrave to this city the 
 epithet of Proud ; their black and white fronts 
 were once the distinctive of the highest nobility ; 
 but most of those marble mansions have disap- 
 peared : the modern palaces are all faced with 
 stucco, and some are painted in fresco. This 
 fashion of painting figures on house-fronts was 
 first introduced at Venice by Giorgione; but 
 though admired even by severe critics, to me it 
 
 ■aSBiiiikiaBiBcK 
 
 GENOA. 
 
 appears too gay for any building that affects 
 grandeur. Nothing can be grand in arcliitecture 
 that bears a perishable look. 
 
 The Ducal palace is large and magnificent 
 even for Genoa ; but two balustrades break the 
 unity of the front and lessen its elevation. The 
 statues are not ill arranged. The enemies of the 
 state are chained on the attic, and its benefactors 
 are lodged within. 
 
 Prince Doria's palace is detached from the 
 throng, and commands attention as an historical 
 monument. Though magnificent when viewed 
 from the bay or the mole, the mansion itself is 
 patched and neglected; the titles of the im- 
 mortal Andrew, which extended 200 feet in front, 
 have been effaced by the late revolution: the 
 gardens are unnaturally pretty ; colossal statues 
 rise over cut box ; nothing corresponds with the 
 majesty of the site. 
 
 The Serra palace boasts the finest saloon in 
 Europe. This celebrated object is oval in plan, 
 the elevation a ricli 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 reflection from the walls. 
 Here then the ceiling alone is painted, and bor- 
 rows and lends beauty to the splendour below. 
 
 4 
 
6 
 
 GENOA. 
 
 .i 
 
 Tlie hospitals of Genoa vie with its palaces in 
 magnificence, and seem more than sufficient for 
 all the disease and misery that should exist in so 
 small a state. They are crowded with honorary 
 statues : but I write only from recollection, and 
 one seldom recollects things so pompous and so 
 uniform as the effigies of rich men. At the AI- 
 bergo de' Poveri is a sculpture of a higher order, 
 a dead Christ in alto relievo by Michael Angelo. 
 The lile and death which he has thrown into 
 this little thing, the breathing tenderness of the 
 Virgin, and the heavenly composure of the corpse, 
 ay)peared to me beauties foreign to the tremen- 
 dous genius of the artist. At the hospital of 
 Incurables I found priests and choristers chant- 
 ing between two rows of wretches, whom their 
 pious noise would not suffer to die in peace. The 
 very name of such hospitals, forbidding the pa- 
 tient to hope and the physician to struggle, cuts 
 off at once two sources of recovery. 
 
 As for the national character, we need not 
 bring Virgil nor Dante to prove failings which 
 the Genoese themselves tacitly acknowledge*. 
 So low are the common people sunk in the esteem 
 
 * Travellers have ofren applied the "Vane Lij^us, &c.," 
 to the Gtnoese character ; but the '• Patrias teiitasti lubri- 
 cus artes" appears to me to be levelled rather at an in- 
 dividual, the " failaci Auno,'' than against the nation at 
 large. 
 
 GENOA. 7 
 
 of their own countrymen, that no native porter is 
 admitted into the Porto Franco, where Bero-a- 
 masques alone are employed*. A suspicion, un- 
 worthy of Italian merchants, who were once the 
 most liberal on earth, excludes also from this free 
 port the clergy, the military, and women, as per- 
 sons who may pilfer, but who cannot be searched. 
 
 PISA. 
 
 EDIFICES. 
 
 Pisa, while the capital of a republic, was cele- 
 brated for its profusion of marble, its patrician 
 towers, and its grave magnificence. It still can 
 boast some marble churches, a marble jmlace, 
 and a marble bridge. Its towers, though no 
 longer a mark of nobility, may be traced in the 
 walls of modernized houses. Its gravity pervades 
 every street, but its magnificence is now confined 
 to one sacred corner. There stand the Ca- 
 thedral, the Baptistery, the Leaning Tower, and 
 the Campo Santo; all built of the same marble, 
 
 * These Bergamasque porters tread nimbly through very 
 narrow streets with amazing loads suspended by ropes from 
 lateral poles, each of which rests on the two men's shoulders j 
 a mode which may be traced in one of the ancient paint- 
 ings found in the catacombs of Kome. 
 
-. ■ -UtL*JL -' 
 
 8 
 
 PISA. 
 
 all varieties of the same architecture, all vene- 
 rable with years, and fortunate both in their 
 society and their solitude. 
 
 The Cathedral, though the work of a Greek, 
 and surmounted by a cupola, is considered by 
 Italians as Gothic : not surely the Gothic of the 
 north; for here are no pointed arches, no clus- 
 tered pillars, no ribs nor tracery in the vaults. 
 To prove it so, however, they adduce some bar- 
 barisms in the west front : but the most irregular 
 arches in that front are as round as the anirle of 
 the roof, under which they are crushed, could 
 admit ; they all rest on single columns, and those 
 columns, though stunted, are of the same Greek 
 order as prevails below. On the sides are some 
 large arches, each including two or three smaller 
 ones ; a combination certainly very frequent in 
 Gothic and Saxon works ; but here again the 
 arches are all round, and they rest on columns or 
 pilasters of Greek order. On some columns we 
 see lions, foxes, dogs, boars, and men figured in 
 the capitals; but such ornaments, though fre- 
 quent in Gothic churches, had been introduced 
 long before them into those of Greece and Italy, 
 as a pious decoy to the contemplation of the cross. 
 
 In fact, the very materials of this cathedral 
 must have influenced the design ; for columns 
 taken from ancient temples would naturally lead 
 back to some such architecture as they had left. 
 
 EDIFICES. 
 
 9 
 
 It is 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 ; a style which includes what- 
 ever was grand or beautiful in the works of the 
 middle ages, and this was perhaps the noblest of 
 them all. 
 
 The plan and elevation are basilical. The five 
 aisles are formed by insulated columns ; the choir 
 and the transepts are rounded like the tribuna ; 
 the general decoration of the walls consists in 
 round arches resting on single columns or pilas- 
 ters; a decoration vicious everywhere, particu- 
 larly here, where the arches bear no proportion to 
 the shaft. This defect reaches up to the very 
 cupola, and degrades the noble peristyles of the 
 nave. 
 
 How beautiful do columns become when they 
 support a roof! how superior to their effect as an 
 idle decoration ! what variety in these, still chang- 
 ing their combinations as you pace along the 
 aisles ! how finely do their shafts of oriental gra- 
 nite harmonize with the grandeur of the pile, 
 while their tone of colour deepens the sombre 
 which prevails here in spite of an hundred win- 
 dows ! how sublime might such a nave be made 
 if taken as a whole ! but the clergy, ever anxious 
 to extend and diversify, branched this out into a 
 
ne^anai^MnM 
 
 10 
 
 PISA. 
 
 i M 
 
 Latin cross; and thus broke the unity of the 
 desig'n. 
 
 The side altars are beautiful : the hisrh altar is 
 only rich. The pictures, though not much ad- 
 mired, assist the architecture ; but the sculpture 
 and the tombs interrupt some of its i^eneral lines. 
 Even the marble pulpit, fine as it is, impairs the 
 symmetry by standing before a column. This 
 pul])it is supported by a naked figure of most 
 gross design. Indeed, few churches in Italy are 
 free from the incongruous. Here are Bacchanals 
 and Meleager's hunt incrusted on the sacred 
 walls, an ancient statue of Mars, worshipped 
 under the name of St. Potitus, and the heiids of 
 satyrs carved on a cardinal's tomb ! 
 
 The Baptistery displays another crowd of un- 
 necessary columns, placed under mean and unne- 
 cessary arclies, round an immense polygon ; and 
 betrays, too, something like the Gothic ; for cer- 
 tainly the figure inscribed in each of the acute 
 pediments of the second order does resemble our 
 cathedral trefoils. 
 
 The inner elevation is still inferior to the out- 
 side. Arches are perched on arches, and pedes- 
 tals are stilted on the capitals of columns, as a 
 base to a hideous tunnel which screens the fine 
 swell of the cupola. Who could ever suppose 
 that such a structure and such dimensions were 
 intended for a christening ! The purpose of an 
 
 EDIFICES. 
 
 11 
 
 edifice should appear in the very architecture ; 
 but here we can disc()\ er it only in the accessories, 
 the font, statues, relievos, all allusive to baptism. 
 
 The Leaning Tower. Here are eight circles 
 of columns supporting arches, which are small 
 and more numerous in proportion as you ascend. 
 Such a profusion only betrays that poverty of 
 effect, which must ever result from small columns 
 and a multitude of orders. 
 
 As to the obliquity of this tower, I am surprised 
 that two opinions should still exist on its cause. 
 The Obser\atory in the next street h^s so far 
 declined from the plumb-line as to affect the 
 astronomical calculations of the place. A neigh- 
 bouring belfry declines to the same side, and 
 both these e\idently from a lapse in the soft soil, 
 in which water springs every where at the depth 
 of six feet. This great tower, therefore, leans 
 only from the same cause, and leans more than 
 they, because it wants the support of contiguous 
 buildings. Many Pisans, however, are of the old 
 opinion. One of their litterati took j)ains to con- 
 vince me that the German architect contrived 
 this declination, which his Italian successors 
 endeavoured to rectify. 
 
 The Campo Santo. The portico of this vast 
 rectangle is formed by such arcades as we find in 
 Roman architecture. Every arch is round, and 
 every pillar faced with pilasters ; but each arcade 
 
12 
 
 risA, 
 
 EDIFICES. 
 
 13 
 
 includes an intersection of small arches risina^ 
 from slender shafts like the mullions of a Gothic 
 window. This, however, looks like an addition 
 foreign to the original arcades, which were open 
 down to the pavement. 
 
 Such cloistered cemeteries as this were the field 
 where painting first appeared in the dark ages, on 
 emero-ino- from the subterranean cemeteries of 
 Rome. In tracing the rise and genealogy of mo- 
 dern painting, we might begin in the catacombs 
 of the fourth centur>% and follow the succession 
 of pictures down to those of St. Pontian and Pope 
 Julius; then passing to the Greek image-makers 
 of the tenth and eleventh centuries, we should 
 soon arrive at this Campo Santo, which exhibits 
 the art growing, through several ages, from the 
 simplicity of indigence to the simplicity of strength. 
 
 Here the immensity of surfiice to be covered 
 forbade all study of perfection, and only required 
 facility and expedition. The first pictures show 
 us what the artist was when separated from the 
 workman. They betray a thin, timid, ill-fed pen- 
 cil ; they present corpses rather than men, sticks 
 rather than trees, inflexible forms, flat surfaces. 
 Ions: extremities, raw tints, any thing but nature. 
 As you follow the chronology of the wall, you 
 catch perspective entering into the pictures, deep- 
 ening the back-ground, and then adjusting the 
 groups to the plans. You see the human figure 
 
 I 
 
 first straight, or rather stretched ; then foreshort- 
 ened, then enlarged : rounded, salient, free, vari- 
 ous, expressive*. Throughout this sacred ground, 
 painting presenes the austerity of the Tuscan 
 school : she rises sometimes to its energy and 
 mo\ ement, she is nowhere sparing of figures, and 
 has produced much of the singular, the terrible, 
 the impressive ; — but nothing that is truly excel- 
 lent. 
 
 All the subjects are taken from Scripture, 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. A like anachronism has introduced some 
 portraits of illustrious Tuscans, which are rather 
 fortunate in such works as these. But how many 
 anachronisms disfigure the first paintings in Italy ! 
 How painful it is to see, in the finest Nativities 
 and Crucifixions, a St. Francis, or St. Dominic, 
 or the do7iatore, or the painter himself, or the 
 painter's mistress, looking out of the picture and 
 impudently courting your remarkf ! 
 
 Some of these frescos have been exposed to the 
 open air for 500 years, and the earliest works are 
 
 * A similar projj^ress may be traced in the sculpture 
 called Etruscan, which passed from the meajjre style to the 
 round, and from tlie a'titiulinarian to the natural. 
 
 t The j)ractice was ancient : Piiny reprobates Arel ius 
 for introducing his n:istri.*>ses into sacred [ictures. 
 
14 
 
 PISA. 
 
 UNIVERSITY. 
 
 15 
 
 moulderincr away from moisture*. What pity 
 that a comitry full of antiquaries and eno^ravers 
 should let such monuments perish vvithou't a re- 
 membrance ! How superior these to the coarse 
 remains of Ano-k,-Gothic art, which our drau<rhts- 
 men are condemned to search out for those" old 
 mumbling collectors who are for ever pickino- the 
 bare bone of antiquity ! ^ 
 
 UNIVERSITY. 
 
 This University is now reduced to three col- 
 leges ; yet still allots a chair to each faculty 
 Many of these, indeed, have lost their old scho- 
 lastic importance, and left their professors idle • 
 for the students attend only the classes necessary 
 to their future decree. 
 
 Universities, being in general the institution 
 of monkish times, are richest in objects related 
 to church or state. Divinity and law engrossed 
 the manors of the pious founders, and left little 
 or nothing to the improvement of natural science. 
 * This climate, however, is favourable even to the mate- 
 rials of art. The outside marble of the Duomo has in seven 
 hundred years contracted very little of the lichen which 
 would blacken an English tombstone in fifty. The hron-e 
 door of 1184 is not yet corroded with patina. The iron 
 gnfFons of the Strozzi palace, wrought in the time of 
 Lorenzo the Magnificent, are still as sharp as when thev 
 came from Caparra's smithy. 
 
 •Ilj 
 
 
 • I 
 
 In this University, however, Physics iound the 
 earliest protection : it boasts the first anatomical 
 theatre and the first botanical garden in Europe; 
 both created before the middle of the sixteenth 
 century. The botanical chair is now admirably 
 filled by the learned and amiable Santi : yet, in 
 general science, Pisa is declined nmch below the 
 fame of Pavia. 
 
 The library is full of civil and canonical law, 
 polemics, councils, fathers, and metaphysics; but 
 in science or polite literature I saw nothing very 
 curious or rare. On the classical shelves are some 
 early Italian editions: the remains, I presume, of 
 the Aldine legacy. The Observatory is adjoining, 
 and includes a school for astronomers ; but no 
 student intrudes at present on Dr. Slop's repose. 
 
 The lectures were formerly given in Latin 
 from the chair, and were then recapitulated in 
 Italian under the portico of the schools; but this 
 Stoic exercise, and the Latin, are both fallen into 
 disuse. That censorial discipline which once ex- 
 pelled members through the window is now obso- 
 lete and unknown. Attendance passes for merit ; 
 time, terms, and the archbishop, confer academi- 
 cal rank. 
 
 How infinitely more important are private 
 schools scattered over the country than institutes 
 like this, which young men seldom enter till they 
 are able to teach themselves ! In universities the 
 
16 
 
 PISA. 
 
 UNIVERSITY. 
 
 17 
 
 i^ 
 
 very multitude of helps only tends to relax, to 
 dissipate, or embarrass the attention. Neither 
 Pisa, nor any academical city in Italy, has given 
 birth to a man of transcendent genius, if we ex- 
 cept Galileo, who was dropped here by chance. 
 
 That excludinf^ spirit which i)revails in other 
 universities is here unknown. No religion is 
 proscribed. All degrees, except in divinity and 
 canonical law, are open to heretics and Jews. 
 Such liberality must win a number of volunteers. 
 Others are forced to attend as a (lualification for 
 legal practice ; for in Tuscany every attorney's 
 clerk is a doctor. 
 
 Pisa, though long posterior to Bologna, was the 
 second school of law in Italy. Some ascribe this 
 early eminence to her possession of the Pandects ; 
 but this celebrated manuscript was so hoarded, 
 both here and at Florence, that instead of restor- 
 ing the Roman law, it remained useless and lost 
 to study, till Politian was allowed by Lorenzo 
 the Magnificent to collate it with the Pandects 
 first published at Venice. Politian's collated copy 
 of that edition escaped the sack of the Medici 
 library in 1494, and after a long train of travels 
 and adventures it at last re-appeared at Florence 
 in 1734. 
 
 Pisa lays some claim to the introduction of 
 algebra, which Bonacci is said to have trans- 
 planted hither from the East \ while the Floren- 
 
 tines contend that their Paolo delP Abbaco was 
 the first to use equations. Algebra was certainly 
 known in Europe before 1339, the date of this 
 university. 
 
 The professorships are in general reduced to 
 one-fourth of their original emolument. Fran- 
 cesco Bartolozzi, in a paper read at the Accade- 
 mia Economica, states their mean salary to have 
 been 2000 crowns, at a time when the great 
 Macchiavel received only 180, as secretary to the 
 Florentine republic*. Such was the encourage- 
 ment that drew the celebrated Decius so often 
 back to Pisa from contending powers; for this 
 great oracle of the laws appeared so important a 
 possession to Louis XII. and to Venice, that they 
 threatened hostilities on his account. 
 
 POETS. 
 
 iVla qui la morta poesia risorga.— Dante. 
 
 Italian poetry has for some time revived from 
 the torpor of two centuries, and seems now to 
 flourish in a second spring. Every book-shop, 
 every circle, swarms with poets ; and the Pisan 
 
 * Burtolozzi calculates from a curious fact— that for four 
 centuries wheat was bartered in Tuscany for its wei.^ht of 
 butcher's meat, of oil, of liax, or of wool, however the 
 money-prices might fluctuate. 
 
 C 
 
IS 
 
 PISA. 
 
 f/' 
 
 press is now selectino- a Parnassus of the living-, 
 as a rival to that of the dead. 
 
 Where should we seek for the principle which 
 multiplies poets so incalculably in this country? 
 Is it in the climate or in the lanffuaoe ? Is it 
 education, or leisure, or fashion, or facility, or all 
 these tog-ether ? Interest it cannot be. No where 
 is poetry so starving- a trade ; nor do its profits, 
 rare as they are, arise so much from the sale of 
 books as from dedication-fees. Giaiuii prints his 
 flattery in very small retail. In a sini^le duode- 
 cimo he g-ives thirteen dedications, twelve of 
 which were lucrative, and one was thrown away 
 on sensibility. A certain Count lives by this 
 speculation : his works serve only as a vehicle to 
 their inscriptions. 
 
 Satirists, perhaps the most useful of all poets, 
 write imder other discouragements : the censure 
 of the press, and the sacredness of public men 
 and measures. Hence their briirhtest thino-s are 
 confined to private circles, where they come out 
 with hesitation and fear from the pocket-book. 
 Hence the necessity of masking: their satire has 
 led some to a beauty, when they sought only a 
 defence. 
 
 In reviewing- some of these bards, I shall begin 
 with Pifjnotti, as he still belongs to Pisa. So 
 little does this elegant fabulist owe to e-enius, 
 that his very ease, 1 understand, is the result of 
 
 1^1 
 
 POETS. 
 
 19 
 
 severe study; and, conscious of his own faculty, 
 he seems to describe it in these lines : — 
 
 — La iiatura 
 
 Pariii che versati habbia da vena 
 Facil versi che costau tanta peiia. 
 
 Pignotti admires and resembles Pope. Both 
 seem confined to embellish the thoug^hts of others; 
 and both have depraved with embellishment the 
 simplicity of the early Greeks. Po])e's Homer is 
 much too fine for the orig:inal ; and Pignotti, for 
 want of .^sop's naivete, has turned his fables into 
 tales. Some of his best novel le are reserved for 
 private circles. I heard him read one on " the 
 art of robbing'," which could not be siifely pub- 
 blished by a Tuscan placeman. In the man 
 himself you see little of the poet, little of that 
 refined satire which runs throug-h his fables and 
 has raised those light-winged, loose, little things 
 to the rank of Italian classics*. 
 
 Bertola is, perhaps, a more genuine fabulist 
 
 * Pignotti, who is now engaged on a history of Tuscany, 
 once repeated to me, with great satisfaction, what Gibbon 
 says of the Itahan historians, among whom he anticijjates 
 a niche for himself. This led him to compare Mr. Ro^coe's 
 Life of Lorenzo with Fabroni's history of the same great 
 man, when Monsignore himself entered the room and 
 stepped his parallel. Why does tliat prelate write modern 
 lives in an ancient language? Is he ashamed, in this 
 silver age of Italian letters, to appear a '« Fabbro del parlar 
 materuo r'' 
 
 c 2 
 
 v|l; 
 
20 
 
 PISA. 
 
 than Pignotti. He does not labour to be easy , 
 for he has naturally the neg'ligence, and some- 
 times the vacuity of a rhyming gentleman. His 
 fugitive pieces are as light as the poetical cob- 
 webs of his friend Borgognini, His sonnets run 
 upon love or religion, and some inspire that 
 mystic, unmeaning tenderness which Petrarch 
 infuses into such subjects. Bertola is too fond 
 of universality and change. He has been a tra- 
 veller, a monk, a secular priest, a professor in 
 different universities and in different sciences, an 
 historian, a poet, a biographer, a journalist, an 
 improTvisatore. 
 
 Bondi has also been bitten by the " estro" of 
 sonnet, though more conspicuous as a painter of 
 manners. His "Conversazioni" and "Alia moda" 
 expose some genteel follies with great truth of 
 ridicule. His " Giornata villareccia" is diversi- 
 fied, not by the common expedient of episodes, 
 but by a skilful interchange of rural description, 
 good-natured satire, and easy philosophy. The 
 same subject has been sung by Melli in Sicilian, 
 a language now the Doric of Italian poetry, and 
 full of the ancient Theocritan dialect. 
 
 Cesarotti is the only Italian now alive that has 
 shewn powers equal to an original epic ; powers 
 which he has wasted in stooping to paraphrase 
 the savage strains of Ossian, and in working on 
 Homer's unimprovable rhapf-odies. The Iliad he 
 
 POETS. 
 
 21 
 
 pulls down and rebuilds on a plan of his own. 
 He brings Hector into the very front, and re- 
 moulds the morals and decoration of the poem ; 
 modernizes too freely the manners, and gives too 
 much relief to its simplicity. 
 
 Parini has mused and, I hope, corrected his 
 countrymen by the Mattino and the Mezzooiorno. 
 for the other two parts of the day he left imper- 
 fect. An original vein of irony runs through all 
 his pictures, and brings into view most of the 
 affectations accredited in high life or in fine con- 
 versation. He lays on colour enough, yet he 
 seldom caricatures follies beyond their natural 
 distortion. His style is highly poetical, and, 
 being wrought into trivial subjects, it acquires a 
 curious charm from the contrast. He is thou"-ht 
 inferior to Bettinelli in the structure of blank 
 verse ; but the seasoning and pungency of his 
 themes are more relished here than the milder 
 instruction of that venerable bard. 
 
 Fantoni, better known by his Arcadian name 
 Labindo, is in high favour as a lyric poet. This 
 true man of fashion never tires his fancy by any 
 work of length ; he flies from subject to subject, 
 delighted and delighting. You see Horace in 
 every ode, Horace's modes of thinking, his variety 
 of measures, his imagery, his transitions. Yet 
 Labindo wants the Horatian ease; he is too 
 studious of diction, and hazards " some taffeta 
 
1 
 
 22 
 
 nsA, 
 
 POETS. 
 
 23 
 
 /• 
 
 t 
 
 phra:-es, silken terms precise," which remind us 
 ol" our late Delhi Crusca jarg-on. 
 
 Pindcmonte was connected with some of our 
 Enfrlish Crnscans, but he cannot be charf^ed with 
 their flimsy, c^auzy, jrlitterino; nonsense. He 
 thinks, and he makes his readers think. Happy 
 in description, sedate even in his light themes, 
 generally melancholy and sometimes sublime, he 
 hears a fine resemblance to our Gray, and, like 
 Gray, has written but little in a country where 
 most poets are voluminous. 
 
 Casti* is the profligate of genius. He rivals 
 La Fontaine in the narrative talent, and sur- 
 passes him in obscenity. His late work, " Gli 
 Animali parlanti," though full of philosophy and 
 gall, must soon yield to the fate of all political 
 poems. Its form and its agents are tiresome. 
 We can follow a satirical fox throui>'h a short 
 fable, but we nauseate three volumes of alleiro- 
 rical brutes connected by one plot. His " novelle" 
 are, on the contrary, too attractive, too excellently 
 wicked. Such also is their reverend author. He 
 has lived just as he wrote, has grown old hi de- 
 bauchery, and suffered in the cause : yet is he 
 courted and caressed in the first circles of Italy, 
 as the arbiter of wit, and the favourite of the fair. 
 
 * Casti, and several ])ersons mentioned in this and 
 some of the fullowinij articles as living, have died since I 
 loft Italy. 
 
 All these gentlemen seem to have renounced 
 that epic chivalry, both serious and burlesque, 
 which forms the principal poems in the language. 
 Most of them have imbibed the philosophical 
 spirit of the present day, a spirit destructive of 
 the sublime, which it poorly compensates by the 
 terse, the correct, the critical. They borrow 
 language, imagery, and allusions incessantly from 
 science. They affect the useful and the didactic. 
 Some have sung the rights of man ; others the 
 topography and economics of their country; a 
 few have attempted the scientific themes which 
 the Physiocritics of Siena introduced into Y>oetry. 
 
 Such subjects naturally led their poets into 
 blank verse, which, from its very facility, has 
 irrown into a general abuse. Manv Italians could 
 go spinning " versi sciolti" through the whole 
 business of the day ; though it is more difficult 
 to excel in these than in rhyme. I heard some 
 unpublished heroids flow with such ease from 
 that benevolent chemist, the Marquis Boccella, 
 that I forgot he was reading verse. Blank verse 
 requires a certain poetical chemistry to concen- 
 trate, to fuse, to sublime the style, and to sepa- 
 rate its measures from the rhythm of periodical 
 prose. 
 
 h \ 
 
24 
 
 PISA. 
 
 THE CLIMATE. 
 
 25 
 
 [/■ 
 
 THE CLIMATE. 
 O utinam hybernap duplicentur tempora bruma? ! 
 
 PUOPERTIUS. 
 
 The great evil of this climate is humidity. Both 
 the Arno and its secondary streams glide very 
 slowly on beds which are but little inclined, and 
 nearly level with the surface of the Pisan terri- 
 tory. Hence their embankments, however stu- 
 pendous, cannot ultimately protect the plain. 
 They may confine to these channels the deposite 
 of earth left by floods ; but an accumulation of 
 deposites thus confined has, in many parts, raised 
 those channels above the level of the country. 
 Should any water, therefore, escape through 
 breaches into the plain, the difficulty of draining 
 it must yearly increase ; for even the bed of the 
 sea has been rising for ages on this coast, and 
 has stopped up some ancient outlets. 
 
 Drainage, however, made very important con- 
 quests during the last century, and has greatly 
 improved the climate. Scotto, with the spirit of 
 a merchant accustomed to wholesale success, 
 lately attempted to drain his part of the marshes 
 between Pisa and Leghorn ; but the villas which 
 he built for his future tenantry were filled the 
 first winter with water. The Ferroni, who have 
 doubled their rental by their colmate near Pescia, 
 
 are now pursuing a still grander design on the 
 lake of Bientina. 
 
 We may calculate the mischief of inundations 
 in this country from the violence of the rain ; for 
 its annual height (47 inches) is about double that 
 of our climate, while its duration is not one-half. 
 It generally falls in large round drops direct to 
 the ground : it never breaks into mist, nor dims 
 the air, nor penetrates the houses, nor rusts 
 metals, nor racks the bones, with the searching 
 activitv of an EnscHsh shower. 
 
 Winter is by far the finest season at Pisa and 
 fully as mild as our Spring. The East wind, 
 indeed, being screened only by the Verrucola, 
 is exceedingly sharp, and freezes at 35°. The 
 South West being flat, lies open to the Libecci, 
 which is therefore more felt than the other winds, 
 and is fully as oppressive on the spirits as the 
 leaden sirocco of Naples. 
 
 Some Pisans feel the climate colder, and I 
 should suppose it drier too, since the neighbour- 
 ing Apennines were cleared of their woods. 
 Others compare the quantity of snow on these 
 with that on the mountains of Corsica; and if 
 the former exceed the latter, they expect fair 
 weather ; if the reverse, rain : but I remained 
 here long enough to find the prognostic fallible. 
 One reverend meteorologist accounted to me more 
 philosophically for a chill which I once com- 
 
1 'i 
 I 
 
 26 
 
 PISA. 
 
 THE CLIMATE. 
 
 27 
 
 f/" 
 
 plained of in Lent. " This cold (said the priest) 
 is a mortification peculiar to the holy season, and 
 will continue till Easter; because it was cold 
 when Peter sat at the Hiirh-priest's fire on the 
 eve of the crucifixion." 
 
 The Spring: is short, for violent heat g-enerally 
 returns with the leaf. In Summer, the morninivs 
 are intensely hot ; at noon the sea-breeze springs 
 up; the niirhts are damp, close, sulfocatino-, when 
 not ventilated by the maestrale. Pisa ni .y re- 
 verse what physicians say of the cjipital— " They 
 hardly conceive how people can live at Florence 
 in Winter, or how they can die there in Sum- 
 mer." 
 
 The Lung-' Arno di mezzo giorno, which is in 
 fact the north side of the river, is usually recom- 
 mended to invalids as the healthiest c[uarter of 
 the city. The hottest it certainly is, for its cune 
 tends to concentrate the meridian rays ; but on 
 that veiy account it appears to me scarcely habi- 
 table in Summer. On this side, the house fronts 
 are baked by a powerful sun which throws into 
 the chambers a close fetid warmth, and more than 
 their proportion of the moisture which it pumps 
 up. On the opposite side the houses are all damp, 
 and many are covered with lichens. On both 
 sides, the exhalations from the river seem unable 
 to clear the lofty tops of the palaces which line it ; 
 for walking at night on the quays, I have often 
 
 perceived my stick and my hair moistened with 
 the descending vapours. Convinced, therefore, 
 that the general temperature of Pisa is mild 
 enough for any constitution, I should prefer the 
 quarter of Santo Spirito, or Via Santa Maria, as 
 sharing only the common weather of the place, 
 and being- free from adventitious heat, or hu- 
 midity. 
 
 LUCCA. 
 
 LiBEUT.vs. — Inscription oti the Gate. 
 
 I ENTERED the Lucchese territoiy at Ripafratta; 
 a frontier which indicates, by its name, how little 
 the proudest embankments can resist the Serchio, 
 when its floods are repelled by a South wind. 
 On passing this frontier I remarked a national 
 chano-e of feature, and a costume distinct from 
 the Pisan. All the women were slip-shod : their 
 dress was precisely alike — the colour scarlet. 
 
 This little state is so populous, that very few 
 acres, and those subject to inundation, are allotted 
 to each farmer on the plain. Hence their superior 
 skill in agriculture and draining: hence that va- 
 riety of crops on every enclosure, which gives to 
 the vale of Serchio the economy and show of a 
 large kitchen-garden. So rich is the creation of 
 
 X 
 
If 
 
 I' 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 > 1\ 
 
 1 
 
 J(\' 
 
 1( 
 
 1 
 
 )r' 
 
 
 i 
 
 28 
 
 LUCCA, 
 
 poor men who must render up to their landlord 
 two-thirds of their produce, and submit to what- 
 ever price he may fix on the remainder! Even 
 the little that is left to their own disposal they 
 cannot sell at home; their very milk they must 
 export every morning to a foreijrn state like Pisa. 
 Oppressed, however, as this^ peasantry- is, per- 
 haps the advocates for larg-e farms would find it 
 difficult to prove that the Lucchese would produce 
 better crops, if tilled by fewer tenants. Italy 
 mio'ht hr'mcr ajrainst that system the authority of 
 her Viriril, her Pliny, her Columella; the example 
 of Lucca where husbandry is so subdivided, that 
 of Tuscany where the farms are so limited, that 
 of the Roman state where they are so larjre. 
 Every state in the peninsula is productive, I be- 
 lieve, in proportion to the number of farmers on 
 a given space of land equally good. 
 
 Tlu's plain is skirted by vine-clad hills, where 
 the celebrated villas rise on such sites as court 
 admiration from the city. Indeed theydesene 
 to be conspicuous, as monuments of that ancient 
 lordliness which dignified the Lucchesi with the 
 epithet of Signori. 
 
 The ramparts of the city, though neglected 
 even as a walk, attest the same national magni- 
 ficence. The cannon, once their ornament and 
 happily nothing but an ornament, are gone. The 
 armor}', which was also admired, and useless like 
 
 LUCCA. 
 
 29 
 
 the cannon, is now empty. The palace of the re- 
 public, no longer the residence of the Gonfalo- 
 niere, bears a deserted and vacant aspect This 
 immense and august edifice makes the city round 
 it look little; yet only half the original design is 
 completed. Those petty Italian states, when com- 
 mercial and free, had a public soul too expansive 
 for the body. In its present decline, I remarked 
 through the city an air of sullen, negligent state- 
 liness, which often succeeds to departed power; 
 a ceremonious gravity in the men, a sympathetic 
 oloominess in the houses, and the worst symptom 
 that any town can have — silence. 
 
 The Cathedral is of the same age, and the same 
 marble as that of Pisa; nor did I see anything 
 very peculiar here except a wide-arched porch 
 crowded with sculpture, and the round temple of 
 the Santo Volto insulated in the nave. 
 
 t 
 
30 
 
 THE TUSCAN REPUBLICS. 
 
 31 
 
 r 
 
 li. 
 
 I 
 
 THE TUSCAN REPUBLICS. 
 
 Ex Thusca Grsccula facta est.— J i v. 
 
 Every city of Tuscany Imvinn: been once a sepa- 
 rate republic, still considers itself a nation distinct 
 from the rest, and calls their inhabitants foreicners. 
 If we compare these little states with those of 
 ancient Greece, we shall find that in both coun- 
 tries the republics emertred from small princi- 
 palities; they shook off the voke bv similar means, 
 and they ended in a common lord who united them 
 all. In both, we shall find a crowded population 
 and a narrow territory ; in both, a public mao-ni- 
 ficence disproportionate to their power; in both, 
 the same nursing- love of literature and of the 
 arts, the same nice and fastidious taste, the same 
 ambitious and excludiuir ])urity of lan«»-ua"e. 
 
 Viewed as republics, the Tuscans and the 
 Greeks were equally turbulent within their walls, 
 and equally vain of figuring- among foreig-n sove- 
 reigns; always jealous of their political indepen- 
 dence, but often negligent of their civil freedom, 
 for ever shifting their alliances abroad, or undu- 
 lating between ill-balanced factions at home. In 
 such alternations of power, the patricians became 
 imperious, the commons blood-thirsty, and both 
 
 so opposite, that nothing but an enemy at the 
 o-ates coidd unite them. 
 
 But in no point is the parallel so striking as in 
 their hereditary hatred of each other. This pas- 
 sion they fostered by insidting epithets. The 
 Tuscans called the Pisans traditori, the Pistoians 
 pe?Tersi, the Senese pazzi, the Florentines* ciechi, 
 &c. The Greeks (take even Boeotia alone) gave 
 Tanagra a nickname for envy, Oropus for avarice, 
 ThespisB for the love of contradiction, &c. 
 
 Nor was their hatred satisfied with mockery; 
 it became serious upon every trifle. Athens waged 
 a bloody war on iEgina for two olive stumps, 
 the materials of two statues: Florence declared 
 hostilities against Pistoia, on account of two 
 marble arms which had been dismembered from 
 one statue. t 
 
 The first private wars among the free cities of 
 Italy broke out in Tuscany, between Pisa and 
 Lucca. Tyrant never attacked tyrant with more 
 exterminating fury, than these republics, the hy- 
 
 * The Florentines themselves account for their nickname 
 ciec/n, by the whiteness of their houses which blinds so 
 many of their inhabitants; but the other Tuscans contend 
 that the epithet of Blind, applied nationally to Florence, 
 should mean what it meant at Chalcedon. 
 
 f E liete, in cambio d' arrecarle aiuto 
 L* Italiche citta del suo periglio, 
 Ruzzavano tra loro, noa altrimenti 
 Che disciolte poledre a calci e denti. — ^Tassoni, 
 
 V 
 
I 
 
 V 
 
 :»' 
 
 7 
 
 111 
 
 32 
 
 THE TUSCAN REPUBLICS. 
 
 pocrites of liberty, fought for mutual enthralment. 
 No despot ever sported more cruelly with his 
 slaves, than the Thessaliaiis and Spartans with 
 their Penestae and Helots, or the Florentines with 
 their Pisan prisoners. These last wretches were 
 broui^ht in carts to Florence, tied up like bail- 
 goods: they were told over at the gates, and en- 
 tered at the custom-house as common merchan- 
 dise : they were then dragged more than half 
 naked to the Signoria, where they were oblioed 
 to kiss the posteriors of the stone Marzoccho, 
 which remains as a record of their shame, and 
 were at last thrown into dungeons where most of 
 them died. Such was 
 
 La rabbia Fiorentlna, che superba 
 Fu a quel tempo si, com' ora e putta. 
 
 The Florentines brought home in triumph the 
 chains of the unfortunate harbour, and suspended 
 them in festoons over the two venerable columns 
 of porphyry which Pisa had presented in gratitude 
 for a former sen ice. The Pisan chains hang like 
 a fair trophy on the foreign bank of Genoa; but 
 to place them at Florence over those i)ledges of 
 ancient friendship betrayed a defect of moral 
 taste; and to expose them still at that sacred door, 
 which Michael Angelo thought worthy of para- 
 dise, tends only to keep up the individuality of 
 those little states, which it is the interest of their 
 
 THE TUSCAN REPUBLICS. 
 
 33 
 
 common governor to efface. No trifle should be 
 left to record their separate independence, or to 
 excite that repulsive action, — that tendency to fly 
 otf from their present cluster, which is doubly fatal 
 in an age and a country so prone to partition. 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 GABINETTO FISICO. 
 
 ( 
 
 This, being originally an assemblage of several 
 scattered collections in natural history, is rather 
 full than complete. It is richest in fossils, corals, 
 shells, and insects; but celebrated only for the 
 anatomical imitations. 
 
 Wax was first used in imitating anatomy by 
 Zumbo, a Sicilian of a melancholy, mysterious 
 cast, some of whose works are preserved here. 
 Three of these bear the gloomy character of the 
 artist, who has exhibited the horrible details of 
 the plague and the charnel-house, including the 
 decomposition of bodies through every stao-e of 
 putrefaction — the blackenina:, the swelling-, the 
 bursting of the trunk — the worm, the rat and the 
 tarantula at work — and the mushroom springin"- 
 fresh in the midst of corruption. 
 
 I was struck by the immensity of this collection, 
 
 '-ir 
 
^imm^^-'mimi 
 
 34 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 GABINETTO FISTCO. 
 
 35 
 
 V 
 
 /• 
 
 f 
 
 ' 
 
 which occupies fourteen rooms; yet, considered 
 as a system, anatomists find it both defective and 
 redundant. Siiz;. Fabbroni told me that many 
 articles should be melted down as useless; that 
 others were inaccurate; that all, from the yielding 
 nature of the wax, wanted frequent retouching;; 
 and that, bei^inninii; anew, he could make the 
 system more complete in half the compass. But 
 such is ever the course of experiment. Every 
 new step in science is the correction of an old one. 
 Science mav be considered as the art of remedies 
 which oriiiinate in defect and end in it. 
 
 This awful region, which should be sacred to 
 men of science, is open to all. Nay, the very 
 apartment where the gravid uterus and its pro- 
 cesses lie unveiled, is a favourite lounge of the 
 ladies, who criticise aloud all the mysteries of sex. 
 
 This museum is under the direction of Felice 
 Fontana, now a cavaliere, yet more generally 
 known than his brotlier by the title of Abbe ; from 
 the clerical habit which he once wore, like other 
 lavmen, for mere economy. Fontana seems to 
 preside here in the scientific world, rather by the 
 diffusion than the depth of his knowledge; by 
 briuirinii- into science the man-of-the-world faculty, 
 by a well-managed talent of display and evasion, 
 which gains him credit for much more than he 
 knows, by the art of improving the inventions of 
 others, and passing their joint work under his own 
 
 name. In his hands every man's ability is avail- 
 able, and nothing is lost. 
 
 Above that consequential reserve which many 
 affect on subjects where they are known to excel, 
 Fontana readily entered into the history of imita- 
 tive anatomy, " an art invented by Zumbo, and 
 revi\ ed," he said, " by me. I began with a very 
 }oung artist, whom I instructed to copy the hu- 
 man eye in wax. This I showed to Leojjold, who, 
 pleased with the attempt, and desirous that his 
 sons should learn anatomy, without attending 
 dissections, ordered me to conqilete the whole 
 system. 
 
 " I stood alone in a new art, without guide or 
 assistants. Anatomists could not model, and mo- 
 dellers were i":norant of interior anatomy. Thus 
 obliged to form workmen for myself, 1 selected 
 some mechanical drudges, who would execute my 
 orders without intruding into my design. Supe- 
 rior artists are too full of their own plans to follow 
 patiently another's; too fond of embellishing 
 nature to toil in the slavish imitation which I 
 required. Such difficulties I surmounted; but 
 before I finished the system, the funds had failed." 
 
 This active Prometheus is creating a decom- 
 posable statue, which will consist of ten thousand 
 separable pieces, and three millions of distinct 
 parts, both visible and tangible. I saw only the 
 head and the upper region of the trunk ; which 
 
 d2 
 
36 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 THE ROYAL GALLERY. 
 
 37 
 
 \^ 
 
 w; 
 
 appeared as sensible to the weather as its fleshly 
 original: for the wood, already warped by the 
 heat, has perceptibly altered the large contours; 
 while the pegs which connect the members be- 
 come unfit on every change of atmosphere. When 
 I suggested this to the Cavaliere — " The objection 
 is nothing. Ivory is too dear: papier mache has 
 been tried, but it failed." 
 
 Fontana, finding wax succeed so well in the rest 
 of anatomy, applied it even to the imitation of 
 lx)nes, and has substituted, without any necessity, 
 a waxen skeleton for the real preparation. Wax, 
 too, he has employed as a supplement to the her- 
 bal, in copying the mushrooms and the thick-leaved 
 plants: wax he designs for the whole sylva of 
 trees, and has already exhibited a few specimens 
 of the stump cut horizontally, with a twig, leaves, 
 blossom and fruit. I asked him whether the real 
 stump would not be truer, cheaper and more 
 durable than its waxen copy; but this objection 
 glanced off from his foil. 
 
 Siii^nor Fontana mav boast that the first anato- 
 mical cabinet in Europe was created under his 
 direction ; but his direction, I have been assured, 
 was only official. He left the business of dissec- 
 tion to Mauteucci and Bonicoli *, and that of mo- 
 
 * Bonicoli, being reduces! to want, lately drowned him- 
 self in the Arno, 
 
 delling to Ferini. Clementi Susini afterwards 
 united both offices, and attained such skill in this 
 museum that, from recollection alone, without 
 consulting a real subject, and by combinations 
 perfectly new, he has developed the whole lym- 
 phatic system on two statues only, with an accu- 
 racy which astonished the Pavians who had or- 
 dered them. Fortunately for Fontana's pre- 
 tensions, this young man is as modest as he is 
 
 mgemous. 
 
 The Cavaliere has the merit of findinir out, and 
 sometimes of rearing talents which had been lost 
 in obscurity; but those talents he lays under un- 
 sparing contributions to his own fame. He drew 
 Sig. Giov. Fabbroni from a sphere where none 
 would expect to find genius; but this singular 
 man, who was half in all his labours, rose too ra- 
 pidly for his patron. His genius opened to him 
 advantages and celebrity which were incompatible 
 with the friendship of Fontana: language, litera- 
 ture, science broke down before him, and left 
 him nothing to conquer but invidious, academic 
 cabals. 
 
 THE ROYAL GALLERY. 
 
 The Florentines seem now to desert a place 
 where vacant frames and idle pedestals only re- 
 mind them of treasures that are gone, and lessen 
 their esteem for those which remain. 
 
38 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 THE ROYAL GALLERY. 
 
 39 
 
 On entering: this grand repository, the Founders 
 meet you in the vestibule. Some of their busts 
 are in red porphyry, a substance which one of 
 those Medici is said to have recovered the lost art 
 of can ing ; a substance, by the way, not the most 
 proper for statuary. A statue should l)e of one 
 colour. That colour, too, seems the best, which 
 the least suggests any idea of colour, and is the 
 freest from any gloss or radiance that may tend to 
 shed false lights, and confuse vision. Hence I 
 should prefer white marble to black, black marble 
 to bronze, bronze to gold, and any of them to a 
 mottled surface like porphyry. 
 
 The first things that strike you in the Gallery 
 itself, are some glaring Madonnas painted on wood 
 by Greek artists in the tenth and eleventh cen- 
 turies. These pictures are uniform ; the draper}^ 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 ex- 
 pression or movement. 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 distinct contours. 
 
 the straight, stiff parallelism of attitude, the 
 vacant yet pretty little features, which are common 
 to the productions of unenlightened art : and are 
 more or less perceptible in the Egyptian idol, the 
 Gothic statue, the Indian screen, and the Chinese 
 
 jar. 
 
 The paintings of this Gallery run strangely into 
 series — a series of Florentine portraits classed on 
 the ceiling in compartments of the same form — a 
 series of 850 illustrious foreigners running on the 
 same level in frames of the same size — a series of 
 350 painters crowded into the same apartment — a 
 series of the arts — a series of the elements, all exact 
 to the same dimensions. Such uniformity betrays 
 the furnishing taste of a tradesman. Method and 
 multitude are ever remote from excellence. What 
 a disparity of forms in a select cabinet! There 
 every picture is a separate unit, and bears no re- 
 lation to its neis^hbour. As to the technical merit 
 of those pictures, I leave such metaphysics to the 
 initiated. Painting I value only as it excites sen- 
 timent, nor do 1 ever presume to judge beyond 
 the expression or story; convinced by the absur- 
 dities which I have been so often condemned to 
 hear, that the other parts of the art are mysteries 
 to all but the artist. 
 
 The series of imperial statues and busts is the 
 most valuable of all, as they show the iconography, 
 and the state of sculpture from Julius Caesar down 
 
 .^' 
 
40 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 . 
 
 to Constant! lie. Some individuals re-appear in 
 several busts, and in busts not always similar. 
 No difference of age could reconcile to me the 
 three which are called Julia dauohter of Titus. 
 Those of Commodus are not very like each other, 
 nor does any one of them breathe the terrors and 
 threats remarked by Herodian. Several doubts 
 may be started on the sculpture of this jrallery. 
 The Julius CiEsar which begins this series bears 
 no great resemblance to his effigy on coins. A 
 head which had been long called Cicero now 
 passes for Corbulo; from its likeness, I presume, 
 to the two Gabine busts, which can plead only 
 local probabilities for the name assigned to them. 
 Two of the cross-legged Apollos have been lately 
 degraded into Genii, and their swans into ceese. 
 Physiognomists, who can read sermons in stones, 
 find a world of character and history in those 
 imperial heads. They can discover habitual pale- 
 ness in the face of a Caligula, can see the slaver 
 dripping from the lips of a Claudius, and the 
 smile of yet unsettled ferocity in a Nero. All 
 this, I confess, sounds mystical to me. Some 
 heads are certainly marked with appropriate mind ; 
 but in others, as Titus, Didius, Septimius Severus, 
 I looked for the men in vain. 
 
 None of those heads are absolutely entire. 
 Most of their noses and ears have been mutilated. 
 Indeed, such defects were common even in ancient 
 
 THE ROYAL GALLERY. 
 
 41 
 
 galleries*. An imperial nose, however, may be 
 always authentically restored, as it appears on 
 coins in profile. 
 
 In several busts the flesh is of white marble 
 and the drapery of coloured ; but neither Homer 
 nor Virgil, nor Phidias, nor Canova, nor the 
 Venus which this Gallery has lost, nor the Mar- 
 syas which remainf, no authority can defend a 
 mixture so barbarous. Sculpture admits no di- 
 
 * Et Curios jam dimidios, humeroque minorem 
 Corv ilium, et Galbam auric ul is uasoque carentem. 
 
 Juvenal. 
 
 t Homer brings gold, silver, and tin into the sculpture 
 of Achilles' shield. — ^Tr^zV admires the effect of gold on 
 marble : '' Pariusve lapis circundatur auro." — Phidias com- 
 posed both his Jupiter and bis Minerva of ivory and gold. 
 He also inserted metal bridles into the heads of the marble 
 horses which have been lately carried off' from the frieze of 
 the Parthenon. — Canova has given a golden cup and spiu- 
 ther to his Hebe. — The Venus de' Medici and the daughters 
 of Niobe have their ears pierced for jewels. — The two 
 Marsijas are of white marble interspersed with red stains 
 to represent the flayed flesh ; and, in gems, this figure is 
 generally carved on red jasper. So common a statue was 
 Marsya in ancient Rome, and so invariably were his hands 
 bound, as they are here, over his distorted visage, that 
 Juvenal's image would be more obvious to the Romans, 
 and more a picture, if read, " ceu Marsya vinctus.'^ 
 
 The ancients, in affixing bronze heads, hands, and feet, 
 to alabaster bodies, probably made a sacrifice of taste to 
 prescription alone, which seemed to regulate those barba- 
 risms, and give laws to deformity. 
 
 n 
 
42 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 versity of materials ; it knows no colour ; it knows 
 nothing' but shape. Its purpose is not to cheat 
 the eye, hut to present to the mind all the truth 
 and beauty, and grace, and sublimity of forms. 
 Did the excellence 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. 
 
 I saw nothing here so grand as the group of 
 Niobe ; if statues which are now disjoined, and 
 placed equidistantly round a room, may be so 
 called. Niobe herself, clasped by the arm of her 
 terrified child, is certainly a group, and, whether 
 the head be original or not, the contrast of pas- 
 sion, of beauty, and even of dress, is admirable. 
 The dress of the other daughters appears too 
 thin, too meretricious for dying princesses. Some 
 of the sons exert too much attitude. Like gla- 
 diators, they seem taught to die picturesquely, 
 and to this theatrical exertion we may perhaps 
 impute the want of ease and of undulation, which 
 the critics condenm in their forms. 
 
 One of the cabinets is full of Etruscan idols 
 and penates, with their implements of worship, 
 both earthen and bronze. Those little images 
 came probably from, the lararia ; some of them 
 are minute enough for the lararia of children ; 
 some are as rude as a barber's block ; some are 
 
 THE ROYAL GALLERY. 
 
 43 
 
 wrapt, like the " statu® compernes," in swathing 
 clothes, and lead us back to the very cradle of 
 art, and the infancy of the style called Etruscan. 
 There is certainly a class of statues scattered 
 over Italy, which bear a family likeness in their 
 long faces, their pointed chins, their flat eyes, 
 and simpering mouths. But who has removed 
 all doubt of their country? who can now trace 
 the fine Hmit which separates this manner of 
 design from the later Egyptian, or the earlier 
 Greek*? Stitfness of form does not indicate 
 
 * The Ej^yptian statues may be considered as a part of 
 the architecture for which they were formed, and have all 
 the solidity proper for that office. Their backs are flattened 
 for adhering to the wall, their arras stick close to their 
 flanks ; and the head is secured to the shoulders by broad 
 taeniae, or by tresses fallinj^ down to the breast. Such pro- 
 tections have preserved entire some statues of Isis and 
 Ser.'ipis, more ancient than the Ptolemies. 
 
 The sculpture of Greece, also, sprang out of architecture. 
 Pausanias saw in Laconia some statues which had not 
 fully emerj^ed from the form of columns. Ruder than any 
 Hermes, they consisted merely in shafts, on which a face 
 was carved for the capital, and toes for the base. The 
 Caryatides appear to have been afterwards adopted in the 
 Greek architecture, merely as an imitation of those earlier 
 antiques. We may still trace the statue blended with the 
 column in the temple of Pandrosos at Athens. 
 
 Etruria received its gods, and consequently its statuary, 
 either by direct or by secondary emigrations from both 
 those countries: but from Kgypt it also contracted that 
 pious dread of innovation which checked all improvement. 
 
44 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 nation, but age; not Etruscan art alone, but the 
 art of all rude times and retired situations. 
 
 LIBRARIES. 
 
 Multiplici pariter condita pelle latent.— IvIa 
 
 UT, 
 
 The Laurentian library contains only the pubh'c 
 manuscripts, which are chained to desks and 
 overspread with woollen cloth. Ancient manu- 
 scripts beinjr in their nature unique, and in their 
 loss irreparable, will justify the precaution of 
 securing them, when thus exposed to the world. 
 But how illiberal do the chains appear in some 
 collejres tethering- printed books whicii money 
 can always replace ! 
 
 The oldest monument that this library pos- 
 sessed was the Vir-il, written, it is suj^posed, in 
 the rei,^n of Valens, and corrected by the consul 
 Asterius in the fifth century; but this celebrated 
 book, which had been formerly stolen and re- 
 stolen, disappeared during- the late war, and is 
 now lost for ever to Florence. 
 
 The Pandects were better guarded, and sent 
 to Palermo for safety. Government, indeed, had 
 always kept thern under its own key, and opened 
 
 I should, therefore, attribute wh^it Winkelmaii calls the 
 second and third styles of Etruscan sculpture, either to 
 Greece, or to the Greek part of Italy. 
 
 ii 
 
 LIBRARIES. 
 
 45 
 
 them only by torch-light to the great, on an order 
 from the senate. Tradition says that this famous 
 code was discovered in a barrel at Amalfi ; and 
 Hume, who believes the story, ascribes to this 
 discovery the revival of the Roman law. But it 
 is far more probable that the Pisans brought it 
 from Constantinople while their commerce flou- 
 rished in the Levant, and it is certain that, before 
 they took Amalfi, Irnerius had been teaching the 
 Pandects at Bologna. 
 
 The earliest works that now remain here, of a 
 date inscribed or otherwise ascertained, are some 
 venerable classics, both Greek and Latin, of the 
 eleventh century, which are far more legible than 
 the illuminated writing that succeeded. In the 
 older illuminations I saw nothing to admire but 
 the brilliancy of their colours, which were used 
 in the virgin state, perhaps only because the art 
 of mixing them was unknown. This brilliancy 
 is, I believe, the chief merit of Gothic miniature, 
 if that can be merit which arose from iirno- 
 ranee. 
 
 Some of those illuminations came from the 
 pencil of Oderisi, whom Dante extols as " the 
 honour of the art:" an art which irrew after- 
 wards into a luxury baneful to learning. Every 
 copyist became a painter, and wasting his time 
 in the embellishing of books, rendered books in 
 general rare. Early in the fifteenth century this 
 
46 
 
 fi 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 art made a most rapid prog-ress, as appears very 
 eminently in some of these manuscripts; and 
 Attaventi, who wroiiirht for the ma"nuficent 
 founder of this library, had broug'ht it near to 
 perfection, when printing gave a check to its im- 
 portance. Hence the works usually shown here 
 as objects of beauty, such as the Pliny, the Homer, 
 the Ptolemy, the Missal of the Florentine Re- 
 public, are all of that age, and contain ])ortraits 
 of the Medici painted in the initials and rnara-ins. 
 
 Manuscript-miniature is now confined to the 
 few artists necessary for the repair of such libra- 
 ries as this. I found Ciatti, who ranks first in 
 the art, supplying here lost or damaged leaves ; 
 copying in fac-simile the writing of every age, 
 and giving vellum the due tinge of antiipiity. 
 His enrichments have all the system of modern 
 composition, though inferior to the okl illumina- 
 tions in their general effect. In the former, we 
 admire an harmonious design; in the latter, a 
 rich confusion. Such is an English carpet com- 
 pared with a Persian. 
 
 The Magliahecchian library is the great repo- 
 sitory of printed books, and the seat of the Flo- 
 rentine academy, a name in which the Delia 
 Crusca and two others are now lost. 
 
 It has been the fate of the greatest libraries to 
 resound with the trifling of poets. Asinius PoUio 
 founded the first poetical meeting and the first 
 
 LIBRARIES. 
 
 47 
 
 ;* 
 
 public library in Rome, probably for each other. 
 The Apollo and the Ulpian were appropriated to 
 the ancient recitations. The Macrliabecchian 
 affords a similar vent to a thousand ephemeral 
 poems, which could never aspire to a place on its 
 shelves. 
 
 I once attended here a solemn Accademiuy 
 which always supposes the presence of the sove- 
 reign. The king, however, was only represented 
 by his picture hung on the throne, and his chair 
 of state was reversed on the audience. On each 
 side of the throne were academicians seated round 
 tables, and in the gallery was a band of music, 
 the only thing excellent that I heard. 
 
 Sarchiani, being Lettore d' eloquenza Toscana, 
 opened the Accademia with an oration elegantly 
 dressed in the common-place of eloirv. Then 
 music. Next rose La Fantastici and read a copy 
 of verses on the late peace ; a subject which 
 entered allusively into all the succeeding compo- 
 sitions in Italian, Latin, and Greek. These were 
 read by their authors. My bhnd acquaintance 
 Giotti recited some sonnets. Music and applause 
 crowned the recitations ; but the applause came 
 chiefly from the academicians themselves, for the 
 audience gradually withdrew, muttering — " sec- 
 cat ur a .'" 
 
i ! 
 
 48 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 i 
 
 IMPROVVISATORI. 
 
 Andiamo al btl cimento 
 
 SuUe all del momento. — La Fantastici. 
 
 Florenxe has lon^ been renowned for ImproV' 
 risatori. So early as the fifteeth century the two 
 blind brothers Brandolini, excelled here in sinn-ino- 
 Latin extempore. The crowned and pensioned 
 Corilla drew lately the admiration of all Italy, 
 and Signora Fantastici is now the improvvisatrice 
 of the day. 
 
 'riiis lady convenes at her house a crowd of 
 admirers, whenever she chooses to be inspired. 
 Tlie first time I attended her accademia, a youni^ 
 lady of the same family and name as the great 
 Michael Angelo began the evening by repeating 
 some verses of her own composition. Presently 
 La Fantastici broke out into song in the words of 
 the motto, and astonished me by her rapidity and 
 command of numbers, which flowed in praise of 
 the fair poetess, and brought her poem back to 
 our applause. Her numbers, however, flowed 
 irregularly, still varying with the fluctuation of 
 sentiment ; while her song corresponded, chang- 
 ing from aria to recitativo, from recitative to a 
 measured recitation. 
 
 She went round her circle and called on each 
 
 IMPROVVISATORI. 
 
 49 
 
 ])erM)n for a theme. Seeing her busy with her 
 fan, I proposed the Fan as a subject ; and this 
 little weapon she painted as she promised, " col 
 pennel divino di fantasia felice." In tracino- its 
 origin she followed Pignotti, and in describing its 
 use, she acted and analyzed to us all the coquetry 
 of the thing. She allowed herself no pause, as 
 the moment she cooled, her estro would escape. 
 
 So extensive is her reading, that she can chal- 
 lenge any theme. One morning, after other clas- 
 sical subjects had been sung, a Venetian count 
 gave her the boundless field of Apollonius Rho- 
 dius, in which she displayed a minute acquaint- 
 ance with all the Argonautic fable. Tired at last 
 of demigods, I proposed the sofa for a task, and 
 sketched to her the introduction of Cowper's 
 poem. She set out with his idea, but, being once 
 entangled in the net of mythology, she soon trans- 
 formed his sola into a Cytherean couch, and 
 brought Venus, Cupid, and Mars on the scene ; 
 for such embroidery enters into the web of every 
 improvvisatore. I found this mornincr-accademia 
 flatter than the first. Perhaps Poetry, being one 
 of the children of pleasure, may, like her sisters, 
 be most welcome in the evening. 
 
 I remarked that La Fantastici, when speaking 
 of her art, gave some cold praise to her rival La 
 Bandettini ; but she set an old Tuscan peasant 
 above all the tribe, as first in original and poetic 
 
 £ 
 
 i. 
 
50 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 IMrilOVVISATORI. 
 
 51 
 
 U' 
 
 thinking-. She seemed then to forget her once- 
 admired Gianni, the Roman Stay-maker. This 
 crooked son of Apollo was the contested gallant 
 of the first beauties in Florence, where he dis- 
 played powers yet unequalled in impromptu; 
 defying all the obblifjazioni or shackles that the 
 severest audience could impose on him. The 
 very idea, however, of imposition is a violence 
 fatal to genius ; and the poetical commands thus 
 executed, like laureate odes and other tasks, may 
 show skill, practice, talent ; but none of the higher 
 felicities of art. 
 
 Such " strains pronounced and sung unmedi- 
 tated, such prompt eloipience," such sentiment 
 and imagery flowing in rich diction, in measure, 
 in rhyme, and in music, without interruption, 
 and on subjects unforeseen, all this miist evince in 
 La Fantastici a wonderful command of })Owers ; 
 yet, judging from her studied and published com- 
 positions, which are dull enough, I should sus- 
 pect that this impromptu-exercise seldom leads to 
 poetical excellence. Serafino d'Acquila, the first 
 impro\Tisatore that appeared in the language, 
 was 2:azed at in the Italian courts as a divine and 
 inspired being, till he published his verses and 
 dispelled the illusion. 
 
 An Italian improwisatore has the benefit of a 
 language rich in echoes. He generally calls in 
 the accompaniment of song, a lute, or a guitar, 
 
 to set off his verse and conceal any failures. If 
 his theme be difficult, he runs from that into the 
 nearest common-place, or takes refuge in loose 
 lyric measures. Thus he may always be fluent, 
 and sometimes bv accident be briiiht. 
 
 I once heard a little drama given extempore 
 with great effect, from the acting talent of the 
 poet : but dramatic poetry is not so nuich the 
 subject of Italian impromptu, as it was among 
 the Greeks. The Greek language and the Italian 
 appear to me eiiually favourable to this talent. 
 Equally rich and harmonious and pliant, they 
 allow })oets to alter the length and the collocation 
 of words, to pile ejjithets on epithets, and some- 
 times to range among different dialects. 
 
 In attending to the Italian improvvisatori, 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 con- 
 struction, the same digressions, rests, repetitions, 
 anomalies. Homer has often recourse to shifts 
 of the moment, like other inq)rovv isatori*. Like 
 
 * Homer seems to have kept a stock of hemistichs, wliich 
 recur incessantly at the close of verses; as s^scc •mpUvTa. 
 •^T^otT'Avla. ha yXavKw-^rts ' XHr/i, &c. ; expletive epithets, as, 
 "d7o;~la,y.onyi, &.C., which appear in so many and so oppo- 
 site meanings, that they cease to have any meaning at 
 all; expletive phrases which he applies indiscriminately, as 
 
 E 2 
 
52 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 ( 
 
 THE THEATRE. 
 
 53 
 
 4 
 
 'M 
 
 them he betrays great inequalities. Sometimes 
 when his speech is lengthening into detail, he 
 cuts it short and concludes. Sometimes when the 
 interest and difficulty thicken, the poet escapes, 
 Hke his heroes, in a cloud. I once thought of 
 Homer in the streets of Florence, where I once 
 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 
 hearers 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 ^^maledetto." 
 
 the oo^af/.oi av^oZv, both to the monarch and the swine- 
 herd ; sot forms which introduce his speeches, as, Tov V 
 uTafjiufhouivo; -rpoAzn, &c. — or else begin them, as 'Avsas? 
 \ff7i c^lXot, &.C., and thus leave him time to collect thoughts 
 for the speech itself. When he has killed one warrior, in 
 comes the A^T-zieriv ^t Turuvf &c., and allows him a moment 
 to look about for another victim. How often does he serve 
 up, particvdarly in the gluttonous Odyssey, the same r cloa, 
 t' ciXKa feast, to refresh himself as well as his heroes I 
 How often does the ^H^a; V 'H^iytvua (pdvyi, &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 literally singers ; and the harp of the 
 aoiVos is now most generally represented by a guitar. 
 
 THE THEATRE. 
 Quam non adstricto percurrat pulpita socco ! — Hor. 
 
 The Italian theatre would be the oldest now in 
 existence, if traced up to the Istrioni of the 
 twelfth century; but those were mere ballad- 
 singers, and never rose to histrionic imitation. 
 No dialogue was attempted before the Moralities 
 of the next age, nor did these monkish pastimes 
 bear any other mark of drama, until the history 
 of Abraham appeared here in- 1449. Thirty 
 years afterwards Politian revived, in his Orfeo, 
 the ancient form of acts and choruses ; a form 
 which excited so many imitations of the Greek, 
 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. The first 
 was Carretto's Sofonisba in 1502; for that of 
 Trissino did not appear till 1515. After a lapse 
 of some years came Alamanni, Martelli, Speroni, 
 Giraldi, Anguillara, Dolce, Tasso, Torelli. All 
 these tragedians wrote on the ancient plan in 
 long solemn dialogues, quite foreign from the 
 purpose of playing, and as heroically stiff as our 
 own imitations of the Greek drama. 
 
 Comedy was first introduced by Hercules, duke 
 of Ferrara, in his translation from Plautus. Then 
 
i 
 
 111 
 
 54 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 
 I 
 4 
 
 came Ariosto with a comedy of his own. The 
 crowd that succeeded wrote plays as exercises for 
 princes and scholars, who recited those comedies, 
 now called " Erudite," in courts, academies, and 
 collci^es. Tlie very title, the purpose, the place, 
 and the players, seem to have condemned the 
 whole species to stupidity and oblivion. The best 
 of that class were unfortunately obscene, a vice 
 unknown on the present staj^e. 
 
 The " Commedie dell' arte" took a different 
 aim. Beins^ made for a profession of men who 
 subsisted on the ]jublic curiosity, they were 
 oblip^ed to catch and to reflect all the popular 
 humours. Their very essence was action, they 
 seldom ventured into print, their plots alone were 
 chalked out, and the dialo^^ue was trusted to the 
 extem^wrary wit of the actors. Each of these 
 was confined to a sinj^le character, and bred to 
 his own mask; yet thouo^h always re-appearing- 
 as Harlequin and his fellows, those maskers 
 could furnish an incessant variety of story, satire, 
 and fun. 
 
 Trag-edy could not, like her sister, descend to 
 the mob; and therefore sunk under the heavy 
 coalition of her scholastic poets and g-entlemen- 
 players. To rouse her from this lethargy, they 
 applied the fatal remedy of nmsic. In 1597 
 Vecchi and Ilinnuccini introduced the recitativo 
 into tragedy, and about fifty years afterwards, 
 
 THE THEATRE. 
 
 55 
 
 II Cignonini interspersed this recitativo with airs. 
 The result was the Opera, that genuine child of 
 the Scicento. 
 
 Nothing so extravagantly unnatural as the 
 opera has ever stood so long. For the opera, 
 Italians have erected their grandest theatres, in- 
 vented a new system of decoration, instituted 
 academies, and mutilated men. Music, though 
 introduced only as an assistant to tragedy, soon be- 
 came the principal ; and any poetry was thought 
 good enough for an entertainment where no poetry 
 could be understood. 
 
 The musical demon fell next unon comedv, and 
 begot the monster called opera hiiffa; a compo- 
 sition more wretched, if possible, than the serious 
 melo-drama. This last innovation, however, 
 pampered the two great appetites of the nation 
 with music mid bulfoonery, and drew the upper 
 classes of society away from poor prosaic Harle- 
 quin, who sunk to the level of our Bartholomew- 
 Fair. 
 
 In this low state was the Italian theatre when 
 Goldoni appeared. Obliged, like Moliere, to ac- 
 quiesce for a while in the established barbarisms, 
 he at first wrote for the old ma^;ks ; but, intro- 
 ducina: beauties which were foreifi^n and unfit for 
 them, he gradually refined the taste of the spec- 
 tators, made them ashamed of their former favour- 
 ites, and then ventured to exclude the whole 
 
 r- 
 
56 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 THE THEATRE. 
 
 57 
 
 <ll 
 
 n 
 
 Harlequin family. Cliiari and his adherents cla- 
 moured against this exclusion ; but Goldoni has 
 so completely succeeded, that his own masked 
 comedies are now banished from the renular stao'e 
 to the marionnette. This revolution necessarily 
 reduced the number of acting- plays, and though 
 Federici is very diligent in supplying the defi- 
 ciency, the public appears at present to prefer 
 translations IVom the German and French to 
 Italian originals. 
 
 The players seem to keep pace with the poets 
 in improvement. As if ashamed of their descent 
 from the " maschere dell' arte," they ha\e re- 
 nounced the rant and buffoonery of the old stau:e, 
 and alfect a temperance bordering upon tame- 
 ness. Yet still degraded in society, subject in 
 some states of Italy to a police as humiliating as 
 the ancient*, and every where 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 underwrite" and they close each perform- 
 
 * " Prsetoribus jus virj^ariim in hisiriones esset."— Tae. 
 In one part of Lucian we find the players subject to be 
 whipped at the discretion of the audience ; in another we 
 find the oc^XoSira exercisinj^ that right ; at this moment they 
 lie under the same scourL^e at Rome. 
 
 ance 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 singers and 
 dancers, whom I ignorantly omit in this review, 
 are perpetually changing their engagements ; but 
 the comedians adhere to their manager, and fol- 
 low him from city to citv. Most of the comic 
 troops are composed of Lombards, and of these 
 the best are enlisted under Goldoni, a relation of 
 the great dramatist. In his company are the two 
 first actors of the day, Zanerini and Andolfati. 
 
 Zanerini's walk is the " padre nobile," and 
 surely in pathetic old characters he carries the 
 exquisite and the fbrccfnl as far as they can exist 
 together. 
 
 Andolfati excels as a caratterista, and has dra- 
 matised for himself some passages in the life of 
 Frederick II., whom he imitates, tale quale, in his 
 voice, walk, and manner. But Andolfati's merit 
 rises far above mimicry; he can thrill the heart 
 as well as shake the sides, and (what is more dif- 
 ficult than either) he can excite through long 
 scenes that secret intellectual smile which, like 
 the humour of Addison, never fatigues. 
 
 The scene of their dramas lies so often in 
 England, that they should learn to dress them 
 more truly. I have seen Milord Bonfil appear in 
 
58 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 >i^ 
 
 three different comedies, with a broad silver lace 
 on the calf of his right leg- to represent the garter. 
 Their scenery often corresponds with their dress. 
 Ill painted, ill set, inappropriate, rumpled, raoged 
 and slit, it presents its strolling poverty in the 
 face of the noblest architecture. No illusion can 
 be attempted 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 per- 
 formers. A j^rima donna is bound to call on all 
 the gentry of the place, to solicit their attendance, 
 and on the evening allotted to her, she sits greedily 
 at the receipt of custom, bowing ibr e\ ery crown 
 that is thrown on her tea-tray. Tlie price of a 
 ticket is but three 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, wliere noble- 
 men volunteer their fiddles with the punctuality 
 of hirelings. 
 
 Every theatre in Tuscany has its epithet and 
 device, as the Immohill and their windmill, the 
 Infuocati and their bomb, &c. An epithet, de- 
 vice, and motto, were thought necessary here to 
 every society, to every prince, to every academy, 
 and to every academician. 
 
 Previous to Alfieri, there was not a tragedy in 
 
 THE THEATRE. 
 
 59 
 
 the Italian language that would now draw au au- 
 dience. The players, therefore, finding nothing 
 else better adapted to the buskin, had recourse to 
 Metastasio's operas, which they still recite occa- 
 sionally, omitting the airs. But verses composed 
 ior a composer of music are not the langutige of 
 men speaking to men ; nor can much passion be 
 excited by speeches so antithetical, so measured, 
 and so balanced as those of Metastasio. 
 
 Hence tragedy is but seldom performed, and 
 very few performers excel in that sphere. No 
 tragic genius has yet appeared here equal to that 
 of a boy, who died lately at the age of fifteen. 
 This little prodigy was the son of Count Montauti, 
 governor of Leghorn. Though born a dwarf', he 
 had the perceptions of a hero ; he could grasp the 
 gigantic thoughts of Alfieri, present them to their 
 author in all their original grandeur, and force 
 him, against his nature, to admire. 
 
 Alfieri is, next to Dante, 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 soliloquise, he must often de- 
 scribe what a Shakspeare would represent, and 
 this to a nation immoderately fond of picture. 
 Every thought, indeed, is warm, proper, energe- 
 tic ; every word is necessary and precise ; yet this 
 
 -jL 
 
1^, 
 
 60 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 THE THEATRE. 
 
 61 
 
 i 
 
 ver}' streno'th and compression, being- new to the 
 language and foreign to its genius, have rendered 
 his style inverted, broken *, and obscure ; full of 
 ellipses, and elisions; speckled even to affectation 
 with Dantesqiie terms ; without pliancy, or floAv, 
 or variety, or ease. 
 
 Yet where lives the tragic poet equal to Alfieri? 
 Has England or France one that desenes the 
 name ? Schiller may excel him in those peals of 
 terror which thunder through his gloomy and tem- 
 pestuous scenes ; but he is poorer in thought, and 
 inferior in the mechanism of his dramas. 
 
 Alfieri's conduct is more open than his works 
 to censure. Though born in a monarchy, and 
 living under mild princes, this Count concentrated 
 in his heart all the pride, brutality and violence 
 of the purest aristocracies that ever oppressed 
 Genoa or Venice. Whoever was more or less 
 than noble, became the object of his hatred or his 
 contempt. The same pen levelled his Tirannide 
 
 * The periodical and voluminous style of Italian trao-edies 
 having led actors into a musical monotony, it was to correct 
 this vice that Alfieri cut his speeches into short and unequal 
 members. Such a precaution at first betrayed him into a 
 harshness of versification which, though indignant at the 
 critics who dared to blame it, he was obliged to file down 
 in the second edition of his plays. Parini told him his de- 
 fect fairly : 
 
 Dove il pensier tuona, 
 
 Non risponde la voce arnica e franca. 
 
 against princes, and his Antigallican against ple- 
 beians. The patriotism which he once put on 
 could never sit easy upon such a mind, nor fall 
 naturally into the forms and postures of common 
 life. In forcing it violently on he rent the un- 
 sightly garb, then threw it aside, and let the tyrant 
 go naked. 
 
 This hatred of princes led him to dedicate his 
 Agis to our Charles I. I admit the jurisdiction 
 of posterity over the fame of dead kings. But 
 was it manly, was it humane, to call up the shade 
 of an accomplished prince, a prince fully as un- 
 fortunate as he was criminal, on purpose to insult 
 him with a mock dedication ? and of all Italians, 
 did this become Alfieri, the reputed husband of 
 that very woman whose sterility has extinguished 
 the race of Charles ? 
 
 His aristocratical pride, working on a splenetic 
 constitution, breaks out into disgusting eccentrici- 
 ties, meets you at his very door*, bars up all his 
 approaches, and leaves himself in the solitude of 
 
 * He posted up in his lobby the following advertisement, 
 which breathes precisely the same sentiment as his answer 
 to General Miollis, who had politely invited him to his 
 quarters : " Vittorio Alfieri non riceve in casa ne persone, 
 lie ambasciate di quelli che non conosce e da' quali non 
 dipende." 
 
 The following was his grateful return to Count Delce for 
 a present of two tragedies : 
 
 mH 
 
62 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 63 
 
 in I 
 
 a sultan. How unbecoming of a poet was his 
 conduct to General Miollis, the declared friend of 
 all poets living and dead ! How often has he de- 
 scended from his theatrical stateliness to the 
 lowest scurrility ! How true is his own descrip- 
 tion of himself ! 
 
 Or stimandomi Acliille, ed or Tersite. 
 
 ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 Tal sopra. sasso sasso 
 dl giro in giro eteknamknte lo strussij 
 Cue cosi passo passo, 
 Alto giranuo al ciel :ai uicondlssi. 
 
 Inscripfhu. 
 
 The edifice which commands our chief attention 
 here, as beginning a new era in the history of 
 architecture, is the Cathedral founded by Lapo in 
 1298, and crowned by the cupola of Brunelleschi, 
 the object of the above inscription. 
 
 This is the first church that Italians raised in 
 the present proportions of the arcade. It is genc- 
 
 Tragedie due gia fe 
 Che il solo sa 
 Satire or fa 
 Saran trai^edie tre. 
 Of his sciinility take this curious specimen addressed (o 
 another poet : 
 
 Losco, fosco, io ti conosco ; 
 
 Se avessi pane, nou avresti tosco. 
 
 rally considered as a mean between the Gothic 
 style and the Greek; yet nothing can be con- 
 ceived more remote from either. In op])osition 
 to the fretted, frittered surfaces, and spiry flights 
 of the Gothic, here is the most naked simplicity 
 and 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 pillars 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 ? 
 
 Brunelleschi has raised here the first double 
 cupola, and, I believe, the widest in Europe. No 
 columns assist as latent buttresses to shore it up. 
 The same coloured marbles that face the walls con- 
 tinue their decoration round the drum. Though 
 this cujiola is polygonal, and bears on the per- 
 pendicular, it may fairly be considered as the pro- 
 totype of St. Peter's. Michael Angelo drew his 
 famous bravado frt)m the Pantheon, but this grand 
 enterprise of Brunelleschi gave him the assurance 
 of performing it. 
 
 Under the cupola is the choir, corresponding in 
 plan with the great polygon above ; but its Ionic 
 cle\ation, though fine, is at variance with the 
 
64 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 m. 
 
 fabric, and seems a beauty as foreign to this 
 cathedral as the Grecian screen is to that ot' Win- 
 chester. Cathedrals in general, 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 enclosed is necessarily darker than the nave. 
 Here is just that " dim religious light " which 
 pleases poetical and devout minds: a lioht which 
 heightens the effect of the lamps and candles, oi' 
 the gold, silver, and brocade of Catholic v/orship, 
 while it shades the mediocrity of the paintings 
 and sculpture. 
 
 This cathedral contains very few pictures, and 
 none of any value. I remarked a portrait of the 
 English condottiero John Hawkwood, painted and 
 even cut out, prancing over the military praise 
 which he obtained by traitorously selling to Flo- 
 rence the Pisans who paid him to defend them. 
 
 Next to our honest countryman, stands an an- 
 tique picture of Dante, painted by Orcagna several 
 years after his death, and placed here by the same 
 republic which had condemned him to the stake. 
 Such was the poor palinodia of Florence to the 
 man who made her language the standard of 
 Italy: while three foreigners, in three different 
 ages, raised to him in a foreign state his sarco- 
 
 ARCniTECTUllE. 
 
 65 
 
 phagus and tomb and funeral chamber. Well 
 might he call his countrymen 
 
 Qnello 'ngrato popolo maligno 
 
 Che (liscese di Fiesole ab antico, 
 
 E tien' ancor del monte e del maci'T-no. 
 
 I have been assured that not only this, but all 
 the portraits now existing of Dante are, like those 
 of " our divine poet," posthumous : yet as all re- 
 semble this venerable work of Orcagna, uniformity 
 has given a sanction to the common effigy of the 
 bard. Not so Shakspeare's. Most of the portraits 
 that pass for his, are dissimilar; the only effigy 
 recorded by a contemporary was in bronze. None 
 of the pictures are authentic, none certainly ori- 
 ginal, none such as the mind can repose on, and 
 fix its idolatry *. 
 
 The other churches of Florence have nothin. 
 very peculiar or important in their construction 
 
 or 
 
 * Danfe and Shakspeare form a strikinjr parallel— as 
 the master-bards of Italy and England-oppressed with 
 praise and annotation at home, and ridiculed as barbarians 
 by foreign critics— Dante rose before the dawn of letters in 
 Italy : and Shakspeare soon after they had spread in Eno-- 
 land.— Finding their native tongues without system or limft, 
 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 di.^ 
 appear ; have sm-vived all the bhort-lived fopperies of lite- 
 
 F 
 
 f 
 
66 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 
 The chapel de' Deposit! is a work of Michael An- 
 gelo's, and the first he ever built ; but the design 
 is petty and capricious ; consisting in two insigni- 
 ficant orders, altogether unworthy of the impres- 
 sive monuments which he raised within it. The 
 contiguous chapel de' Medici is more noble and 
 more chaste in the design itself: thou2:h its archi- 
 tect was a prince, and its walls were destined * to 
 receive the richest crust of ornament that ever 
 was lavished on so lara:e a surlace. 
 
 Tlie palaces may be divided into those of re- 
 publicLin date, and the modern. The former had 
 originally towers, like the Pisan, which were in- 
 troduced towards the close of the tenth century, 
 as a private defence in the free cities of Italy. 
 To these succeeded a new construction, more 
 massive, if possible, and more ostentatiously se- 
 vere than the Etruscan itself; a construction which 
 fortified the whole basement of the palace with 
 large, rude, rugged bossages, and thus ga\ e always 
 an imposing aspect, and sometimes a necessary 
 defence to the nobility of a town for ever subject 
 
 ii 
 
 rature, and flourish now iu unabated fashion, inviting and 
 resisting ten thousand imitations. 
 
 ■ Altri Danteirma 
 
 rtn 
 
 Fra dnri versi brancola, e s' avvolge, 
 E si perde d' Averno tra le bolge. Pignotti. 
 * Artists are now at work on this. The frescos are 
 executed by Benvenuti. — C. 
 
 ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 67 
 
 to insurrection. Such are the palaces of the 
 Medici, the Strozzi, the Pitti. This harsh and 
 exaggerated strength prevails only below. The 
 upper stories are faced with verniiculated rustics 
 or freestone, and the whole is cro\v ued with an 
 overpowering cornice which projects beyond all 
 authority; for here are no cohunus to regulate its 
 proportions, and its very excess diffuses^ below a 
 certain grandeur distinct from the character of 
 any regulated style. The court is generally sur- 
 rounded with Greek orders, and bears no analogy 
 to the outside. 
 
 The modern palaces are generallv faced with 
 stucco, but not painted. A few near Santa Croce 
 are hatched with figures " al 'sgraffito,''' a style 
 peculiar to Polidore Caravaggio.* The larger 
 palaces, such as the Capponi, &c., run rather into 
 long fronts than quadrangular courts. Their 
 doors and windows are admirablv desio-ned, and 
 being sparingly distributed, they lea\e an air of 
 sohdity and grandeur on the wall. 
 
 The interior distribution accords with the length 
 of front. One line of doors enfilades the apart- 
 ments and lays open the ^v hole house ; a plan 
 rather incommodious for private life, but very 
 proper for a gala, and suited to a hot chmate. It 
 sometimes, indeed, makes a thoroughfare of Sio-- 
 nora s bed-chamber ; but those sacred retirements 
 which an Englishwoman requires, are unnecessary 
 
 f2 
 
 I 
 
(i 
 
 68 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 * < « ; 
 
 M 
 
 "I 
 
 ri 
 
 in a country where ladies affect no restraint, and 
 feel embarrassed by no intrusion. In even house 
 the lower rooms are vaulted. The upper a]rart- 
 ments 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-. 
 
 Columns are very seldom employed in public 
 works ; and no where happily. In the " ])iazza 
 della SS. Nunziata" the porticos are composed of 
 arches resting on Corinthian cohunns, a condjina- 
 tion every where wrong, and here \ ery meagre in 
 its effect. In the Uffizzi, the columns stand too 
 high for so solid an order as the Doric. The 
 triumphal arch of San Gallo is in the most perfect 
 opposition to the grave and austere architecture 
 of the city which it announces. 
 
 Some of the principal edifices have reuKiined 
 for ages unfinished — such as the Cathedral, St. 
 Lorenzo, Santa Croce, Santo Spirito, the chapel 
 of the Medici, &c. The Pitti palace wants a 
 wing; the Strozzi half its entablature ; the vesti- 
 bule of the Laurentian Library is still encum- 
 bered by the very scaffolding which Michael 
 Angelo erected. 
 
 In the same unfinished state I saw several sta- 
 tues of this mighty master ; — the dead Christ at 
 the cathedral; the Madonna; the day and the 
 Twilight at the tombs of the Medici ; the bust of 
 
 Wi 
 
 ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 69 
 
 Brutus in the royal gallery ; the Victory in the 
 Palazzo Vecchio :* — and so sacred is the terror of 
 Michael's genius, that these statues remain un- 
 touched and inviolate in the midst of restorers 
 who are daily trifling with the sculpture of anti- 
 
 * I saw several of his drawings at the Buonarroti palace 
 in the same half-finished state. JMost of those are the 
 sketches of a boy, but a boy who broke out an original sculp- 
 tor at the age of fourteen ; and who excelled most in that 
 part of sculpture which forms the very essence of drawin<'. 
 I saw nothing finished except a Christ extended as on the 
 cross, and a figure of Fortune on her Avheel ; both in red 
 chalk, on thin paper ; and both full of singularity and mind. 
 His paintings in the library are much defaced; his books 
 have lately disappeared ; but the bust remains, and is the 
 best resemblance extant of the immortal founder: for John 
 Bologn has given the full contusion on his nose which was 
 flattened, as the story runs, by the fist, or, us a relation of 
 his own assured me, by the mallet of an invidious rival. — 
 (This rival was Tonezziano, the Italian artist employed in 
 the sculpture of Henry the Seventh's chapel in West- 
 minster Abbey. — C.) 
 
 Though all the great artists of that age affected univer- 
 sality, none united so many talents as Michael An^-elo. 
 Sculptor, painter, poet, architect, civil and military engineer, 
 mechanist ; in short, here he is every thing. An Italian, 
 when at a loss for the author of any object that you admire, 
 "will immediately rank it among the labours of Ivl. Angelo, 
 the Hercules of modern art. 1 once stopped to examine 
 some cart-wheels which were lying in the Campo Vaccino, 
 when the maker came out, expatiated on the advantage of 
 their enormous diameter, and gave Michael Angelo for their 
 inventor,—" Michael Angelo ?" said I.— '• Yes, surely ; else 
 why was he named Buonarroti ?" 
 

 70 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 i['K 
 
 w 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 
 quity. So many works thus be2:im and abandoned 
 cannot all be considered as failures of the chisel ; 
 which certainly, in the heat and confidence of 
 genius, he is said to have driven sometimes too 
 deep into the marble. Some, perhaps, we should 
 impute to the fastidious taste of an artist who re- 
 jected whatever came short of his fii*st conceptions ; 
 some, to his rapid succession of desis^ns ; designs 
 too numerous and too grand even for a life of 
 ninety years, made still more productive by the 
 ambidexterous faculty. 
 
 ENVIRONS. 
 
 Sic fortis Etruria crevit. — Virg. 
 
 The environs of Florence owe their beauty to a 
 race of farmers who are far more industrious, in- 
 telligent, and liberal,* than their neighboui-s born 
 to the same sun and soil. Leopold toiled to make 
 his peasants all comfortable, and the steward takes 
 care that none shall be rich. Tliey pass the year 
 in a vicissitude of hard labour and jollity ; they 
 
 * Their liberality is conspicuous in the contributions of 
 their rural fraternities, who come in procession to Florence 
 with splendid fusciacche, and leave their donations in the 
 churches. Hence the clergy keep them well disciplined in 
 faith, and, throtigh the terror of bad crops, they begin to 
 extort the abolished tithes. 
 
 On Easter-eve I remarked a crowd of these farmers col- 
 lected in the cathedral of Florence, to watch the motion of 
 an artificial dove, which, just as the priests began " Gloria 
 
 ENVIRONS. 
 
 71 
 
 are seldom out of debt, and never insoKent. 
 Negligent of their own dress, they take a pride 
 in the flaring silks and broad ear-rings of their 
 wives and dauc^hters. These assist them in the 
 field : lor the farms, being too small to sup|X)rt 
 servants, are laboured in the patriarchal st}le by 
 the brothers, sisters, and children of the farmer. 
 
 Few of the proprietors round Florence will 
 grant leases ; yet so binding is the force of pre- 
 scription, so mutual the interest of landlord and 
 tenant, and so close the intertexture of their pro- 
 perty, that removals are very rare, and many now 
 occupy the farms which their forefathers tilled 
 during the Florentine republic. 
 
 The stock of these farms beloniis half to the 
 landlord, and half to the tenant. This partner- 
 ship extends even to the poultry and pigeons : 
 the only jjeculium of the farmer is the produce of 
 his hives. Hence the cattle run usually in pairs. 
 One yoke of bullocks is sufficient for a common 
 farm. Their oxen are all dove-coloured; even 
 
 in Excelsis," burst away from the choir, glided along the 
 nave on a rope, set lire to a combustible car in the streer, 
 and then flew whizzing back to its post. The eyes of every 
 peasant were wishfully riveted on the sacred puppet, and 
 expressed a deep interest in its flight ; for all their hopes 
 of a future harvest depended on its safe return to the altar. 
 " Quando va bene la colombiua, va bene il Fiorentino" is 
 an adage as ancient as the dignity of the Pazzi, who still 
 provide the car. 
 
h 
 
 « 
 
 72 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 r f'^ 
 
 ^!( 
 
 those which are imported from other states chan"*e 
 their coat in Tuscany, where they are always fed 
 in the stall, and never go out but to labour. 
 They are guided in the team by reins fixed to 
 rings which are inserted in their nostrils ; some- 
 times two liooks joined like pincers are used, like 
 the postomis of Lucilius, which has teazed so 
 many antiquaries. 
 
 Every field in the environs of Florence is 
 ditched round, lined with poplars, and intersected 
 by rows of vines or olive-trees. Those rows are 
 so close as to impede the plouirh ; which, though it 
 saves labour, is considered here as less calculated 
 for produce than the triangular spade with which 
 the tenant is bound by his landlord to die: or 
 rather to shovel one-third of his farm. 
 
 This rich j)lain of the Val d'Arno yields usually 
 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 ma- 
 nure 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 oats. Barley was unknown here until the 
 breweries lately established at Florence and Pisa 
 called it into cultivation. 
 
 As you approach the skirts of this narrow plain, 
 you perceive a change in agriculture. The vine 
 and the olive gradually prevail over corn; and 
 
 i| 
 
 i 
 
 ENVIRONS. 
 
 73 
 
 each farm brings a variety of arts into action ! 
 In addition to our objects of husbandry, the 
 Tuscan has to learn all the complicate processes 
 which produce wine, oil, and silk, the principal 
 exports of the state. Of corn an average crop 
 brings only five returns in the Florentine territory ; 
 in the Senese eight or nine ; and the aggregate 
 affords but ten months' subsistence to all Tuscany, 
 although the mountaineers live niostlv on chest- 
 nuts.* 
 
 This garden of Tuscany seems to require more 
 manure than it produces. To keep it perpetually 
 
 * One half* of Tuscany is mountains which produce 
 nothin<5 but timber ; one-sixth part consists of hills which 
 are covered with vineyards or ohve-gardens : the remaining 
 third is plain. The whole is distributed into 80,000 fat- 
 torie, or stewardships. Each fattoria includes on the average 
 seven farms. This property is divided amonj^ 40,000 fami- 
 lies or corporations. The Riccardi, the Strozzi, the Fer- 
 roni ; and the Benedictines rank first in the number. 
 
 This number was greatly increased by Leopold, who, in 
 selHng the crown lands, studiously divided large tracts of 
 rich but neglected soil into a multitude of little properties, 
 which proportionately increased the general produce. His 
 favourite plan of encouraging agriculture consisted not in 
 hoards, societies, or premiums, but in giving the labourer a 
 security and interest in the soil, in multiplying small free- 
 holds, in extending the /ive//i, or life-leases, wherever he 
 could, and in maintaining sacredly that equal division of 
 stock and crop between the landlord and the tenant, which 
 engages both equally in improving the farm. The younger 
 
74 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 ,1 f»^r 
 
 in crop the fiirmers must resort to the infectious 
 sewers of the city ; they send poor men and asses 
 to pick up dunsr on the roads ; and at certain rest- 
 ing-places on the hifi^hway they spread Htter for 
 the cattle that pass to stale for their benefit. 
 
 Tlie objects most admired in these environs are 
 the villas, particularly those of the crown. I shall, 
 however, confine my remarks to Dorcia alone, on 
 account of the porcelain manufactory established 
 there about sixty years ao-o by the Mar(iuis Genori. 
 This " fabbrica nobile" had been represented to 
 me as a " cosa stupenda, portentosa," and the 
 villa itself conspired with the "Tandeur of those 
 epithets to raise ideas which none of the manufac- 
 tories realized. I found only fifty men employed 
 in the house, and some of those iellows were 
 idling from one wheel to another; some, while 
 making their moulds, taught their children to 
 read ; none had the activity nor the manner of our 
 workmen. 
 
 The museum at Doccia contains a great variety 
 of fossils found in the country; but the ware- 
 rooms were rather crowded than rich. In a 
 country anciently so famous for its pottery, I ex- 
 Pliny, who practised this last plan, sets it in its true light. 
 *' Nou nummo sed paitibus locem, ac deinde exmeis aliquos 
 operis exactores fructibus ponam. Est alioquin nullum jus- 
 tius genus reditus quam quod terra, coelum, annus refert; at 
 hoc magnara fidem, acres oculos, nuinerosasmanusposcit." 
 
 iii. 
 
 ENVIRONS. 
 
 7j 
 
 pected to find some near approaches to the hello 
 antico which now o-ives models to all our furniture 
 and fashions. Here, indeed, are casts of ancient 
 statues in chalk, gypsum, and terra-cotta ; but 
 nothing else did I see that bore any print of clas- 
 sical beauty. The forms, the relief, the very 
 paintings of their vases and jars are as inferior to 
 ours as the quality of the porcelain. They exceed 
 us only in price. A dinner-serv ice of clumsy red 
 china costs 150 sequins, a tea-pot two ; nor would 
 any of those services pass ibr complete at an 
 English table, where the little subdivisions of con- 
 venience are far more multiplied than in Italy. 
 At Doccia they work only for their own country, 
 and for the tastes which prevail there. Whenever 
 they imitate us, they become inferior to themselves. 
 Our superiority in trade is acknowledged uni- 
 versally at Florence, where the name of English, 
 or, at least, the " all' uso d'Inghilterra," is im- 
 posed upon the most laboured productions of 
 Italian and German workshops. 
 
 You discover here on the very surface of things, 
 how greatly commerce has degenerated in a coun- 
 try which gave it birth, and language, and laws. 
 The counting-houses are in general dirty, dark, 
 mean vaults ; the ledgers stitched rather than 
 bound, and covered with packing paper. All 
 commodities are weighed by the old steel-yard ; 
 the only balance that I remarked here was held 
 
 I 
 
 t 
 
w 
 
 76 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 \< 
 
 </.J 
 
 by the statue of Justice. In trades no reffular 
 apprenticeships are requisite ; nor are the usual 
 appropriations of sex observed. In the same 
 street, I have seen men sewing- curtains, and 
 women employed at the loom and the awl. 
 
 The Italian shopkeeper only calculates down- 
 wards. His sole object is to cheat his customers. 
 He does not remount to the hrst sources that 
 supply his shop ; he abandons the general state 
 of his own line to his merchant. In Britain, on 
 the contrary, the irreat fluctuations of commerce 
 may orig;inate in the capital, but they presently 
 spread through the whole island. The common 
 retailer in the remotest town brings politics into 
 his trade, anticipates taxes, watches the return 
 of fleets, and speculates on the commercial effects 
 of peace and war. 
 
 It would be ungrateful to leave the environs of 
 Florence without mentioning the pleasure which 
 lonceenjoyed "at evening from the topofF^'No/tf." 
 The weather was then Elysian, the spring in its 
 most beautiful point, and all tlie world, just re- 
 leased 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 combina- 
 tions where a Claude would have placed them— 
 
 ENVIRONS. 
 
 77 
 
 Monti superbi, la ciii fronte Alpina 
 Fa di se contro i venti argine e sponda ! 
 Valli beate, per cui d' oiida in onda 
 L' Arno con passo signoril cammiiia ! 
 
 My poetical emotions were soon interrupted by 
 an old peasant, who sat dov\ n at the same resting- 
 place, and thus addressed his companion, " Che 
 belPocchiata ! guardiamo un po' la nostra Firenze. 
 Quanto e bella ! (|uanto cattiva ! chi ci sta in 
 chiesa, chi ci fa birbonate. Ah Gigi ! cpiante 
 ville ! quante vigne ! quanti poderi I — ma non v'e 
 nulla di nostro." Those notes of exclamation end 
 in a seltishness peculiar to age. There is gene- 
 rally something sordid at the bottom of the 
 bucket which old men throw on achniration. 
 
 Fiesole stands on a hill precipitously steep. 
 The front of it is cut into a "Tadation of narrow 
 terraces, which are inclosed in a trellis of vines, 
 and faced with loose stone walls. Such a facins; 
 may perhaps cost less labour, and add more 
 warmth to the plantation than turf-embankments 
 would do ; but it gives a hard, dry effect to the 
 immediate picture, which, viewed from Florence, 
 is the most beautiful object in this region of 
 beauty. 
 
 The top of the hill is conical, and its summit 
 usurped by a convent of Franciscans, whose leave 
 you must ask to view the variegated map of coun- 
 try below you. Their corridores command a mul- 
 
 I 
 
78 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 if 
 
 tiplicity of landscape : every window presented a 
 different scene, and every minute before sunset 
 chanired the whole colourini^. Leopold once 
 brought his brother Joseph up to show him here 
 the garden of his dominions ; and this imperial 
 visit is recorded in a Latin inscription as an event 
 in the history of the convent. 
 
 The season brought a curious succession of in- 
 sects into view. On the way to Fiesole my ears 
 were deafened with the hoarse croak of the cigala, 
 which Homer, I cannot conceive why, compares 
 to the softness of the lily. On my return the 
 lower air was illuminated with mvriads oi'/ucciolr 
 or fire-flies ; and I entered Florence at shuttino- 
 of the gates, 
 
 Come la )msca cede alia zan^^ 
 
 ara. 
 
 79 
 
 VALLOMBROSA. 
 
 — Valla mbrosa ; 
 
 Cosi fii nominata una badia, 
 RicL'ae bella, non men reliiriosa, 
 E cortesa a chiunijue vi venia. 
 
 Ariosto. 
 
 This grand solitude, which was first called Accjua 
 Bella from the beauty of its stream, takes its pre- 
 sent name from a valley ; but the abbey itself 
 stands in an amphitheatre of hills ; an amphi- 
 theatre so accurately described by Milton that, I 
 am confident, the picture in his mind was only a 
 recollection of Vallombrosa : 
 
 — Which crowns with her enclosure irreen. 
 As with a rural mound, the champaii^n head 
 Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides 
 With thicket overj^rown, grotesque and wild. 
 Access denied ; and over-head up grew 
 Insuperable height of loftiest shade, 
 A sylvan scence : and as the ranks ascend 
 Shade above shade, a woody theatre 
 Of stateliest view. 
 
 The intermediate approaches to the abbey are 
 planted in the open parkish style, and finely con- 
 
 n 
 
 { 
 
60 
 
 VALLOMBROSA. 
 
 trast with the black girdle of forest around it. 
 The abbey is a larg-e, loose pile of various con- 
 struction, and regular only in one front. Why 
 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, connected, uniform ; Reliiiion sur- 
 rounded with her votaries ; the tabernacle in the 
 bosom of the camp. 
 
 Being introduced by a letter to the abbot, and 
 accompanied by the brother of two Vallombrosans, 
 I met here a very kind receptioji. Those amiable 
 men seem to study hospitality as ii profession. 
 People of all ranks and religions are ecpially wel- 
 come, and entertained without either officiousness 
 or neglect. Though the monks then resident were 
 but fourteen in number, tlreir ftumfjli'i, including 
 novices, lay-brethren, menials, and workmen, ex- 
 ceeded a hundred. In summer the Forestcrla of 
 the abbey is usually full of straniicrs, and durino- 
 the winter half-year all the indigent neiirhbours 
 flock hither for their daily loaf. 
 
 Such indiscriminate hospitality is, however, but 
 the virtue of barbarous society. Baneful to indus- 
 iry and independence, it feeds poor men, but it 
 keeps them poor ; it gives them a lodging, but it 
 
 yl 
 
 VALLOMBROSA. 
 
 81 
 
 weans them from home. Not that I grudge this 
 rich community the means of being so bountiful ; 
 I rather grudge it the youth, the talents, and the 
 active powers which the Institution entombs : I 
 grudge it the very virtues of the men whom I 
 found here. Those virtues tend only to palliate 
 its defects, and correct its general influence by 
 the good which they do in detail. 
 
 These excellent men bring economy to the aid 
 of beneficence. While they give bread to hun- 
 dreds, to themselves they allow but the modest 
 stipend of eighteen crowns a year: yet the leve- 
 nues of the abbey are about 40,000 crowns. Its 
 fattorias are palaces, its farms are highly culti- 
 vated, and its tenantry wealthy ; while die Insti- 
 tution, by maintaining the same unalterable plan, 
 and training all its members to the same habits' 
 secures itself from the misgovern nicnt which l 
 private inheritance is occasionally exposed to. 
 . The private gentleman, perhaps, spends his in- 
 come more profitably to the public revenue. His 
 rents do not return so directly as the monk's into 
 the mass of the people, which is the ultimate des- 
 tination of all property; but they return through 
 more taxable cluumels, through cellars and 
 shops. 
 
 Here is a museum containing some curious ob- 
 jects connected with the place ; an astonishing 
 variety of mushrooms all natives of Vallombrosa, 
 
 1. 
 
 l! 
 
82 
 
 VALLOMBROSA. 
 
 VALLOMBROSA. 
 
 83 
 
 i 
 
 iijii 
 
 painted by Don Tozzi,* and two elephants' skulls, 
 which were dug up in these mountains, and are 
 referred by some to the passage of Annibal, by 
 others to the same causes that have lodged such 
 fossils in many parts of Europe.t I remarked 
 several immense port-folios, in which they pre- 
 tend that a monk has collected every Madonna 
 yet engraved since the origin of the art. Such 
 are the collections on which the misers and little 
 minds of a convent turn the accumulating pas- 
 sion, when debarred from money. Here, too, are 
 preserved all the pastoral staves that the abbots 
 have borne since Gualberti founded the order. 
 The first, a plain black stick, had its head formed 
 like a T ; the next head resembled an adze ; the 
 next an adze without its pole ; and the rest in 
 
 * Is the motto of this collection right in etymology ? 
 Naturae foetus mirare, sed aufuge fungos, 
 Namque a fungendo funere nomen habet. 
 
 f Elephants' bones have been found near Vallombrosa 
 also in a petrified state, incrusted with oyster-shells ; and 
 from this phenomenon Fortis has deduced a very bold hy- 
 pothesis. He maintains that those bones belonged to ani- 
 mals which had been originally marine ; that the sea left 
 their skeletons on these mountains in a remote period of the 
 world ; that, while the continent slowly emerged from the 
 all-creative ocean, those natives of the water became gra- 
 dually terrestrial; in short, that men, quadrupeds, and 
 birds, were originally fish. — Thus the wheel of philosophy 
 turns round, and brings up again the exploded tenets of 
 Anaximander and the reveries of Telliamed. 
 
 succession bent gradually into a crosier. In the 
 same crooked manner did the abbots themselves, 
 from subsisting on the charity of a few nuns[ 
 creep into territory, lordship, and jurisdiction. 
 
 On one of the cliffs is a monastery in miniature, 
 called the Paradisino, which commands a distant 
 view of Florence, the vale, and the sea. The 
 rooms are covered with a multitude of wretched 
 engravings, which we were obliged to praise, as 
 their reverend collector was our guide. The 
 chapel contains some pictures of Del Sarto, and 
 among these a beautiful accident of art. Andrea, 
 having four large saints to paint on the altar-piece, 
 was embarrassed by a pannel which divided them 
 into pairs. To cover this defect he carelessly 
 rubbed two cherubs on the board, and was sur- 
 prized to find these children of chance far more 
 admirable than their principals. 
 
 It was here that Don Hugfbrd, a monk of Eng- 
 lish extraction, reviverl the art of Scagliuola, 
 This art had been confined to the imitation of in- 
 animate objects, until his improvements gave it 
 the chiaroscuro necessary to landscape and the 
 human figure. I remarked at Vallombrosa that 
 all Ilugford's pictures are cracked in the outlines, 
 and, on my return to Florence, I mentioned this 
 defect to Stoppioni, who is Hugford's descendant 
 ni the art. Stoppioni imputed it to an improper 
 oil used in the first method; as no such flaws 
 
 g2 
 
84 
 
 VALLOMBROSA. 
 
 appear in his own works, or in those of his master 
 
 Gori. 
 
 Scao^liuola, thou£^h its materials be different, 
 seems to bear in its effects some anah^gy to the 
 ancient Encaustic * It resists the action of the 
 air, it aives solidity to colour, and the selenite, 
 thouo-h inserted like mosaic, is not so subject to 
 dissolution. Of the ancient Encaustic no remains 
 have escaped : the art itself is lost. Reiffestein, 
 Quatremere,' Requeno, and some other Spaniards, 
 have lately attempted its recovery ; but, like Count 
 Caylus and Bachelier, they p;ive us a multitude 
 of methods for want of the one sought. 
 
 * I mean here the Encaustic in wax ; for the process 
 called cestrotum was^ in my opinion, nothinj; but poker-work. 
 
 85 
 
 CAMALDOLI. 
 
 Fra de liti d' Italia surgon sassi, 
 E fann' un gibbo che si chiama Latria ; 
 Dissott' al quale e conservato un Ermo, 
 Che suol esser disposto a sola latria. Dante. 
 
 From Vallombrosa, the reg'ion of the fir and larch, 
 we rode through a forest of oak and beech, and 
 returned to the country of the olive and fig-tree. 
 Our guide was a Florentine cobbler, who, finding 
 little to do at home, had consigned the awl to his 
 wife, and was then strolling for subsistence from 
 convent to convent. 
 
 By this worthy tourist we were misled into 
 pathless woods, and obliged to put up at a solitary 
 inn called Uomo Morto, an object as woful in 
 aspect as in name. Its name it derives from the 
 execution of a coiner whom Dante has packed 
 among the damned, as an accomplice to the three 
 counts of Romena. 
 
 Ivi e Romena, la dove io falsai 
 
 La lega suggellatta del Battista ; 
 Perch' io il corpo suso lasciai : 
 
 Ma s' i' vedessi qui 1' anima trista 
 
 Di Guide, o d' Alessandro, o di lor frate, 
 Per fonte Branda nondarei vista. 
 

 'i 
 
 > III': 
 
 
 I I: ' 
 
 
 >i!)l!l 
 
 86 
 
 CAMALDOLI. 
 
 The castle of Romeiia, mentioned in these 
 verses, now stands in ruins on a precipice about 
 a mile from our inn, and not far off is a sprini^ 
 which the peasants call Fonte Branda. Miirht I 
 presume to differ from his commentators, Dante, 
 in my opinion, does not mean the great fountain 
 of Siena, hut rather this obscure spring; ; which, 
 though less known to the world, was an object 
 more familiar to the poet himself who took refuge 
 here from proscription, and an image more natural 
 to the coiner who was burnt on the spot. 
 
 Tiiose counts of llomena had trained here a race 
 of assassins, who transmitted the profession to 
 their descendants. Long after those Guidi had 
 lost their feudal power, when Lorenzino de' Medici 
 meditated the murder of his cousin, he sent hither 
 for a cut-throat. His own puny arm gave the 
 usurper the first blow, but Scoronconcolo dis- 
 patched him. 
 
 We now crossed the beautiful vale of Prato 
 Vecchio, rode round the modest arcades of the 
 town, and arrived at the lower convent of Camal- 
 floli, just at shutting the gates. The sun was 
 set and every object sinking into repose, except 
 the stream which roared among the rocks, and 
 the convent-bells which were then riuffina* the 
 Aiigclus. 
 
 This monastery is secluded from the approach 
 of woman in a deep, narrow, woody dell. Its 
 
 CAMALDOLI. 
 
 87 
 
 circuit of dead walls, built on the conventual plan, 
 gives it an aspect of confinement and defence ; yet 
 this is considered as a privileged retreat where 
 the rule of the order relaxes its rigour, and no 
 monks can reside but the sick or the superannu- 
 ated, the dignitary or the steward, the apothecary 
 or the bead-turner. Here we passed the night, 
 and next morning rode u]) by steep traverses to 
 the Santa Eremo, where Saint Romualdo lived 
 and established 
 
 de' tacenti cenobiti il coro, 
 
 L' arcane penitenze, ed i digiuni 
 Al Camaldoli suo. 
 
 The Eremo is a city of hermits, walled round, 
 and divided into streets of low, detached cells. 
 Each cell consists of two or three naked rooms, 
 built exactly on the plan of the Saint's own tene- 
 ment, which remains just as Romualdo left it 800 
 years ago, now too sacred and too damp for a 
 mortal tenant. 
 
 Tlie unfeelina: Saint has here established a rule 
 which anticipates the pains of purgatory. No 
 stransrer 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 
 
il 
 
 I 
 
 88 
 
 CAMALDOLI. 
 
 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 acre. 
 
 I saw nothing' to be admired in the church but 
 a silk palliotto painted by Annibal Caracci and 
 encircled with embroiderv. Caravac:irio's Infant 
 Christ sleeping- on a crown of thorns struck me 
 as an indecent repetition of his Cupid's sleeping 
 on a quiver. I was surprised to find, among 
 hermits immured on the mountains and restricted 
 to books of devotion, a library so rich in the earliest 
 classics, and in works approaching the very inni- 
 nabvla of printing. Among these were Cennini's 
 Virgil, the first Greek Homer, the first edition of 
 Dante anil of Lascari's Grammar. To such a 
 library and such a solitude the late bishop of 
 Antwerp retired from persecution ; and here he 
 closed his laborious life, without havimr executed 
 his two Herculean designs of editing the manu- 
 script histories of Germany, and re-establishing" 
 the metaphysics of Plato.* 
 
 * The bishop left the follow inj; epitaph for his own tomb : 
 
 Hic jacet 
 Cornelius Fran, de Nelli, 
 
 Episc. Anverp. 
 
 Peccator et Peregrinus. 
 
 But his hosts, •lisliking the humility which it ends in, have 
 
 politely concealed the last line by the floorini^of the chapel. 
 
 Their politeness to Leopold has, in another inscription, 
 
 CAMALDOLI. 
 
 69 
 
 From the Santa Eremo we proceeded up the 
 mountain where Landinus represents the Platon- 
 ists of the fifteenth century holding the Disputa- 
 tiones Camaldulenses. We climbed one of the 
 heights of Falterona which, I apprehend, is the 
 Lafn'a described in the motto. Our guide called 
 it the giant of the Apennines, and, if we might 
 believe him or Ariosto, it commands a view of 
 both seas ; but a distant haze prevented us from 
 ascertaining whether that be possible. 
 
 From this point on to La Verna, the upper 
 region of the hills is one continued botanic garden. 
 The beech is indigenous on their tops and the 
 oak on their sides : the chestnut-tree and the fir 
 were planted. These forests belong to the con- 
 vents of Camaldoli and Vallombrosa, and to the 
 Cathedral-opera of Florence. Immense rafts are 
 floated down the Arno by the winter-floods, and 
 consigned to Leghorn, where the English paid 
 exorbitantly, during the last war, to the catholic 
 church, for the timber which enabled them to 
 fight her battles. 
 
 adopted a formula, which is certiiiuly very common on 
 ancient monuments, in the Imperial rescripts, and in the 
 deif) in<^ diplomacy of the lower empire ; but which sounds 
 like blasphemy to a Christian ear. — '' Eremita? Camaldu- 
 lenses— devot. numini majestatique ejus — M.P." 
 
90 
 
 LA VERNA. 
 
 Nel criido sasso infra Tever ed Ariio 
 Da Christo pre se T ultimo sigillo ; 
 Che le sue membra due anni portarno.- 
 
 -Dante. 
 
 This sinsrular convent, which stands on the cliffs 
 of a lofty Apennine, was built by Saint Francis 
 himself, and is celebrated for the miracle which 
 the motto records. Here reif^ns all the terrible of 
 nature — a rocky mountain, a ruin of the elements, 
 broken, sawn, and piled in sublime confusion — 
 precipices crowned with old, s^loomy, visionary 
 woods — black chasms in the rock where curiosity 
 shudders to look down — haunted caverns sanctified 
 by miraculous crosses — lon<? excavated stairs that 
 restore you to day-light. This scenery is now 
 under the pencil of Philip Hackert, a Prussian, 
 brought by a reflux of art from the land of Vandals 
 to charm Italy with his landscapes. On the top 
 of the mountain is a mass of marine testaceous 
 petrifactions, where Soldani has collected for his 
 microscopical work, myriads of ammonites and 
 nautili perfect in their forms, yet minute as sand. 
 On entering the chapel of the stigmata, we 
 caught the religion of the place ; we knelt round 
 the rail, and gazed with a kind of local devotion 
 at the holy spot where Saint Francis received the 
 
 LA VERNA. 
 
 91 
 
 five wounds of Christ. The whole hill is legendary 
 ground. Here the Seraphic father 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 sauctumque videri ! 
 
 What a pity that so great a man should be lost 
 among the Saints ! Francis appears to me a ge- 
 nuine hero, original, independent, magnanimous, 
 incorruptible. His powers seemed designed to 
 regenerate society ; but taking a wrong direction, 
 they sank men into beggars. 
 
 The sanctuary-doors were uidocked to us with 
 studied solemnity. Tapers were lighted, incense 
 burnt, prayers muttered, all fell on their knees, 
 and the bead-roll of relics was displayed. They 
 particularly adored a tooth of St. Christopher, 
 which, an eminent naturalist assured me, came 
 from the jaws of a rhinoceros.* I could hardly 
 refrain from an heretical smile, till I began to re- 
 flect that the scene before me was the work of 
 faith. 
 
 * At the Certosa, near Florence, I saw another grinder 
 of the same holy giant, which approached the sesquipe- 
 dalian size of iEmilius's teeth. A similar imposition was 
 practised about two centuries ago in France and England, 
 where the bones of an elephant dug up near Chaumont were 
 paraded about as the remains of the giant Teutobochus. 
 
LA VERNA. 
 
 These poor friars are more loved and respected 
 by the people who feed them than any of the 
 chartered orders. Oblis^ed and obligini^, they mix 
 intimately with the peasants, as counsellors, and 
 comforters, and friends. They give away more 
 medicine than the rich anchorites of Camaldoli 
 sell. In hospitals, in prisons, on the scaffold, in 
 short wherever there is misery you find Franciscans 
 allaying it. They gave us a tolerable dinner and 
 the best wine of their begging barrel, w hich, if I 
 may repeat their own pun, had been filled in Cen- 
 tumcellee. Thus having nothing, yet possessing- 
 all things, they live in the apostolical state ; and 
 renouncing money themselves, leave all temporal 
 concerns to their Prociiratore, who thankfully 
 booked our names, as creditors for a few masses. 
 
 Thus ended our pilgrimage to the three sanc- 
 tuaries. 
 
 93 
 
 EXCURSION TO COllTONA. 
 
 . Hinc Dardaiuis ortus. — Virg. 
 
 On returning down to the Casentine we could 
 trace along the Arno the mischief which followed 
 a late attempt to clear some Apennines of their 
 woods. Most of the soil, which was then loosened 
 from the roots and washed down by the torrents, 
 lodged in this plain ; and left immense beds of 
 sand and large rolling stones, on the very spot 
 where Dante describes 
 
 Li ruscelletti die de' verdi colli 
 
 Del Casentiu disceudon giiiso in Arno, 
 Facendo i lor cauali e freddi e moUi. 
 
 I was surprised to find so large a town as 
 BiBBiENA in a country devoid of manufactures, 
 remote from public roads, and even deserted by 
 its land-holders; for the Niccolini and Vecchietti, 
 who possess most of this district, prefer the ob- 
 scurer pleasures of Florence to their palaces and 
 pre-eminence here. The only commodity which 
 the Casentines trade in is pork. Signore Baglione, 
 a gentleman at whose house I slept here, as- 
 cribed the superior flavour of their hams, which 
 are esteemed the best in Italy, and require no 
 cooking, to the dryness of the air, the absence of 
 
94 
 
 EXCURSION TO CORTONA. 
 
 EXCURSION TO CORTONA. 
 
 95 
 
 'H 
 
 m 
 
 f^ 
 
 4 
 
 stagnant water, and the quantity of chestnuts 
 given to their hogs. Bibbiena has been lono> 
 renowned for its chestnuts, which the peasants dry 
 in a kihi, grind into a sweet flour, and then con- 
 vert into bread, cakes, and polenta. Old Bur- 
 chiello sports on the chestnuts of Bibbiena in 
 these curious verses, which are more intellio-ible 
 than the barber's usual strains : 
 
 Ogni castagna iu camiscia e 'n pelliccia 
 Scoppia e salta pe '1 caldo, e fa trictracche, 
 Nasce in mezzo del mondo in cioppa riccia ; 
 
 Secca, lessa, e arsiccia 
 Si da per frutte a desinar e a cena : 
 Questi sono i confetti da Bibbiena. 
 
 The Casentine peasants are a hardy and simple 
 race. Two centuries ago a fund was left here 
 for portioning poor girls, to each of whom are 
 allotted 30 crowns ; and this humble sum, thourrh 
 fixed for a charity, has served as a standard to all. 
 No farmer expects more from his wife, or aives 
 more to his daughter ; so that marriage is uni- 
 versal in all classes below the gentry, where the 
 established prejudice drives the younger brothers 
 into cecisheism or the church. 
 
 The Casentines were no favourites with Dante, 
 who confounds the men with their ho^rs. Yet 
 following the divine poet down the Ariio, we came 
 to a race still more forbidding. The Aretine pea- 
 sants seem to inherit the coarse, surly visages of 
 
 their ancestors, whom he styles Bottoli. Meeting 
 one girl who appeared more cheerful than her 
 neighbours, we asked her, how far it was from 
 Arezzo, and received for answer — " Quanto c'<?." 
 The valley widened as we advanced, and when 
 Arezzo ap])eared, the river left us abruptly, wheel- 
 ing off from its environs at a sharp angle, which 
 Dante converts into a snout, and points disdain- 
 fully against the currish race : 
 
 Bottoli trova poi venendo giuso 
 
 Rin^hiosi piu che non chiede lor possa : 
 E a lor disdegnoso torce '1 muso. 
 
 Arezzo took an active part in the late commo- 
 tions, and exposed itself to ruin ; but General 
 Miollis was indulgent to a town which gave birth 
 to Petrarch, and proposed, as usual, an apotheosis 
 for the bard. Petrarch, if he really belonged to 
 Arezzo, was only her accidental child ;* but Redi 
 and Pignotti, }X)ets more delightful than he, are 
 fairly her own, and perhaps the flower of that off- 
 spring whom she exalts above their real rank. 
 Meca?nas and II divino Pietro Aretino owe most 
 
 * Some gentlemen of Cortona, perhaps from a native 
 prejudice, endeavoured to persuade me that Petrarch was 
 born at Incisa. Montaigne says the same : '•' Petrarca 
 lequel on tient, nai du diet lieu Anchisa, au raolns d'uue 
 maison voisine d'un mille !" But Petrarch scarcely be- 
 longs to Tuscany, which he left when a boy, and, though 
 often solicited, would never revisit. 
 
Ill ■■• 
 
 Him' '•) 
 
 
 
 96 
 
 EXCURSION TO CORTONa. 
 
 of their celebrity to the meanness of their contem- 
 poraries. The other Aretini, such as Guy, Leo- 
 nard, Charles, Amico, Francis, John, are names 
 of no great currency. Old frate Guittone is\nown 
 to few beside the readers of Dante ; and the labo- 
 rious Vasari is less obscure than these only be- 
 cause he wrote on an interesting subject, and 
 painted on conspicuous walls. 
 
 The Cathedral of Arezzo was then receivinjr a 
 maii:nificent accession. Adimollo was paintin<»' 
 there a chajjel so disproportionately large, that it 
 appeared to me rather a second cathedral than 
 a subordinate member : and all this for a little, 
 ug'ly figure of chalk, which had been lately found 
 in the rubbish of a cellar But this was the Ma- 
 donna who headed their armies, and fouo-ht their 
 battles, and prophesied their fate. 
 
 On entering the Val di Chiana, we passed 
 through a peasantry more civil and industrious 
 than their Aretine neighbours. One poor girl, 
 unlike the last whom we accosted, was drivino- 
 a laden ass ; bearing a billet of wood on her head, 
 spinning with the rocca, and singing as she went. 
 Others were returning with their sickles from the 
 fields which they had reaped in the Maremma, to 
 their own harvest on the hills. That contrast, 
 which struck me in the manners of two cantons 
 so near as Cortona to Arezzo, can onlv be a vestine 
 of their ancient rivality while separate republics. 
 
 EXCURSION TO CORTONA. 
 
 97 
 
 Men naturally dislike the very virtues of their 
 enemies, and atfect qualities as remote from theirs 
 as they can well defend. 
 
 The knights of St. Stephen have conquered a 
 large part of this vale from the river Chiana which, 
 being subject to floods, had formed here an im- 
 mense morass. The method which they employed 
 is called a colmafa, and seems to have been known 
 in the Antonine reigns. It consisted here of an 
 enclosure of stupendous dikes, which received the 
 inundations, and confined them for a while on 
 the morass. When the river had fallen, this water 
 was sluiced off into its channel ; but, during its 
 stagnation on the surface enclosed, it had left 
 there a deposite of excellent earth ; and a succes- 
 sion of such de]josites has given solidity to the 
 bog, raised it above the level of ordinary floods, 
 and converted it into the richest arable. By this 
 enterprize has the Religion of St. Stephen deser- 
 vedly become the first proprietor of the plain ; 
 while the lands immediately round Cortona count 
 more masters than any township in Tuscany. 
 
 CoRTONA, rising amidst its vineyards, on the 
 acclivity of a steep hill with black mountains be- 
 hind, struck me at a distance like a picture hung 
 upon a wall. From Santa Marguerita it com- 
 mands a magnificent prospect of the Trasimene 
 and Clusian lakes, the mountains of Radicofani 
 and Santa Flora, the wide, variegated vale of 
 
 H 
 
 m 
 
9S 
 
 EXCURSION TO CORTONA. 
 
 EXCURSION TO CORTONA. 
 
 99 
 
 Chiana, skirted with vine-covered hills, and beau- 
 tifully strewed with white cottages, white fat- 
 torias, white villas, and convents of sober grey. 
 
 This is a favourite seat of" Bacco in Toscana:" 
 for good table-wine costs here but a penny the 
 larffe flask. One of the Aleatic wines, called San 
 Vincenzo, is equal to any in Redi's Dithyrambic, 
 though it does not appear among his valued file. 
 But Redi, as an Aretine, was the natural enemy 
 of Cortona, which celebrates its ancient and im- 
 mortal hatred by an annual procession most in- 
 sulting to its neighbour. 
 
 Cortona, being considered as the capital of an- 
 cient Etruria, is the seat of the Etruscan aca- 
 demy, and of course swarms with antiquaries. 
 In the museum is a portrait of the late Lord 
 Cowper, as Lucomone of that academy ; and in 
 the library, I conversed with the canon Maccari, 
 who is secretary and father of the Institute. This 
 venerable man has greatly enriched its present 
 collection, and hinted a design of leaving it all 
 that he possesses. Italy owes half 'ts public in- 
 stitutions to the celibacy of rich men. 
 
 Here are more than 40 noble families in a town 
 reduced to 4000 inhabitants. A society, thus ba- 
 lanced between the two orders or Ceti, must be 
 miserably split by that Gothic distinction. Leo- 
 pold classed his subjects in too simple a manner 
 for Cortona. When a foreign prince asked him 
 
 how many Ceti there were in his dominions, 
 " Two," replied the ])hilosopher, " men and 
 women." Indeed, quality is here so rigidly mLiin- 
 tained, that the heir of the rich Tommasi, having 
 lately married a plebeian, is now shunned by his 
 Ceto, and obliG:ed to take refus^e in the crowd of 
 Florence. Neither the lady's accomplishments, 
 nor her husband's high descent could open to her 
 the obstinate Casino dc^ Nob ill. Nobility is every 
 where punctilious in proportion to its poverty ; 
 for rank becomes from necessity important to a 
 man who has no other possession. Few of the 
 Tuscan nobility are titled : still fewer represent 
 the old feudal barons. Most of them are de- 
 scended from ennobled merchants, or referable to 
 the order of Capitani or Vairassores, which was 
 first established in the free cities of Lombardy. 
 
 The original walls of Cortona still appear round 
 the city as foundations to the modern, which were 
 built in the thirteenth century. Those Etruscan 
 works are the most entire towards the north. 
 Their huge, uncemented blocks have resisted, on 
 that side, the storms of near three thousand 
 winters ; while, on the south, they have yielded 
 to the silent erosion of the Sirocco. None of the 
 stones run parallel ; most of them are faced in the 
 form of trapezia ; some are indented and inserted 
 in each other like dove-tail. This construction 
 is peculiar to the ruins in Tuscany : it is far more 
 
 H 2 
 
100 
 
 SIENA. 
 
 irrej^ular, and therefore, I presume, more ancient 
 than the Etruscan work of Rome. No part of 
 these walls remains fortified. The army which 
 lately laid Arezzo open, has also demolished the 
 few defences of Cortona. 
 
 Arreti raiiros, C'oriti nunc diruit arcem. 
 
 SIEXA. 
 
 THE CITY. 
 
 Cor magis tibi Sena pandit. — L;>rripf,o}r. 
 
 Such is the inscription on the Camullia or Flo- 
 rentine gate, where you enter a long, irregular 
 street which nearly bisects this ill-built and ill- 
 peopled town. In this master-line you see none 
 of the ])rincipal objects, such as the Lizza, the 
 citadel, the cathedral, the Piazza del Campo; 
 but you see men, you see groups proportioned to 
 the extent of Siena. Leave this line, and you 
 pass into a desert. 
 
 The streets are paved with tiles laid in that 
 fish-bone manner which Pliny calls the" Spicata 
 testacea." A stran":er comin"' from the laroeflat 
 stones of Florence feels the transition unpleasant; 
 but the extreme inequality of ground subject to 
 ice in winter, would render the Florentine pave- 
 ment unsafe for Siena. 
 
 THE CITY. 
 
 101 
 
 
 Every gentleman's house is called, by the cour- 
 tesy of the place, a palace, although few of them 
 include courts, which, in most languages, are the 
 very part of a house that qualifies a palace. Some 
 of those old mansions are built in the mixt, demi- 
 gothic style which marks all the public works of 
 their two great architects Agostino and Agnolo. 
 The windows are beset with an awkward angular 
 fret-work which I have no where else obsened. 
 
 The grand piazza is sloped, like an ancient 
 theatre, for public games ; and, like that, it forms 
 the segment of a circle, in the chord of which 
 stands the Palazzo Pubblico. This palace is a 
 work of ditFerent dates and designs, and parcelled 
 out into very different objects ; such as the public 
 offices, the courts of law, the theatre, and the 
 prisons. The whole fabric was shaken by the 
 earthquake of 1797, which cracked all the frescoes 
 of Meccarino in the Sala del Consistorio, damaged 
 half the palaces in the city, and frightened the 
 late pope out of it. 
 
 In the cathedral we find marble walls polished 
 on both sides, and built in alternate courses of 
 black and white — a front overcharged v\ ith orna- 
 ments on the outside, and plain within — a belfry 
 annexed, but not incorporated with the pile — a cu- 
 pola bearing plumb on its four supports — circular 
 arches resting on round pillars — doors with double 
 architraves — columns based upon lions tearing 
 
 i 
 
102 
 
 SIENA. 
 
 lambs. All these are peculiar to the Tuscan 
 churches built in the Lombard stvle : but here 
 too are indisputable marks of the Gothic, ])articu- 
 larly on the front, the vaults, and the windows. 
 
 The pavement of this cathedral is the work of 
 a succession of artists, from Duccio down to Mec- 
 carino, who have produced the effect of the richest 
 mosaic, merely bv inserting: g-rev marble into 
 white, and hatching- both with black mastic. The 
 grandest comj.osition is the history of Abraham, 
 a fii^ure which is unfortunately multiplied in the 
 same compartments ; biit when i^rasping the knife, 
 the patriarch is truly sublime. These works lay 
 exposed at least for 100 years to the general tread, 
 and liave been rather improved than defaced by 
 the attrition ; for one female figure which had 
 never been trodden looks harsher than the rest. 
 Tliose of the choir were opportunely covered two 
 
 centuries ago. 
 
 This engraved inlay has occasioned more dis- 
 cussion than it deser\es. It is certainly interesting 
 as a monument of early art ; but were the design 
 more admirable than it really is, the very simplicity 
 of execution unfits it for a pavement, and requires 
 distance to soften and set off the forms. The 
 work is not mosaic, for there is no tessellation. It 
 is not strictly the " pavimentum sectile," for that 
 consisted in regular-lined figures. It can hardly 
 be classed with ancient vase-painting, merely be- 
 
 THE CITY. 
 
 103 
 
 cause it expresses the contours and the drapery 
 by dark lines. Here it passes for the hivention of 
 Duccio*, and original on this floor. 
 
 A barbarous taste for the emblematic pervades 
 this cathedral. Its front is covered with animals, 
 all symbols of cities. Even the lion under its 
 columns conceals, I presume, an enigma ; for I 
 have seen it at the doors of several Tuscan 
 churches.t The pillars of the aisles are crossed 
 by alternate courses of black and white marble, 
 which I failed to admire, conceiving that even a 
 pillar, if round, should appear one piece : — " But, 
 Sir," said a Senese, " black and white are the 
 colours of our city banner." 
 
 Round the vault of the nave is a set of staring 
 heads cast in terra cotta, each bearing the name 
 of a different Pope, although several came evi- 
 dently from the same mould. Whoever is dcter- 
 
 * Dante, who was almost contemporary with Duccio, had 
 perhaps seen some work of this kind when he wrote these 
 
 veises: — 
 
 Monstran anchor lo duro pavimento ; 
 Qual di pennei iii maestro, o di stile, 
 Che ritrahesse V ombre e' tratti, ch'ivi 
 Mirar fariano uno 'ngej^no sottile I 
 f The statues of lions were placed at the doors of Ki,^yp- 
 tian temples to represent a watch, as Valerian remarks at 
 Mycenee. Perhaps the idea of the gold and silver dogs, 
 which Homer posts at Alcinons' door, may be traced back 
 to Egypt, the great source of his antiiiuities. 
 
104 
 
 SIENA. 
 
 mined to complete a series will ibrg-e what he 
 cannot find. I have seen things as rude and un- 
 authentic as these installed as originals by our 
 portrait engravers. 
 
 The pulpit is universally admired as a beautiful 
 specimen of marble and carving ; but perhaps it 
 presents too many specimens, too many patterns 
 of decoration, for the unity of design necessary to 
 so small an object. Being built, as usual, of 
 marble, it becomes a part of the cathedral itself, 
 and hurtful to the general symmetry. Instead of 
 this fixed and established dignitary, 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 glares with rich marble, silver, 
 gilt, bronze, and lapislazzoli ; where the sweeping 
 beard and cadaverous flanks of St. Jerome are set 
 in contrast with the solt beauty of a Magdalene, 
 which Bernini had transformed from an Andro- 
 meda, and thus left us the affliction of innocence 
 for that of guilt. 
 
 Fronting this chapel is a library without books ; 
 for scored music and illuminated psalms hardly 
 deserve that title. It contains a series of gaudy, 
 gilt pictures, which, though painted by Pinturri- 
 chio, bear the name of Raphael, from some acci- 
 dental touches lent by the immortalizing master. 
 
 THE CITY. 
 
 105 
 
 Whatever Raphael sketched, or began to sketch, 
 walls which he never painted, jars which he never 
 saw, statues which he never cut, are still called 
 Raphael's. 
 
 The Dominican church sustained such a shock 
 from the late earthquake, that it no longer serves 
 for worship, nor contains the celebrated Madonna 
 of Guido da Siena, the first Italian painter whose 
 works bear a date. The two Birraraani and Baro- 
 raba, who had appeared before him, were Greeks. 
 Hence the Senese pretend, from the date of this 
 picture, 1221, that their school of painting was 
 the earliest in modern art. 
 
 At present they can boast neither school nor 
 artist, and were lately obliged to call in Adimollo, 
 who has painted three palaces, and is too much 
 admired here for the fire, the diversity, the " este- 
 tico" of his compositions. It is easier to delineate 
 violent passion than the tranquil emotions of a 
 great soul ; to set a crowd of figures on the stretch 
 of expression, than to animate but one hero by an 
 action which shall leave him the serenity natural 
 to a hero. What a distance from the bloated hy- 
 perboles of Lucan to the unrestrained majesty of 
 Virgil ! from the attitudes of a player to the natural 
 dignity of a prince ! from the vivacity and exer- 
 tion of Adimollo to the grace and silent pathos of 
 Raphael ! 
 
 flight I point out the pictures which gave me 
 
106 
 
 SIENA. 
 
 THE ASSUMPTION. 
 
 107 
 
 14 
 
 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 Marys, 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 ? 
 
 Perruzzi's Sibyl at Fonte Giusta is a sublime 
 figure, but perhaps too sedate lor the act of pro- 
 phecy. She does not, as in Virgil, pant, labour, 
 raffe with the God ; nor, like the Pvthia, does she 
 reel and stare and foam with the poison of the 
 Delphic mofeta : she rather displays the " fol- 
 irorar di bellezze altere e sante" of Sofronia. The 
 clergy, as if vain of any connexion between clas- 
 sical objects and Christianity, seem partial to this 
 prophetical being ; for the Cathedral has ten dif- 
 ferent sibyls figured on its pavement. 
 
 Sodoma's* torso of Christ, in the Franciscan 
 
 * Ruzzi is the proper name of this artist. His very 
 finest work is in the chapel of St. Catherine, in the Domi- 
 nican chinch ; to which the Madonna of Guido of Siena is 
 restored, and the church is repaired for the purposes of 
 worship. — C. 
 
 This is the land of nicknames. Italians have su})pressed 
 the surnames of their principal artists under various desig- 
 
 cloister, is a damaged figure, but much admired 
 by the learned in art, for its colouring and ana- 
 tomy. The Luccherini gallery and other collec- 
 tions will not compensate the slavery of praising 
 them, for here, being conducted by the master 
 himself, you must admire and not pay. 
 
 THE ASSUMPTION. 
 
 Hi ritus, quoquo modo inducti, antiquitate defenduntur. 
 
 Tag. 
 
 The Vergine Assunta, being the patroness of 
 Siena, collects here in August all the neighbours 
 that love either masses or debauchery. This fes- 
 tival calls forth the senate, or rather the red man- 
 tles of the senate, borne by men who are satisfied 
 with the title of Eccelsi, divested of its powers 
 and its duties. It calls forth the waggon which 
 was conquered from Florence, and a votive wax- 
 nations. Many are known only by the names of their 
 birth-place, as Correjjgio, Bassano, &c. Some by those of 
 their masters, as II Salviati, Sansovino, &c. Some by their 
 father's trade, as Andrea del Sarto, Tintoretto, &c. Some 
 by their bodily defects, as Gnercino, Cagnacci, &c. Some 
 by the subjects in which they excelled, as M. Angelo delle 
 battaglie, Agostino delle perspettive. A few (I can recol- 
 lect only four) are known, each as the prifice of his respec- 
 tive school, by their Christian names alone— Michael An- 
 gelo, Raphael, Guido, Titian. 
 
108 
 
 THE ASSUMPTION. 
 
 109 
 
 SIENA. 
 
 work wliich is conveyed in solemn procession to 
 the Cathedral. This last usas^e is important only 
 from its high anticpiity. Having furnished for 
 many centuries a group of sacred images which 
 differ every year, Siena may partly ascribe to it 
 her priority in art. 
 
 On this occasion the horse-races of the piazza 
 seemed to revive, among the different wards* of 
 the city, the same rivality that prevailed in the 
 four factions of Rome. Everv soul in each ward 
 was a party engaged in the same cause, and 
 trembling for the glory of the same horse. At 
 the close of the race all was riot and exultation. 
 The victorious ward tore their jockey from his 
 saddle, stifled him with kisses, and bore him off in 
 triumph to the wine-flask. 
 
 Most cities in Italy are split into little sections 
 which may sometimes unite, but which more rea- 
 dily repel. The strongest bond of union among 
 Italians is only a coincidence of hatred. Never 
 were the Tuscans so unanimous as in hatino- 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 
 
 * Those wards are denominated each by a respective 
 animal or emblem, as, La contrada della Lupa, La con- 
 trada dell' Acquila, &c., not, as in Lombardy, by the j^ates. 
 Boccace, indeed, mentions a quarter in Siena called the 
 Porta Salvia ; but the name is now obsolete. 
 
 the city itself the same amiable passion was sub- 
 divided among the dillerent wards. 
 
 This last ramification of hatred had formerly 
 exyjosed the town to very fatal conflicts, till at 
 length, in the year 1200, St. Benardine instituted 
 Boxina: 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 im- 
 proved in prowess and skill, the pugilists came 
 forward on every point of national honour ; they 
 were sung by poets, and recorded in inscriptions.* 
 
 * One of these I select as a burlesque on the Latin in- 
 scriptions which are prostituted every where in Italy. 
 
 Rosso, 
 
 Senensium Bajulonmi facile principi, 
 
 Quod tres agathones Florentinos 
 
 In hac caupona combibentes, 
 
 Dum invido morsu 
 Senarum urbi obloquerentur, 
 Pugnis liberaliter exceptos 
 Egregie multaverit 
 Bajuli Senenses patriae vindices 
 M. P. 
 Such has been ever the rage for inscriptions in Italy, that 
 some have been found scratched on ancient bricks and 
 tesserae. 
 
 You will often see Latin inscribed here, absurdly enough, 
 on temporary erections, and in notices addressed to the 
 people ; yet if Latin inscriptions can be defended in any 
 modern nation, it is here. Here the public monuments, 
 being built for remote ages, require an unvarying record 
 
110 
 
 SIENA. 
 
 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. 
 
 The pope had reserved for this great festival 
 the Beatification of Peter, a Sanese comb-maker, 
 whom the church had neglected to canonize till 
 now. Poor Peter was honoured with all the so- 
 lemnity of music, high-mass, an officiating cardi- 
 nal, a florid panegyric, pictured angels bearing 
 his tools to heaven, and combing their own hair 
 as they soared ; but he received five hundred years 
 ago a greater honour than all, a verse of praise 
 from Dante.* 
 
 A solemn accademia was then held by the Intro- 
 nati, who recited several dozens of fresh sonnets 
 
 whch may outlive the present idioms. Now, if we may 
 judge of the future by the past, the Latin alone can afford 
 such a record. The Latin is the ancient language of this 
 country, and is still the language of its religion. The Latin 
 is more intelligible to this people than to any other. It 
 infinitely excels the Itahan in the lapidary style, which de- 
 lights in brevity and the ablative absolute. It has received 
 the last perfection in that style from modern Italians, as 
 Politian, Pontanos, Rota, Egizzio, &c., and from the metallic 
 history of the Popes. 
 
 * a memoria m* hebbe 
 
 Pier Pettinagno in sue sante orazioni, 
 
 A cui di me per caritate increbbe. 
 
 THE ASSUMPTION. 
 
 Ill 
 
 on the assumption of the Blessed Virgin. On 
 tliis holy theme have those prolific academicians 
 been rhyming for three hundred years.* 
 
 Italy produces annually an incalculable number 
 of bad sonnets ; but perhaps it is the only country 
 that ever produced good ones. The few who 
 excel ill these compositions strike them otf at one 
 " colpo di pennello." Like the fresco-painters, 
 thev never return to the plaster. A language so 
 full of similar and sonorous terminations gives 
 them pecuUar facilities for the sonnet, which if not 
 finished at one heat, they usually throw away. 
 How unlike to those laboured and retouched 
 thino-s which are slowly hammered into the size 
 and shape of sonnets on our English anvils. Such 
 workmanship, if originally bad, became worse by 
 followino- the advice of Horace : 
 
 " Male tornatos incudi reddere versus." 
 
 Why are our Wartonians so perversely partial 
 
 * The Intronati of Siena are generally considered as the 
 oldest academy in Europe ; yet the Rozzi of this city, if 
 really associated for literary pursuits (as some of their own 
 body have assured me), were anterior to the Intronati, and 
 even to the club of Platonists whom old Cosimo de' Medici 
 collected round him. Such is the passion here for academies, 
 that the noble college Tolomei has formed three out of fifty 
 students. So early as the sixteenth century Siena counted 
 sixteen academies. In the following age a female one was 
 founded here by the Grand Duchess Vittoria d' Urbino; 
 but this did not long survive its foundress. 
 
112 
 
 SIENA. 
 
 to rhymes and restraints which our hinguaii'e will 
 not bend to ? Why do they court unnecessary 
 difficulty ? Mere difficuUy surmounted never 
 gave pleasure in poetry, except to the poet him- 
 self. The chainino- of a flea, or the shiftinjrs of a 
 fiddler, may amuse us for a moment, in relation to 
 the means ; but, in the fine arts, we never con- 
 sider the labour bestowed — we consider only the 
 excellence produced. 
 
 Eng:lish poets cannot plead for the sonnet one 
 successful precedent. Even the greatest of them 
 all, Shakspeare, Milton, Spenser, split on this 
 rock, and sank into common versifiers. Can all 
 the sonnets in our language collected together 
 match the " Italia ! Italia ! O tu cui fea la sorte," 
 so prophetically striking at this moment ? Have 
 we any so exquisitely ludicrous as the sonnet 
 written, I believe, in this town, on discovering 
 that the sarcophagus of king Torsenna had served 
 for ao-es as the washing-trough of monks ? I 
 contend, however, against fashion. The English 
 sonnetteer will persist in his work of torture, and 
 yet complain of the engine which cramps him. 
 But is that fair ? 
 
 In questo di Procuste orrido letto 
 
 Chi ti sforza a giacer ? forse in rovina 
 Andra Parnaso senza il tuo scnetto ? 
 
 THE COUNTRY. 
 
 113 
 
 THE COUNTRY. 
 
 QuiSQUlS HUC ACCEDIS 
 
 QUOI) TIB! HOltRENDLM VIDETUR 
 
 MlUI AMCKNUM EST 
 
 Si DELECT.Vr MANEAS 
 
 Si TiEUET ABEAS 
 UtKUMUUE GltATUM. 
 
 Inscription. 
 
 All the country for twenty miles round Siena 
 is hill or mountain. The more rugged hills are 
 planted with olive-trees. The rest are arable, in- 
 termixed w^ith vineyards. Some of these vineyards 
 are celebrated. Montepulciano produces " the king 
 of wines," and Chinati yields from its canine grape 
 a " vino scelto" which many prefer to his majesty. 
 
 Before Leopold freed agriculture from its old 
 restrictions, tiie Sanese scarcely raised grain 
 enough for its own consumption ; but now it 
 exports to a large amount. Though the produce 
 is trebled, the price of wheat is also risen from 4 
 pauls a staio to 12 or 14; but this rise, beiuir 
 balanced by the increased circulation of specie, 
 does not aggrieve tho^ie classes which are not en- 
 gaged in farming. 
 
 Thus the landholders are undeservedly en- 
 riched by improvements which they do not contri- 
 bute. Born and bred in the city, they seldom 
 visit their estates, but for the Villegcfiatura in 
 autumn ; and then, not to inspect or improve their 
 
114 
 
 SIENA. 
 
 THE COUNTRY, 
 
 115 
 
 possessions ; not even to enjoy the charms of na- 
 ture or the sports of the fieUl ; but to loiter round 
 the \illa just as they loiter round the town. 
 Durina* the vear those mansions present nothins: 
 
 But empty lodtjiugs and unfurniished halls, 
 Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones. 
 
 Those villas are necessarily lars^e to accommo- 
 date the swarm of bachelors, which must result 
 from the system established among this nobility. 
 In "-eneral, the uncles and brothers of the heir 
 inherit, as their patrimony, a right to board and 
 lod'i-in"- in every house belon2;ing to the family. 
 
 None of these possess so many villas as the 
 Chigi. Centinale, which lies in a wide, scraggy 
 oak-wood about ten miles from Siena, owes its rise 
 and celebrity to the remorse of anamorous cardinal, 
 who, to appease the ghost of a nnudered rival, 
 transformed a gloomy plantation of cypress into a 
 penitential Thebais, and acted there all the auste- 
 rities of an Egyptian hermit. Another cardinal 
 of the Chigi family, afterwards Alexander VII., 
 made this his favourite retreat, and has lel't marble 
 tiaras at every corner. On the porch of the casino 
 is the inscription which 1 have yilaced above.* 
 
 * I picked up ai the gate of Casino, near Maddaloni, 
 another inscription which has still more salt in it. 
 
 Amicis, 
 
 Et, ne paucis pateat, 
 
 Etiam fictis. 
 
 From Centinale we rode to Gelso, another large 
 and still more neglected villa, where mouldy pic- 
 tures and disjointed furniture were thinly scattered 
 to make up a show. We passed through the 
 richest vineyards, over hills clad with olive-trees, 
 and on roads lined with wild myrtle ; but we 
 looked in vain for that thick-matted herbage, and 
 those umbrageous masses of wood which distin- 
 guish an English landscape from all others. 
 
 Our next visit was to Colle, a town stretched 
 on the ridge of a steep hill. Here we saw a cathe- 
 dral, and churches, and convents, and black, old 
 palaces, where a ])oor nobility live intrenched in 
 etiquette ; but not an inn could the city buast. 
 We therefore returned to the Borgo below, where 
 we found paper-mills, industry, and a dinner. 
 
 Farther south is the Maremma, a region which, 
 though now worse than a desert, is supposed to 
 have been anciently both fertile and healthy. The 
 Maremma certainly formed part of that Etriuia 
 whicb was called from its hanests the annonaria. 
 Old Roman cisterns may still be traced, and the 
 ruins of Populonium are still visible in the worst 
 part of this tract : yet both nature and man seem 
 to have conspired against it. 
 
 Sylla threw this maritime part of Tuscany into 
 enormous latifundia ibr his disbanded soldiers. 
 Similar distributions continued to lessen its popu- 
 lation during the empire. In the younger Pliny's 
 
 I 2 
 
 i 
 
116 
 
 SIENA. 
 
 ill 
 
 time the climate was pestilential. The Lomhards 
 gave it a new aspect of misery. Wherever they 
 found culture they built castles, and to each castle 
 they allotted a " bandita" or military fief. Hence 
 baronial wars which have left so many picturescpie 
 ruins on the hills, and such desolation round them. 
 Whenever a baron was conquered, his vassals 
 escaped to the cities, and the vacant fief was 
 annexed to the victorious. Thus stripped of men, 
 the lands returned into a state of nature : some 
 were flooded by the rivers, others grew into hor- 
 rible forests which inclose and concentrate the 
 l^stilence of the lakes and marshes. 
 
 In some parts, the water is brackish and lies 
 lower than the sea ; in others it oozes full of tartar 
 from beds of travertine. At the bottom or on the 
 sides of hills are a multitude of hot springs which 
 form pools, called Larjoni. A lew of these are 
 said to produce borax : some, which are called 
 fumache, exhale sulphur ; others, called Indicanu, 
 boil with a mephitic gas. The very air above is 
 only a pool of vapours which sometimes undulate, 
 but seldom flow off. It draws corruption from a 
 rank, unshorn, rotting vegetation, from reptiles 
 and fish both living and dead. 
 
 All nature conspires to drive man away from 
 this fatal region ; but man will ever return to his 
 bane, if it be well baited. The Casentine peasants 
 still miirrate hither in winter to feed their cattle ; 
 
 \\ 
 
 THE COUNTRY. 
 
 117 
 
 and here they sow corn, make charcoal, saw wood, 
 cut hoops, and peel cork. When summer returns 
 they decamp, but often too late ; for many leave 
 their corpses on the road, or bring home the Ma- 
 remmian disease. 
 
 The hills, in proportion as they retire from the 
 sea, are healthy and populous. Instead of cluster- 
 ing into hamlets and villages, every cottage stands 
 alone in the midst of the farm. This dissemina- 
 tion formed an obstacle to Leopold's design of 
 establishing parish schools. All children are first 
 taught to read in Latin; none attempt the Italian 
 till they can spell through their prayers. Those 
 farmers who cannot read, keep their accounts with 
 the steward by the old " tapster's arithmetic" of 
 wooden tallies. 
 
 This country is full of little, local superstitions, 
 and overgrown with monkish faCry. Every ruin 
 is haunted, every spring has its saint, every district 
 maintains its strega, or witch. This beldam is 
 descended, I imagine, from the ancient Strix; for, 
 like that obscure being, she is supposed to influ- 
 ence the irrowth of children and cattle, and thus 
 she subsists on the credulity of her neighbours. 
 
 Some of the country towns are surrounded with 
 old embatded walls. In the larger is a Vicario, 
 who judges in civil and criminal cases, subject to 
 the revision of two higher magistracies : in the 
 smaller a Podestd, acting as justice of peace ; an 
 
, I 
 
 118 
 
 JOURNEY TO ROME. 
 
 officer who appears in Juvenal invested with the 
 same title : 
 
 All Fi'lenarum, Gabiorumque esse Potestas. 
 
 JOURNEY TO ROME. 
 
 I SET out for Rome after the first rains of Sep- 
 tember. On reachinp; San Qi irico, I found the 
 people there just recoverins^ from a consternation 
 caused by a black spectre which had lately a]3- 
 peared in the air. Wild screams were heard : the 
 very cattle cauc^ht the alarm. The profane pro- 
 nounced the apparition to be a monk ; the monks 
 insisted that it was the devil himself; and the 
 curate was preparing: to exorcise the parish, when 
 at last the phantom descended in the shape of an 
 eas^le, and carried off a kid. On returning for 
 fresh prey, he was shot by the peasants, and 
 roasted at our inn for their supper. 
 
 Near San Quirico is the hamlet of Lucujnan 
 d' Asso, where a shower of stones fell in 1794, 
 nineteen hours after the c^reat eruption of Vesu- 
 vius. One of those stones, which Soldani, abbot 
 of La Rosa, showed me, weighed about three 
 pounds, and contained malleable iron, a substance 
 never produced by volcanic heat. Soldani called 
 the attention of the scientific world to this phe- 
 
 JOURNEY TO ROME. 
 
 119 
 
 nomenon, and received from all hands a diversity 
 of explanations; but these he refutes as they rise, 
 to make room for one more surprising than them 
 all.— In short, he forges those stones in the air 
 itself! First he raises a whirlwind, and thus 
 brushes up from the earth some white clay. This 
 he suspends aloft in a little fiery vortex ; mixes it 
 up with sulphurs, bitumens, oils, minerals ; vitri- 
 fies it by electricity, and then plays it off by vibra- 
 tion and gravitation. 
 
 Padre Ricca, the most profound yet elegant 
 scholar in this country, gave me a solution tar less 
 sublime than Soldani's. lie supposes these stones 
 to have been ejected — not from Vesuvius, as Sir 
 William Hamilton conjectured, but— from the 
 very ground where they fell. For, as that neigh- 
 bourhood is full of chalk, impregnated with py- 
 rites and ferruginous matter, small masses of the 
 composition may have escaped from some super- 
 ficial explosion there, and been afterwards ig- 
 nited in the electrical cloud which attended the 
 phenomenon. I might add, in favour of this opi- 
 nion, that two such showers had formerly fallen 
 near the same spot. My excellent and learned 
 friend P. Gandolfi denies the fact given : but 
 Soldani persists in his hypothesis, and is now 
 writing a history of stone-showers, deduced from 
 Livy's reports down to his own. 
 
 We turned off to the Baths of St. P/tzYip, where 
 
120 
 
 JOURNEY TO ROME. 
 
 JOURNEY TO ROME. 
 
 121 
 
 V ' 
 
 Dr. Vea^ni has employed the water upon works of 
 art. This water beinc^ calcareous, the more it is 
 broken the finer is its deposite. He therefore 
 makes it fall in spray from the ceiliniy upon 
 moulds placed below, where it gradually lodo-es a 
 tartar which hardens into exquisite cameos and 
 intaHios. 
 
 On crossing the volcanic mountain of R\dico- 
 FANi, I remarked on its cone the ruins of a fort 
 which was often conspicuous in the history ot 
 Italy. In the course of events it had lost its im- 
 portance, and the Tuscan <rovernment, "-rudirino- 
 to maintain yet unwillino- to dismantle it, was for 
 a lone: while balancing- the expense against the 
 advantage of the place, when at last the powder 
 magazine blew up, and decided the point. 
 
 This frontier has been ever notorious for high- 
 waymen. It was once the haunt of Gliino di 
 Tacco, an outlaw celebrated by Dante and Boc- 
 cace, nay, knighted by the Pope himself, for rob- 
 bing in a gentleman-like manner. A few months 
 before we passed, a soldier, while escortino- a 
 courier, was attacked here and murdered by a 
 pious ruffian, who held a pistol in his right hand 
 and a rosary in his left. 
 
 On entering the Papal State, we were long fa- 
 tigued with the same sad colour of dry clav. At 
 length AcQUAPENDENTE brokc fresh upon us, 
 surrounded with ancient oaks, and terraces clad 
 
 in the greens of a second spring, and hanging 
 vineyards, and cascades, and cliffs, and grottos, 
 screened with pensile foliage. 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 Volsinii. Such scenes 
 lift the mind above its prosaic level. I passed 
 through MoNTEFiASCONE and Viterbo without 
 any poetical emotions ; nor could Soractv's long 
 black ridge, though sacred to Apollo, and sung by 
 two of his noblest sons, raise any admiration on 
 this line of road. 
 
 The vintage was in full glow. Men, women, 
 children, asses, all were variously engaged in the 
 work. I remarked in the scene a prodigality and 
 nediirence which I never saw in France. The 
 grapes dropped unheeded from the panniers, and 
 hundreds were left unclipt on the vines. The 
 vintagers poured on us as we passed the richest 
 ribaldry of the Italian language, and seemed to 
 claim from Horace's old rlndcmlator a prescrip- 
 tive riffht to abuse the traveller. 
 
 RoNCiGLioNE* has suffered horribly from the 
 last war. All its elegant houses were burnt into 
 black shells, abandoned to ruin by their impo- 
 verished owners, who, having joined the insur- 
 
 * Is now a veiy picturesciue town, full of manufactoiies, 
 chiefly iron. 
 
t\ 
 
 \ I 
 
 fl 
 
 122 
 
 JOURNEY TO ROME. 
 
 gents of Orvietto, were left thus to expiate the 
 offence of both. 
 
 We reached Baccano when it was dark, and 
 were therefore obHged to stop at the first inn, 
 which may probably be the inn pointed out by 
 Ariosto, though certainly the worst that I ever 
 entered. In the court were several carriages, 
 which served as a decoy ; but within we found 
 famine, filth, and a table to sleep on, a pestilen- 
 tial air, and horrible noises, like those of the 
 ancient orgies which gave name to the place. 
 The next morning we arrived at Rome. 
 
 123 
 
 ROME. 
 
 TOPOGRAPHY. 
 
 Hinc septem dominos videre montes 
 
 Et totam licet aestiraare Romara. — Mart. 
 
 That rage for embellisliing, which is imi)lanted 
 in every artist, has thrown so much composition 
 into the engraved views of Rome, has so exagge- 
 rated its ruins and architecture, or so expanded 
 the space in which they stand, that a stranger, ar- 
 riving here with the expectations raised by those 
 prints, will be infallibly disappointed. 
 
 The Flaminian Gate, after repeated changes of 
 both place and name, remains the great entrance 
 of Rome, and lays open its interior to the first 
 view by three diverging streets. The streets 
 seem to have been made only for the rich. Their 
 small reticular pavement galls the pedestrian, they 
 afford no protection against the fury of carriages, 
 and are lighted only by the lamps of a few Ma- 
 donnas. Public reverhcres had been once pro- 
 posed : but the Roman clergy, who order all 
 things prudently for the interest of religion, found 
 darkness more convenient for their decorous 
 gallantry. 
 
\\^ 
 
 124 
 
 ROME. 
 
 Whichever road* you take, your attention will 
 be divided between magnificence and filtli. The 
 inscription " Immondezzaio" on the walls of pa- 
 laces is only an invitation to befoul them. The 
 objects which detain you lousiest, such as Trajan's 
 column, the Fountain of Trevi, &c., are inacces- 
 sible from ordure. Ancient Rome contained one 
 hundred and forty-four public necessaries, besides 
 the Seli^ Patrocllance. The modern city draws 
 part of its infection from the want of such con- 
 veniences. 
 
 In the inhabited quarters you will find palaces 
 and churches, columns, obelisks, and fountains ; 
 but you must cross the Capitol, or strike off among 
 the mounts, before the Genius of Ancient Rome 
 meets you amid its ruins. 
 
 The study of these antiquities leads you first to 
 trace the figure, extent, mould, and distribution of 
 the city. This you may begin on some eminence, 
 as that denoted in the motto, now considered as 
 part of the Corsini garden ; or on any of the 
 towers that command all the hills. On each hill, 
 except the Viminal, the most difficult of all, you 
 will find one master-object, as the Villa Medici on 
 the Pincian, the Papal Palace on the Quirinal, the 
 three basilicas on the Esquiline, Caelian and Vati- 
 
 * The streets and piazzas of Rome no longer merit all 
 Forsyth's reproaches, though there is still room for im- 
 provement 
 
 TOPOGRArHY. 
 
 125 
 
 can, &c., which will serve each as a point of ge- 
 neral reference, and enable you to combine the 
 perspective with the plan. You may then trace 
 on foot the outlines of those hills, the successive 
 boundaries of the ancient citv, neii'lectinc: the di- 
 vision of the Augustan regions, or the modern 
 Rioni ; and at last make the circuit of the in- 
 violable walls. 
 
 This circuit will bring into view specimens of 
 every construction, from the days of Servius Tul- 
 lius down to the present ; for, to save expense, 
 Aurelian took into his walls whatever he found 
 standing in their line ; and they now include some 
 remains of the Tullian wall, the wall of the Prae- 
 torian barracks, the facing of a bank,* aqueducts, 
 sepulchral monuments, a menagerie, an amphi- 
 theatre, a pyramid. Thus do they exhibit the 
 
 * The Muro Torto has been considered as part of the 
 Domitian tomb, and in that view Venuti refers its obliquity 
 to the side of a pyramid, a pyramid which, completed, would 
 exceed the Egyptian immensity ! The Domitian tomb did 
 certainly stand near this spot; and from that vicinity has 
 the Muro Torto been called also the wall of Domitia's 
 garden. That it did face some garden seems probable, both 
 from its inclined state, and its situation on the " Collis 
 Hortuloruni." Bnt the garden of Nero's aunt was at Fort 
 St. Angelo ; that of Antoniuus's mother was at the Lateran. 
 These two are the only Domitise whose gardens enter inta 
 history, and the Muro Torto is of a construction anterior 
 to both. 
 
 i !» 
 
■ f 
 
 ' ill 
 
 126 
 
 ROME. 
 
 I 
 
 II 
 
 uncemented blocks of the Etruscan style, the re- 
 ticular work of the republic, the travertine pre- 
 ferred by the first emperors, the alternate tufo 
 and brick employed by their successors, and that 
 poverty of materials which marks the declininir 
 empire. The first Romans built with a prodigal 
 solidity, which has left the cloaca maxima to as- 
 tonish perha])s as many generations to come as 
 those which have yet beheld it. Later architects 
 became scientific from very parsimony. They 
 calculated expenses, the resistance of arches, the 
 weight of superstructures, and with mathematical 
 frugality they proportioned their work to the mere 
 sufficient. Since the first dreadful breach made 
 by Totila, the walls have been often and variously 
 repaired ; sometimes by a case of brick-work 
 filled up with shattered marbles, rubble, shard, 
 and mortar ; in some parts the cementitious work 
 is unfaced : here you find stone and tufo mixed 
 in the " opus incertum :" there, tufo alone laid 
 in the Saracenic manner : the latter rei)airs bear 
 the brick revetement of modern fortification. 
 
 Of the gates, some have been walled up for 
 ages; others recently, to save the trouble of 
 guarding them. Eight are still open on the 
 Latin side of the river, and four on the Tuscan. 
 Tlieir ancient names have been long the subject 
 of contest. Very few are certain, and even to 
 these few the antiquaries have superadded other 
 
 ill 
 
 TOPOGRAPHY. 
 
 127 
 
 names, as if on purpose to renew contentions. 
 Thus the gate of San Lorenzo, though admitted 
 to be the Tiburtine, has been called also the 
 Porta inter Aggeres, the Esquilina, the Libiti- 
 nensis, the Taurina, the Metia, the Randuscula, 
 the Praenestina, the Gabiusa ; and each of these 
 epithets has borne its debate. On the other 
 hand, they assign the same name to very different 
 gates. Thus some would fix the Na?via between 
 the Capena and the Tiber ; others confound it 
 with the Porta Maggiore ; others contend that 
 the Porta Maggiore was originally no gate at all. 
 We caunQt brinff all the ancient wavs to their 
 respective gates ; nor can we trace the transla- 
 tion of the same gate from the Tullian walls to 
 Aurelian's, which coincide but a short way. How 
 doubtful then must the three gates of Romulus 
 be ! 
 
 The bridges, on the contrary, deny us the plea- 
 sure of disputing on them. Some are broken, and 
 those which are entire from reparation, bear mo- 
 dern names : yet the first names and situations of 
 all are certain. Between these bridges you still 
 see the city-mills anchored in the very currents, 
 where necessity drove Belisarius to an expedient 
 which is now general on all. 
 
 The most populous part of ancient Rome is 
 now but a landscape. Mount Palatine, which 
 originally contained all the Romans, and was af- 
 
 fl 
 
128 
 
 ROME. 
 
 I>.l 
 
 I' 
 
 N 
 
 terwards insufficient to accoinmodute one tyrant, 
 is inhabited only by a few friars. I have i^one 
 over the whole liill, and not seen six human 
 beings on a surface which was once crowded 
 with the assembled orders of Rome and Italy.* 
 Raphael's villa, the Farnesian sunmier-house, 
 Michael Angelo's aviaries, are all falling; into the 
 same desolation as the imperial palace, which 
 frinsfcs the mount with its broken arches. 
 
 Would you push inquiry beyond these ruins, 
 from the Palatium of Augustus back to the Pa- 
 lanteum of Evander, vou find the mount sur- 
 rounded with sacred names — the altar of Her- 
 cules — the Ruminal fig-tree — the Lupercal — the 
 Germalus — the Velia ; but would you fondly affix 
 to each name its local habitation on the hill, con- 
 tradiction and doubt will thicken as you remount. 
 
 Hie locus este Vestae qui Fallada servat et ignem : 
 Hie Stator, hoc priaium condita Roma loco tst. 
 
 How often have those verses been quoted here ! 
 yet who can apply them to the ground ? If you 
 fix Vesta in the round temple on the Tiber, others 
 will contend there for Hercules, or Portumnus, 
 or Volupia. If you assign the three magnificent 
 columns in the forum to Jupiter Stator, others 
 
 * Totum Palatium senatu, equitibus Rumanis, civitate 
 omni, Italia euncta refertum. Cic. 
 
 TOPOGRAPHY. 
 
 129 
 
 will force them into a senate-house, or a portico, 
 or a comitium, or a bridge. All round the Pala- 
 tine, the forum, the Velabrum, and the Sacred 
 Way is the favourite field of antiquarian polemics.* 
 On this field you may fight most learnedly at an 
 €asy rate. Every inch of it has been disputed ; 
 every opinion may gain some plausibility, and 
 whichever you adopt will find proofs ready mar- 
 shalled for its defence. 
 
 In such disputes I know no authority para- 
 mount to decide. Marliano, Donati, Panvinio, 
 
 * On my first visit to the Campo Vacciiio, I asked my 
 valet-de-place where the lake of Curtius was supposed to 
 have been ? *' Behohl it !" cried he, striking with his 
 cancan immense granite basin, called here a lago. *^ Was 
 
 this then the middle of the forum ?" — " Certainly.'' 
 
 *« Does the Cloaca Maxima run underneath ?'' '• Cer- 
 tainly."—" And was tliis really the lago where the ancients 
 threw the money ?"—« Certainly." Thus was the lacus 
 of some ancient fountain (probably one of those which M. 
 Agrippa had distributed through the streets) transformed 
 by a aceroiie'a wand into the Curtian lake ; and thus are 
 thousands cheated by sounds. Tlie devotion of Ciutius 
 may itself be a fable; but it is a fable dear to every pa- 
 triot, and if retraced by some object more probable than 
 tliis, would be one sentiment more brought to the mind of 
 a passenger. 
 
 Such ignorance I am far from imputing to the professed 
 Ciceroni of Rome. Many of these are profound in its an- 
 tiquities ; but they are generally too full of their own little 
 discoveries, which often exclude more imi)ortant informa- 
 tion from the s'rantrer. 
 
 r 
 
 ft 
 
4? 
 
 r,' ft!" 
 
 '1' 
 
 1^ I 
 
 130 
 
 ROME. 
 
 Volpi, and even Kircher, thouj^li a cheat, have 
 all largely contribnted to the present stock of 
 discovery ; but not one of them can be followed 
 as a general guide. Nardini is infected with 
 that old-fashioned scrupulosity which on every 
 point must give every opinion, the received and 
 the exploded, all jumbled together. Venuti has 
 sifted this farrago, and ground down the learning 
 of all his predecessors into so clean and digestible 
 a mass that whoever has access to it should go 
 to his mill.* Zoega, if he completes his present 
 topographical design, will surpass them all. 
 Vasi, Mannazale, and that tribe of vade-mecums, 
 mav serve you the first week as mere r(i/>'ts-(h?- 
 plare m print, but you will soon dismiss them as 
 insufficient. Those people parcel out Home into 
 day's-works, and throw every thing together, 
 ancient or modern, sacred or profane, that lies in 
 the same round. This plan is convenient enough 
 for them who desire only to show or to see Rome ; 
 but whoever would study it must arrange the 
 objects of his study in a different order, deduced 
 either from their kind or their age. 
 
 There are, in fact, three ancient Romes sub- 
 stantially distinct ; the city which the Gauls de- 
 stroved, that which Nero burned, and that which 
 
 * This book, which was rather rare, has been republished 
 since I left Italy, by Philip Visconti, brother of the ^n-eat 
 antiquary. 
 
 I H 
 
 WORKS OF THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 131 
 
 he and his successors rebuilt. Such a division 
 may guide the student who would survey Rome 
 only in books, or cl iss its monuments as they 
 stand in history. But as I confine my review to 
 the structures which I have seen existing, I shall 
 rather refer these to the grand revolutions which 
 affected both the character and the purposes of 
 llonuui architecture. 
 
 WORKS OF THE REPUBLIC. 
 Exuta est vetereni nova Roma senectam. Mart. 
 
 Arciiitecturk was unknovMi in Rome until the 
 Tarquins came down from Etruri<i. Hence the 
 few works of the kings which still remain were 
 built in the Etruscan style, with large uncemented 
 but regular blocks. Tliose remains consist only 
 in a few layers of peperiue stone and a triple 
 vault, which are found in some parts of the Tul- 
 lian walls, in a prison (if indeed the Mamertine 
 be the same as the Tullianum) and in a common 
 sewer. Such objects, requiring only unadorned 
 solidity, would be built as these are by any race 
 that built well. Though insufficient for retracing 
 the architectural designs of the first Romans', 
 enough remains to show us their public masonry, 
 and their early ambition, which thus projected 
 iVom its very infancy " an eternal city," the ca- 
 pital of the world. k 2 
 
( ' 
 
 1^ i 
 
 132 
 
 ROME. 
 
 Some of the kings, particularly the last, turned 
 architecture to objects connected with their per- 
 sonal g'lory. The republic directed every arm and 
 every art to one national object, conquest : hence 
 its first great works were military ways. For a 
 while the republicans emulated the kings in the 
 solidity of their constructions. Appius Claudius 
 founded his great way, built it like a mole, and 
 paved it with drest basaltic stones. In the next 
 century the roads of Flaccus and Albinus were 
 only covered with gravel. Their successors, im- 
 proving in economy, took advantage of hard soils, 
 and in some parts omitted the ruderation, in others 
 the statumen, in others both. 
 
 Tlie pavement of those ways is generally hidden 
 under a modern coat of fi-ravel. Where it is un- 
 covered, as on the road to Tivoli ; at Capo di Bove, 
 at Fondi, &c., the stones, though irregular, were 
 larc'e and even flat ; but their ed":es beinir worn 
 into hollows, they jolt a carriage unmercifullv. 
 And could Procopius really have found those 
 stones as compactly even as one continued block 
 of flint ? could any stones resist the action of 
 wheels for nine hundred years unshaken and un- 
 impressed ? In some places I could distinguish 
 parts raised like a foot-pavement ; but no stones* 
 
 * If Forsyth had gone to the top of the Monte Alba no, 
 he wouhl have seen the high stones for mounting, and tlie 
 smooth pavement also on the road between Tivoli and 
 Paleutrioa. — C. 
 
 'il 
 
 WORKS OF THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 133 
 
 so high as to serve, like the anabalhra, for stir- 
 
 rups,'*' m mounting. 
 
 Aqueducts immediately followed : but of the 
 few which belong to this period only parts of the 
 Aqua Martia remain; and perhaps the grand 
 arcades, which conveyed that water to the Esqui- 
 line, are due to the repairs of Augustus. Some 
 have proposed the restoration of this aqueduct : 
 " but Rome," say the Romans, " has more water 
 than it wants."— "Give it then to the Campagna." 
 " The Campagna has no inhabitants to drink 
 water."—" And why has it no inhabitants, but 
 for want of good water as well as good air?" 
 
 Why do those aqueducts cross the Campagna 
 in courses so unnecessarily long and indirect? 
 Several reasons have been alleged, all of which 
 
 * Because no stirrups appear on the ancient equestrian 
 monuments, antiquaries conckide that so simple a contri- 
 vance was unknown to the Romaus. But we should con- 
 sider how much of the real costume of the time was sup- 
 pressed by sculptors— how generally the ancient vases, 
 coins, lamps, rilievi, nay even triumphal arches, represent 
 chariot-horses without even yoke or traces — how seldom the 
 saddles, or rather ephippia, appear on statues (the spurs and 
 horse-shoes never) — how greatly the stirrups would detract 
 from the freedom and grace of an equestrian figure. Be- 
 sides, something like one stirrup does appear on an antique 
 at the Vatican ; the oimj^ckils of Plutarch would imply a 
 stirrup as well as a groom ; and Eustathius gives both 
 meanings to the word. 
 
*i 
 
 i 
 
 \- \ 
 
 134 
 
 ROME. 
 
 may have influenced the ancients ; but their chief 
 motive, in my opinion, was to distribute piirt of 
 their water to the Campagna itself, and to ditfu^e 
 it there into smaller veins. Besides this general 
 circuit, the Romans bent their aqueducts into fre- 
 quent angles, like a screen ; not so much to break 
 the force of their currents, as to give stability to 
 the arcades. 
 
 Concpiest, which was ever dearer to the Roman 
 republic than its own liberty, spread at la^t 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 imita- 
 tion of the Greek. 
 
 Some of those temples have been fortunately 
 preserved as churches. The catholic religion is 
 surely a friend, but an interested friend, to the 
 fine arts. It rejects nothing that is old or beau- 
 tiful.* Had ancient Rome fallen into the power 
 
 * I have found the statue of a god pared down into a 
 Christian saint — a heathen altar converted into a church-box 
 for the poor — a bacchanalian vase officiating as a baptismal 
 font — a bacchanalian tripod supportin*^ the holy-water 
 basin — the sarcophagus of an old Roman adored as a 
 shrine full of relics — cips, which were inscribed to the Dis 
 Manibus, now set in pavements hallowed by the knees of 
 the devout — the brass columns of Jupiter Capitolinus now 
 consecrated to the altar of the blessed sacrament — and the 
 tomb of Agiippa now the tomb of a pope. 
 
 Nothing could protect a statue from such zealots as St. 
 
 'aV 
 
 Ul 
 
 ATORKS OF THE UErunLlC. 
 
 135 
 
 of gloomy presbyterians, we should now look in 
 vain for the sacred part of its ruins. Their ico- 
 noclast zeal would have confounded beauty with 
 idolatry, for the pleasure of demolishing both. 
 They would have levelled the temple and preached 
 in a barn. The catholics let the temple stand, 
 and ffloried in its conversion to Christianity. 
 
 Every round edifice that contains alcoves is 
 now, perhaps too generally, pronounced to have 
 been the exhedra or the caldarlum of ancient 
 baths. Such is the temple of Minerva Medici ; 
 and such originally was the Pantheon. The Pan- 
 theon a bath ! could that glorious combination of 
 beauty and magnificence have been raised for so 
 sordid an office? — Yet consider it historically; 
 detach the known additions, such as the portal, 
 the columns, the altars; strip the immense cyhn- 
 der and its niches of their present ornaments, and 
 vou will then arrive at the exact form of the cal- 
 darla now existing in Rome. 
 
 The cell and the portal of the Pantheon are 
 
 1^ 
 
 Gregory, but its conversion to Christianity. That holy bar- 
 barian, though born a Roman, and though pontifl'of Rome, 
 ■was more brutal than its enemies. Alaric and Attila plun- 
 dered, Genseric and Constans removed ; but Gregory's atro- 
 cious joy was to dash in pieces. Yet this man, who perse- 
 cuted the fine arts, and (if we may believe John of Salisbury) 
 burned the imperial library ot" the Apollo, has lately found 
 authors to defend him. 
 
f.'! 
 
 II ' 
 
 136 
 
 ROME. 
 
 J 
 
 ^ 
 
 i I 
 
 two beauties, independent of their union. " The 
 portal shines inimitable on earth." Viewed alone, 
 it is faultless. If the pediment, in followinjr tlie 
 pediment above, should appear too high from the 
 present vacancy of its ti/mpan ; that Ujmpan was 
 originally full of the richest sculpture. If the 
 columns are not all mathematically equal; yet 
 inequalities, which nothing but measurement can 
 detect, are not faults to the eye, which is sole 
 judge. But the portal is more than faultless ; it 
 is positivel}/ the most sublime result that was ever 
 produced by so little architecture. Its general 
 design is best seen diagonally from the Giusti- 
 niani palace. In the obscene hole where it stands, 
 you run more into the analysis of parts, the de- 
 tails of ornament, the composition of the entabla- 
 ture, the swell and proportions of the columns. 
 Every moulding here becomes a model for the art : 
 even the little still left round the bases of the an- 
 cient capitals is white with the plaster of casts. 
 
 You enter the Pantheon by doors cased in 
 bronze, which, whether made for Agrippa, or 
 substituted by Genseric, appear to me at least of 
 classical date, as their form is common on the an- 
 cient rilievos : not carved like those of the temple 
 of Remus, but studded with a varietv of bulla? 
 and turning pivots. The pilasters within the 
 jambs, and the vacancy above, betray an unfitness 
 which I should hardly expect in the original doors. 
 
 I 1 
 
 '" I 
 
 W^ORKS OF THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 137 
 
 A vacancy has, indeed, been remarked on some 
 rilievos ; but the temples there being rectangular, 
 required it for light. Not so the Pantheon. 
 
 Here a flood of lia:ht falling* throuo'h one larire 
 orb, was sufficient for the whole circle of divinities 
 below, and impartially diffused on all. Perhaps 
 the interior elevation is beautiful where it should 
 be grand : its Corinthian, though exquisite, ap- 
 pears too low for the walls, and made the Attic 
 here a necessarv evil. Had Adrian cauo-ht 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 laciinaria of that vault, which 
 now overpower us, and the whole temple would 
 have been then " more simply, more severely 
 great." Vast as they appear, those deep colfers 
 are really not disproportioncd to the hemisphere, 
 and diminishing as they ascend, they stop just at 
 the point where they would cease to be noble or 
 entire. What barbarians could have whitewashed 
 so grand a canopy ! If their rapacity tore olFits 
 ancient covering, they might have bronzed the 
 surface exposed, and left at least the colour of 
 their plunder behind. 
 
 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 op'ca 
 
 » 
 
 II 
 
 '.*■ 
 
'' 
 
 rl 
 
 I' I 
 
 'ti! 
 
 1 
 
 M 
 
 138 
 
 ROME. 
 
 to the rain, no monument of equal antiquity is so 
 well preserved as this rotonda. It passed with 
 little alteration from the Pagan into the present 
 worship ; and so convenient were its niches for the 
 Christian altar, that Michael Angel(),ever studious 
 of ancient beautv, introduced their desio-n as a 
 model in the catholic church. 
 
 By giving more latitude than is due to a pas- 
 sage in Cicero,* some would refer all the tombs 
 without the Ca^iena gate to the republic, and 
 would fix the names of the Servilii, the Horatii, 
 the Metelli on towers, or rather the skeletons of 
 towers left without an epitaph, or mark, or tradi- 
 tion ; but the Cornelian tomb, which had been 
 classed among these and was at last found within 
 the city, should teach us a little scepticism on this 
 ground, where none bear the names of their 
 tenants save CiEcilia Metella's alone. This proud 
 mausoleum was built by Crassus, of travertine 
 stone twenty-ibur feet thick, to secure the bones 
 of a single woman ; while the adjoining castle 
 had but a thin wall of soft tufo to defend all the 
 Gaetani from the fury of a civil war. 
 
 The general form of those tombs on the Appian 
 
 * Cicero led antiquaries into error by representing the 
 Cornelian tomb as without the walls. In his time it cer- 
 tainly was so : but the Capena gate, having been afterwards 
 removed from the Aqua Crabra nearly on to the Almo, left 
 the buried Scipios within the city. 
 
 WORKS OF THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 139 
 
 way is a cylinder, or a truncated cone, with a 
 cubic base, and a convex top. This combination 
 conveys the idea of a funeral pyre, and has some 
 tendency to the pyramid, the figure most appro- 
 priate to a tomb, as representing the earth heaped 
 on a grave, or the stones piled on a military 
 barrow. 
 
 Near those tombs is a little temple, also as- 
 signed to this period, under the name of the God 
 llediculus. So fresh are its red and yellow bricks, 
 that the thing seems to have been ruined in its 
 youth ; so close their adhesion, that each of the 
 puny pilasters appears one piece, and the cornice 
 is sculptured like the finest marble. But could 
 such profusion of ornament have existed here in 
 Annibal's days ? Whether it be a temple or a 
 tomb, the rich chisseling lavished on so poor a de- 
 sign, convinces me that it was fully as late as 
 Septimius Severus. 
 
 On the next hill stands another ^ery doubtful 
 work, called by some the temple of Honour and 
 Virtue, which was built in this period, and ex 
 tolled by Vitruvius for the scientific symmetry of 
 its order. But here the cornice is still more de- 
 corated than its neighbours, and the space which 
 represents the frieze is higher than the pediment ; 
 within is another enormous frieze, or rather belt 
 of defaced stuccos, which appear very beautiful 
 and perfect in Piranesi — those lying engravers ! 
 
 >l 
 
 i 
 
if 
 
 140 
 
 ROME. 
 
 " We desceuded to the valley of Ejreria and 
 the grotto," or rather nymphaeiim ; but instead 
 of the marble man^nificence which offended Juve- 
 nal here, we found the vault fallen in, the walls 
 mantled with maiden-hair, the statue which passes 
 for the Nymph mutilated, the Muses removed from 
 their niches, and the fountain itself a mere 
 trough. Its water, however, was delicious, and 
 finding a large split reed placed over the drip, I 
 used it as a conduit. 
 
 Saepe sed exiguis haustibiis inde libi. 
 
 \ i 
 
 h 
 
 WORKS OF THE EMPIRE. 
 
 The arts of Greece, when transplanted to Rome, 
 Ibund an architecture established there, which 
 was different even in origin from their own. The 
 two opposite systems were presently combined, 
 and the Greek column and entablature are found 
 co-existing with the Roman arch and vault, in 
 every work of the empire. A combination so un- 
 natural broke that unity of design which had 
 prevailed here during the Etruscan period : it 
 soon altered the native forms and proportions of 
 the Greek orders; it amassed incompatible or- 
 naments; and beauty disappeared under the load 
 of riches. 
 
 Another enemy to the beautiful, and even to 
 
 !t 
 
 WORKS OF THE EMPIRE. 
 
 ]41 
 
 the sublime, was that colossal taste which arose 
 in the empire, and gave an unnatural expansion 
 to all the works of art. In architecture it ])ro- 
 duced Nero's golden house, and Adrian's villa; 
 in hydraulics, it projected the Claudian emissary, 
 and Caligula's Baian bridge ; in sculplvu'e, it has 
 left at the Capitol such heads and feet as betray 
 the emperors' contempt for the dimensions of 
 man ; in poetry it swelled out into the hyperboles 
 of Lucan and Statius. This exaggerated spirit 
 spread even to the games. Nero drove ten horses 
 yoked abrenst to his car, and double that number 
 appear on an ancient stone. 
 
 Architecture, thus enslaved to the selfishness 
 of emperors, exhausted all her powers on pa- 
 laces, triumphal arches, historical columns, and 
 tombs. 
 
 The Imperial palace took root in the modest 
 mansion of Hortensius, covered the whole Pala- 
 tine, and branched over other hills. From Au- 
 gustus to Nero is the period of its increase : from 
 Nero down to Valentinian III. its history is but 
 a succession of fires, devastations, and repairs. 
 These, however, would chiefly affect the walls and 
 roofs ; so that much of what remains being mere 
 substructions, are probably the work of the Julian 
 family. 
 
 In the present chaos of broken walls and arcades, 
 we can no longer retrace the general design of this 
 
 ii 
 
Ill 
 
 ^1' 
 
 142 
 
 ROME. 
 
 fi 
 
 palace, as it existed in any one reio-n. Palhidio, 
 whose imagination has rebuilt so many ruins, for- 
 bore from these. Panvinio tried in vain to retrace 
 the original plan. Bianchini went too far : lie 
 spent his fortune and lost his life in excavutino- 
 this ground. But were the few rooms which he 
 discovered in a corner of one quarter of the palace, 
 or the ill-connected ruins above, sufficient data to 
 restore the general design, and to allot geometri- 
 cally each part of the fabric to its imperial 
 founder? Not satisfied with the grander distri- 
 butions, and with the symmetry which he gives to 
 the whole, Bianchini boldly descends into details; 
 he fixes the guard-rooms, the oil-cellars, the wood- 
 house, cS:c., and bodies ibrth most magnificent 
 stairs without one ancient step or stone for autho- 
 rity or n^uide. 
 
 If we return from those restorers to the ruins 
 themselves, we meet a nakedness of surface, which, 
 though it may baffle our modern ideas of conve- 
 nience, displays a great variety of construction. 
 The walling is full of those blind arches, single, 
 double, or triple, interchanged with straight ones, 
 which bind and diversify all the ancient brick- 
 work. In several breaches the emplecton discovers 
 itself behind the small triangular bricks which 
 face it, and which, every four feet upwards, are 
 covered with a double course of broad ones. In 
 the vaults we see the mixture of tufo, pumice, and 
 
 WORKS OF THE EMPIRE. 
 
 143 
 
 poziZiiolana'^ which made them so light and du- 
 rable : we can even distinguish every plank of the 
 formic on which that mixture was carelessly cast. 
 In the subterranean part are still some remains of 
 the oriental marbles, the stuccos, the gold, azure, 
 and painting', which were lavished on dark apart- 
 ments or lost in the obscurity of deep courts. If 
 the basement and the baths were so rich, what 
 nuist the imperial story have been ! 
 
 The triumphal arches are too much interred for 
 the eye to decide on tlieir general proportions, or 
 their distant etlect. If the earth were removed, 
 the cohuuns, I apprehend, would lose all their 
 importance between a stylohata and an attic so 
 immoderately high. What business or what mean- 
 ing have colunms on any arch ? The statues of 
 captive kings are but a poor apology for so idle a 
 support. Ambitious to display their hero too often, 
 the multiplicity of relievos fritters their fronts into 
 compartments which lessen what they would en- 
 rich. In their spandrels are four Victories, which, 
 in representing the ancient automatons dropping 
 crowns on the conqueror, seem necessary to those 
 
 "* The Pozzuolana used by the ancients was of the black 
 ferruginous kind, which hardens instantly. Modern builders 
 prefer the red; but they seldom purge it so carefully of 
 common earth. In the catacombs I took up handfuls of 
 pozz>;nlana so very elastic that, though moist when crum- 
 bled, it never stuck to my fingers. 
 
v > 
 
 144 
 
 ROME. 
 
 WORKS OF THE EMPIRE. 
 
 145 
 
 It I' 
 
 i 
 
 mixed trianiz-les so admirably filled Lv their wino-H. 
 The ])latfbnn above was well adapted to the eiirule 
 statue. Here the triumphal car formed an his- 
 torical record : on a modern arch it is only a 
 metaphor. 
 
 Titus's arch is so rich that I can hardly think 
 it eleg'ant. The entablature, the imposts, the 
 key-stones, are all crowded with sculpture, yet 
 meagTc in profile : but it is hard to judge the 
 general effect of a mutilated thini>'. 
 
 In Septimius Seyerus's arch the composite 
 starts so often and so furiously out, the })overty 
 of its entablature meets you in so many points, as 
 to leaye no repose to tlie eye. 
 
 Constantine's arch is larger, nobler, and even 
 more correct in its architectiu'e, the only object 
 now in review : but is that architecture its own ? 
 We know that its columns, statues, and relievi, 
 are not; and we may fairly suspect that its whole 
 composition was stolen, as Constantine's reign 
 was notorious for architectural robbery. 
 
 Gallienus's arch is a mere gateway, and that of 
 Drusus seems part of an aqueduct, yet coarse as 
 they are, each has its Corinthian columns, and 
 pediments stuck upon a fraction of the fronts. 
 
 The Janus Quadrifrons is rather a comvltum 
 
 A, 
 
 than an arch, and is grand enough in its general 
 proportions to be classed among those of Donii- 
 tian ; but mean details betray a worse aoe of the 
 
 art — rows of pigmy columns divided by imposts, 
 and enormous cubes of marbles cooped and scol- 
 loped into niches. Our Gothic architects loved 
 little columns and little niches; but they seldom 
 employed large stones. 
 
 The historical columns are true to no order of 
 architecture. Trajan's has a Tuscan base and 
 capital, a Doric shaft, and a pedestal with Corin- 
 thian mouldings. That of M. Aurelius repeats 
 the same mixture; but its pedestal is restored, 
 and though higher, both in proportions and in 
 place, than Trajan's, does not associate so well 
 with its shaft. These are the only regular pedes- 
 tals that I ever remarked in Roman antiquity. 
 The pedestal, indeed, appears but a modern in- 
 vention, though probably derived from the ancient 
 sli/lobat(V, which projected sometimes under every 
 colunm. But those projections, though found in 
 admirable works, are not themselves to be ad- 
 mired ; still less is the insulated pedestal, which 
 in architecture acts as a stilt to the shaft ; and is 
 beautiful, because necessary, only under monu- 
 mental columns like these. 
 
 The spiral on these two columns gives the story 
 a continuity which horizontal rings would inter- 
 rupt : but its narrow boundary is hardly sufficient 
 to prevent the confusion which such a thron"- of 
 prominent figures and deep shadows must throw 
 on the general surface of the column. 
 

 !■ 
 
 146 
 
 ROME. 
 
 I' I 
 
 V ^1 
 
 The tombs of Augustus, and of" Adrian, a]>pear 
 at first view absurd, extravagant, beyond all mea- 
 sure of comparison with the size of a colliu, or 
 cinerary. The lower vaults of the first form a 
 circle large enough to serve for a modern amphi- 
 theatre : the second, thous^h reduced to less than 
 half its tower, has been for ao-es the citadel of 
 Rome. Augustus, indeed, raised his tomb with 
 that liberality which so many epitaphs announce, 
 to receive not himself and his relations alone, but 
 his freedmen too, and all their families. A private 
 tomb called only for a few rows of columharia ; 
 but his imperial household required circles of 
 vaults, which are all that remains of this pile. 
 Adrian built his mausoleum on the more selfish 
 plan of Cecilia Metella's. Its figure, stript of 
 ornament, was nearly the same ; its walls were 
 proportionately thick, and the interior designed 
 for a few sarcofagl. 
 
 Tlie same colossal taste ijave rise to the Coll- 
 sewn. Here, indeed, gigantic dimensions were 
 necessary ; for though hundreds could enter at 
 once, and fifty thousand find seats, the space was 
 still insufficient for Rome, and the crowd for the 
 mornin2*-2:ames be^an at midnight. 
 
 Vespasian and Titus, as if presaging their own 
 deaths, hurried the building, and left several 
 marks of their precipitancy behind. In the upper 
 walls they have inserted stones which had been 
 
 WORKS OF THE EMPIRE. 
 
 147 
 
 evidently drest for a different purpose. Some of 
 the arcades are grossly unequal : no moid ding- 
 preser\^es the same level and form round the wliole 
 ellipse, and every order is full of license. The 
 Doric has no triglyiiJis nor metopes, and its arch 
 is too low for its columns ; the Ionic repeats the 
 entablature of the Doric: the third order is but 
 a rough-cast of the Corinthian, and its foliage the 
 thickest water-plants : the fourth seems a mere 
 repetition of the third, in pilasters ; and the whole 
 is crowned by a heavy Attic. 
 
 Happily for the Coliseum, the shape necessary 
 to an amphitheatre has given it a stability of con- 
 struction sufficient to resist fires, and earthquakes, 
 and lightning, and sieges. Its elliptical form was 
 the hoop which bound and held it entire till bar- 
 barians rent that consolidating ring. Popes widen- 
 ed the breach, and time, not unassisted, continues 
 the work of dilapidation. At this moment the 
 hermitage is threatened with a dreadful crash, 
 and a generation not very remote must be content, 
 I apprehend, with tlie jjicture of this stupendous 
 monument. Of the interior elevation, two slopes, 
 by some called meniana, are already demolished ; 
 the are7ia, the podium , are i nterred. No member 
 runs entire round the whole ellipse; but every 
 member made such a circuit, and re-appears so 
 often, that plans, sections, and elevations of the 
 original work are drawn with the precision of a 
 modern fabric. l 2 
 
 
f^i 
 
 u 
 
 148 
 
 ROME. 
 
 < < 
 
 I i 
 
 
 If ^ 
 
 When the whole amphitheatre was entire, a 
 child might comprehend its desijrn in a moment, 
 and go direct to his place without straying in the 
 porticos, for each arcade hears its numher en- 
 graved, and opposite to every fourth arcade was a 
 staircase. This multiplicity of wide, straight, and 
 separate passages, proves the attention which the 
 ancients paid to the safe discharge of a crowd ; it 
 finely illustrates the precept of Vitruvius,* and 
 exposes the perplexity of some modern theatres. 
 
 Every nation has undergone its revolution of 
 vices ; and, as cruelty is not the present vice of 
 ours, we can all humanely execrate the purpose 
 of amphitheatres, now that they lie in ruins. Mo- 
 ralists may tell us that the truly hrave are never 
 cruel ; hut this monument says " No." Here sat 
 the conquerors of the world, coolly to enjov the 
 tortures and death of men who had never olfended 
 them. Two aqueducts were scarcely sufficient to 
 wash off the human blood which a few hours' sport 
 shed in this imperial shambles. Twice in one day 
 came the senators and matrons of Rome to the 
 butchery ; a virgin always gave the signal for 
 slaughter, and when glutted with bloodshed, those 
 
 * Ailitus complures et spatiosos oportet disponere, nee 
 conjunctus superiores iuferioribus, sed ex omnibus locis 
 peri^tuos et directos sine inveisuris faciendos, ut, cum 
 populus dimittitur de spectaculis, ne comprimatur, sed 
 habcat omnibus locis exitus separates sine impeditione. 
 
 Ll 
 
 WORKS OF THE EMTIRE. 
 
 149 
 
 ladies sat down in the wet and streaminir arence 
 to a luxurious supjoer. 
 
 Such reflections check our regret for its ruin. 
 As it now stands, the Coliseum is a strikinir ima^-e 
 of Rome itself: — decayed — vacant — serious — yet 
 grand ; — half grey and half green — erect on one 
 side and fallen on the other, with consecrated 
 ground in its bosom — inhabited by a beadsman ; 
 visited by every cast ; for moralists, antiquaries, 
 painters, architects, devotees, all meet here to 
 meditate, to examine, to draw, to measure, and 
 to pray. " In contemplating antiquities," says 
 Livy, " the mind itself becomes antique." It 
 contracts from such objects a venerable rust, 
 which I prefer to the polish and the point of 
 those wits who have lately profaned this august 
 ruin with ridicule. 
 
 The only circus sufficiently entire to show 
 what a circus was, is called Caracalla's. Thouirh 
 menier in construction than Caracalla's acknow- 
 ledged works, it is admired for its plan, the direc- 
 tion of its spi/ia^ and the curve employed at the 
 " tequo carcere," to secure a fair start for the cars. 
 
 Annexed to this circus is a spacious court, 
 which some call Caesar's miitatorunn^ and others 
 an appurtenance of the circle itself Its form, 
 however, is very unlike the figure inscribed mv- 
 TATORivM in the ancient plan of Rome, and unfit 
 for any purpose yet assigned to that name. With 
 
 w 
 
150 
 
 ROME. 
 
 the circus itself it had no communication, as it 
 opened only on the Appian way. I should rather, 
 for the following; reasons, suppose it a serapeon. 
 Whatever constituted a serapeon is to he found 
 here — a rectani^ular court — one narrow entrance 
 — a portico within — a round temple in the middle 
 — and, luuler that, a subterranean cell necessary 
 to the En^yptian mysteries. Rufus and Victor 
 place the temples of Serapis and Isis in this very 
 region, and point very near to this spot.* If the 
 circus adjoining; be really Caracalla's, it gives ad- 
 ditional probability to this opinion, for Caracalla 
 was a great adorer of Serapis, went on pilgrimage 
 to his shrine, and erected temples for his worship. 
 
 To this ])eriod belong most of the haths. 
 
 The baths of Titus, which are confounded, I 
 suspect, with his palace, were the first gallery of 
 ancient painting that was restored to the world. 
 
 * " Apiul rivulum Alraonera, Serapidis, et Isidis aedem — 
 qiii interfliiit E^eriam vallem, et vergit iu Appiam viam." 
 In the Museum Capitolinum is an altar which was found 
 near this spot, and thus inscribed : 
 
 I. O. M. 
 
 Serapidi 
 
 Scipio Orfitus V. C. 
 
 Augur 
 
 Voti compos redditus. 
 
 The Jewish rites, which were banished out of the /;o- 
 
 mferium at the same time with the Egyptian, perched on 
 
 this very neighbourhood.' 
 
 WORKS OF THE EMPIRE. 
 
 151 
 
 But the subterranean saloons are now for the 
 second time buried in the Esquiline, and most 
 of the pictures which remain visible are injured 
 by the water oozing down from the incumbent 
 gardens. 
 
 Some of the ruins above ground rise up to the 
 vaulting of their alcoves ; but none show their 
 specific relation to a bath, except the Sette Sale, 
 the construction of which proves that it was nei- 
 ther a nymphcpuni, nor a topidarium, nor any 
 thing but a reservoir ; and proves, too, how well 
 the ancients understood hydrostatics. The stucco, 
 like that of all resenoirs and castella, is mottled 
 with fine stains, and hard enough for the turning 
 of iron, which could only arise from the tartareous 
 penetration of the water. 
 
 Caracalla's baths show how magnificent a coarse 
 rufhan may be. The very dim.ensions of that hall 
 which they call the Cella Solearis* convince me 
 that Spartianus does not exaggerate its embel- 
 Hshments. Those temples, and academies, and 
 exhedrce which remain were but the out-works to 
 
 * Why not rather the Cella Soliaris ? Solium, whether 
 taken for a bathing-vase or for a throne, would surely be 
 more proper than a slipper to designate such a hall. We 
 know that thousands ot such vases made of the finest marble 
 stood in tiiese very baths; and we may conclude that the 
 throne, which followed the emperors to the theatre, and 
 gave its name to a part of it, had also a place in this im- 
 perial establishment. 
 
 *' 
 
152 
 
 ROME. 
 
 WORKS OF THE EMriRE. 
 
 153 
 
 the thermal part. Mosaic was diffused here as a 
 general flooring. I followed it on the steps of a 
 broken staircase, up to the very summit. I found 
 the tessellation entire even where the pavement 
 had sunk, and had left round the room a vacancv, 
 which was filled with a skirting of flowered ala- 
 baster. Variegated marbles now succeeded to 
 fresco-painting, which had spread, during the 
 three Flavian reigns, from the palace to the stable. 
 Indeed such was the rage for variegation, that 
 plain marbles were stained or inlaid, and spots 
 were incrusted on the spotted : hence their pavo- 
 nine beds and pantherine tables. 
 
 Diocletian's baths run into the same vastness 
 of dimension as his palace at Spalatro : but here 
 I saw nothing so classical or grand as the Plnaco- 
 iheca, restored by the genius of Michael Angelo. 
 The round structures, whether balnea or cxhcdrce, 
 are sufficiently entire to serve for churches and 
 granaries. But the general plan of these baths 
 being confounded by the contradictory plans of 
 two convents, being crossed by roads and encum- 
 bered by vineyards, is now less obvious than that 
 of Caracalla's ruins, which seem to have been 
 better distributed, and stand in a fine advan- 
 tageous solitude. 
 
 These baths, co-existing with others of equal 
 extent, will appear too extravanrantly lar^e even 
 for " the most high and palmy state of Rome," 
 
 until we reflect on the various exercises connected 
 with the bath, on the habits of the people, the 
 heat of the climate, the rarity of linen, and the 
 cheapness of bathing, which brought hither the 
 whole population of the city. 
 
 The walls of those baths run so generally into 
 ahsides, that some lovers of system can see no- 
 thing but baths in the temple of Venus and 
 Rome, in the great temple of Peace, in short in 
 every ruin where they find such alcoves. But 
 the alcove appears fully as frequent in the ruins 
 of the Imperial palace, and of all the ancient villas 
 that I have seen. Vitruvius makes it a consti- 
 tuent part of every basilica ; we can trace it in 
 the plan of the Emilian. In fact, the alcove seems 
 rather an imitation of the Pra?torian tent than any 
 thing peculiar to a bath. 
 
 To combine the scattered remains of those 
 baths, to distribute their interior, to give light to 
 every apartment, and find out offices for them all, 
 would puzzle any regular surveyor ; but what 
 can daunt antiquaries? Determined to restore 
 whatever is lost or dismembered, they bring in 
 books to rebuild ruins, they fly to Vitruvius or 
 Lucian, they rake up the mixed biographical 
 rub])ish of the Augustan histories, and from this 
 chaos of discordant elements they evoke a crea- 
 tion of their own. 
 
 The 'porticos^ like the baths, embraced a variety 
 
154 
 
 ROME. 
 
 of objects, such as temples, schools, libraries; but 
 nothing certain of this kind remains except the 
 elegant Corinthian vestibule of Octavia's. Per- 
 haps the fine columns in the Piazza di Pietra 
 and some of tliose in the Campo Vaccino belonged 
 also to this class. Porticos were so numerous in 
 this period, and so generally colonnaded, that we 
 are probably obliged to them for half the ancient 
 columns that subsist. 
 
 The brick remains of this period, though infe- 
 rior to the stone in character and effect, are far 
 more general and more entire, for the ancient 
 bricks imbibed the cement so intimately, that they 
 break rather than separate. Of those works, the 
 round bear a much greater proportion to the 
 quadrangular now, than when both were entire. 
 Most of the ancient edifices now subsistins: as 
 churches are round. In mixed constructions, the 
 circular part of the walls has resisted time much 
 better than the flat ; and of the roofs nothing re- 
 mains that is not referable to the circle. The 
 circular form, though destructive of regularity in 
 a private house, saves ground, prevents confusion, 
 and cuts off useless corners in a public edifice. 
 Beautiful in itself, it needs less decoration than 
 flat surfaces : it is more capacious than angular 
 forms of equal perimeter, and more commodious 
 for any assembly, whether met for worship, or 
 sport, or deliberation. 
 
 WORKS OF THE EMPIRE. 
 
 155 
 
 The remains of this period discover an increas- 
 ing partiality for the Corinthian order. Apply- 
 ing it to every variety of erection, the Romans 
 were obliged to seek a corresponding variety in 
 its ornament and style. For variety, they en- 
 riched the capitals with the olive, the laurel, the 
 acanthus, or the thistle, in foliage very differently 
 disposed. For variety, they brought griffins, 
 eagles, cornucopite, and other emblems into the 
 volutes. In the entablatures may be found every 
 variety of moulding : and what is the Composite* 
 order but another variety of the Corinthian ? In 
 the Pantheon, in the Campo Vaccino, the Capi- 
 tol, the Sacred Way, every where in Rome, have 
 they left us a richer Corinthian than can be found 
 in Greece, where that order seems to have been 
 rare. 
 
 The Ionic, on the contrary, has rather degene- 
 rated here. Too meagre at the Coliseum, too 
 clumsy for its entablature at Marcellus's Theatre, 
 irregular, nay, unequal at the Temple of Concord, 
 full of disproportions in that of Fortuna Virilis, 
 (I mean the stucco entablature which it received 
 
 * Vitruvius never mentions the Composite as a distinct 
 order. He only hints at composition which may be resolved 
 perhaps into a confusion of orders; but this, if we adhere 
 too strictly to his rules, would embrace half the ancient 
 architecture extant, beginuinj^ with his own denticulated 
 Doric at the Theatre of Marcellus; //that theatre was 
 really built by Vitruvius. 
 
 *1 
 
1' 
 
 156 
 
 ROME. 
 
 during the empire) no where in Rome is it com- 
 parable to the Ionic of the Erecthcon, which, had 
 Its capital a similar vnhite, mig-ht be proposed as 
 the canon of* this beautiful order. 
 
 The Doric appears here in very few monuments, 
 and so latinized that we lose the original order. 
 In the Roman temples columns were a mere de- 
 coration, or, at most, supported the pediment 
 alone. In the Grecian, they formed an inteirral 
 I)art of the edifice ; not eng-anred in the wall, but 
 rather the wall itself. Hence arose a necessary 
 difference in their proportions. At Rome, the 
 ancient Doric is about 7^ diameters. At Athens, 
 the greatest height of the column is but 6, at 
 Pestum 4^, at Corinth only 4. 
 
 Of the order called Tuscan, nothing is to be 
 found in these, nor, I believe, in any ruins. The 
 total disappearance of this order I would impute 
 to its own rules. In Tuscan edifices, the inter- 
 columniations were so wide, that wood became 
 necessary to form the architrave, and a mixture 
 of brick rendered the whole fabric more destruc- 
 tible. Vitruvius found the Tuscan existing only 
 in antiquated temples. It afterwards yielded to 
 the taste for Greek, and the chief ruins in Italy 
 are of the orders most remote from the Tuscan 
 proportions. 
 
 The Attic, which, notwithstanding its name, is 
 an Italian order, intrudes upon the noblest monu- 
 
 W^ORKS OF THE EMPIRE. 
 
 157 
 
 ments of Rome, as the Pantheon, the Coliseum, 
 the triumphal arches, the temple of Pallas, &c., 
 and was more general, I suspect, than we can 
 calculate from ruins ; for in every ruin the Attic 
 would be the first part to disappear. This bastard 
 order, or rather accessory, seems too ignoble to 
 surmount the Corinthian. Its proportions and 
 its place are ever at variance. Somelimes it may 
 hide a roof, but then, unfortunately, it crowns 
 the elevation. 
 
 The Romans now began to accunmlate dif- 
 ferent orders on the same pile. We see four at 
 the Coliseum. Each of the Scptizonia had seven, 
 and though these structures have disappeared, 
 perhaps, in cousecpience of this very accumulation, 
 we may estimate tlieir probable etfect from the 
 leaning tower of Pisa, and a poor effect it is. 
 The very nature of the orders seems to forbid 
 their association. Admit only two on the same 
 front, and suppress, if you will, the unnecessary 
 cornice of the first ; still the upper cornice will, of 
 necessity, be either too large ibr its own column, 
 or too small for the general elevation. 
 
 ^^1 
 
1 ' 
 
 158 
 
 ROME. 
 
 WORKS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 Ahi Constantiu ! di qiianto mal fu madre, 
 Non la tua conversion, ma quella dote 
 Che date prese il primo ricco Fadre! — Dante. 
 
 CoNSTANTiNE fouiided schools for architecture 
 here ; but the architects he employed on his new 
 creation in Thrace. Ambitious that Rome should 
 appear but the second city of his empire, he 
 abandoned its ancient edifices to ruin, or to rob- 
 ber>-, or to the chiux'h. The church, buildino- for 
 a new reliirion, introduced a new style of archi- 
 tecture, or rather a new corruption of the old; the 
 creature of occasion, cobbling its hasilicas out of 
 temples and tombs. 
 
 These basilicas are sfenerally regarded as copies 
 of the old Roman Basilica, perhaps from bearing 
 its name : yet the name traced historically leads 
 to no such conclusion. A basilica seems at first 
 to have been part of a palace. It is sometimes 
 represented as a simple portico. It then included 
 the buildings which were afterwards annexed. 
 Some of those buildings, which had sen ed as ba- 
 siliccc for law and trade, became places of worship 
 to the primitive Christians ; and the first churches 
 that were erected expressly for that worship. 
 
 WORKS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 159 
 
 erected perhaps on the site of some ancient ba- 
 silica', retained the same name. But do these 
 churches coincide with Vitruvius's description of 
 his own basilica ? have they double porticos on 
 the four sides ? have they an upper gallery to re- 
 present the jjluteiis ? was the chalcidicum open 
 like our transepts ? was it not every where else a 
 hall ? Is there any thing like a transept in the 
 Emilian basilica carved out on the old plan of 
 Rome ? Is there any thing like the walls of a 
 church, or any walls, in that plan, or on the coin, 
 or in Vitruvius's details ? And was an open Ex- 
 change, then, a fit model for the house of God ? 
 
 The plan of these basilicas is excellent in the 
 abstract. Most churches, Gothic or modern, are 
 complicate in proportion as they are grand. You 
 must go ro/ind and round them bel'ore you can 
 collect their symmetry and composition. Here, 
 on the contrary, the aisles are divided by single 
 columns ; the side altars are not closeted off; you 
 comprehend at one view both the design and the 
 dimensions. This simplicity of plan leaves the 
 mind in repose at any point of view, yet diversi- 
 fies the picture at every step. 
 
 Their plan, however, is too large for the eleva- 
 tion, too wide for the thickness of their walls and 
 columns, too economical in the supports. If the 
 heiffht of the columns, which generally formed 
 four rows, were to determine that of the pile, the 
 
IGO 
 
 ROME. 
 
 whole would be disproportionately low and dark. 
 To obviate this fault, tlie entablature due to a 
 colonnade was suppressed, arches rose above the 
 shafts, and high walls and windows above the 
 arches. But where columns stand so close, the 
 arch must be pitifully small ; the walls piled above 
 this slender support make the nave too lofty for 
 the aisles ; the front also suffers from this dispro- 
 portion, and looks, in some basilicas, like an old 
 church set upon a modern house. Wherever the 
 plan is unfit, in building upon it you may exchange 
 one fault for another, but a fault nuist remain. 
 
 St. John Latcran was built by Constantine in 
 the precincts of his own palace, and became part 
 of the rich endowment which Dante laments in 
 the motto. But Borroniini has been here, and 
 robed us of the basilica. The old architecture 
 of the church lies concealed in the modern, its 
 imperial columns, too weak to sustain the load of 
 additions, are now buried in the heart of sacrile- 
 gious pillars : these pillars actually start out into 
 niches : every niche holds a prophet : and a new 
 band of white saints and apostles besieges the 
 front of this imfortunate pile : 
 
 Egreglas Laterauuium obsidet aedes 
 
 Tota cohors. 
 
 Tlie adjoining Baptistery discovers more of its 
 original form and materials. This imperial work. 
 
 WORKS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 161 
 
 being the first of its kind, became the model and 
 type of the catholic baptisteries, and prescribed 
 its polygonal form to all. Prescription is, for 
 good reasons, a very high authority among priests. 
 They pretend that Constantine himself was bap- 
 tized here ; but what a multitude of lies has the 
 Roman church told, and made the fine arts re- 
 peat, on that doubtful character ! Built in an 
 age when converts loent down in crowds to be bap- 
 tized, this edifice blends the temple with the bath. 
 Hence its central and grand object is the font : 
 hence, too, the font is sunk below the pavement, 
 and large enough for the total immersion of 
 adults. Like all Constantine's works, this is but 
 a compilation of classical spoils : a mere thief of 
 antiquity. How august must the temple have 
 been which resigned those two stupendous co- 
 lumns of porphyry, to patch the brick-wall of this 
 ecclesiastical farrago ! 
 
 St. Paul's, though founded by Constantine, is, 
 in its present state, the work of Honorius ; often 
 repaired, but not altered, like the Lateran. The 
 columns which support it, particularly those of 
 the nave, are admired for their marble, their pro- 
 portions, and their purpose. Here indeed they 
 are aliens, removed, it is said, from Adrian's tomb, 
 and forced into these aisles as a matter of con- 
 venience. Such beauty as theirs was too natural : 
 it was not difficult or confused enough to be ad- 
 
 M 
 
162 
 
 ROME. 
 
 I 
 
 mired in this monkish period. But pass into the 
 cloister, and you will find other columns, true 
 natives of the place, tortured into every variety 
 of ugliness ; some spiral, some twisted, some 
 doubly twisted, some spiral and twisted at once, 
 with the hideous addition of inlay. 
 
 The chancel of this church terminates in a larce 
 absis or alcove, which is crowned with a mosaic 
 of the fifth century, exhibiting a few grim old 
 saints on an azure and gold ground. A model so 
 glaring, so grotesque, so imperial, could not es- 
 cape the ambition of succeeding church-builders. 
 Some Greek artists propagated the taste through 
 Tuscany and Venice, and the art itself was prac- 
 tised by monks; but what a stride from their 
 bespangled works to the modern mosaics of St. 
 Peter's ! 
 
 So admirable is the effect of insulated columns 
 and of a circular plan, that all the barbarisms of 
 that ambiguous temple, or church, or bath, or 
 market-place, called Santo Stefano Rotondo, can- 
 not defeat it. Those ill-set and ill-assorted co- 
 lumns, that hideous well in the roof, that tower 
 of Babel in the middle, that slaughter-house of 
 saints painted round the wall ; all those are dis- 
 armed and lose the power of disgusting : for the 
 very plan alone fascinates the mind with the full 
 perception of unity, of a whole varied but not 
 concealed ; while the two circles of the peristyles 
 
 WORKS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 163 
 
 change their combinations at every step, and the 
 shadows projected from one luminous orb play 
 fancifully on the pavement. A third ring of 
 columns is lost in the walls. So many concentric 
 circles would render any structure too dark ex- 
 cept an open colonnade, which, I apprehend, was 
 the original state of the edifice : but then how 
 immoderately unequal must the intercolumnia- 
 tions have been, if all the columns radiated from 
 a common centre ! 
 
 Sr. Constantia' s is another round and ambi- 
 guous church, or baptistery, or temple, or mau- 
 soleum; where a circle of coupled columns pro- 
 duce, but in a less degree, the effect which I 
 have just admired. 
 
 St". Agnese, St". Maria in Trastevere, and San 
 Lorenzo^ were built early in this period. They 
 all retain their basilical forms, all are supported 
 by multifarious columns, which, though forced 
 from more beautiful temples into the Christian 
 service, have been thus preserved to show us the 
 caprices of ancient architecture ; such as flutings 
 within flutings on the shafts, Jupiters carved on 
 the abacus, and lizards and frogs in the volutes. 
 Santa Croce, Sarita Maria Maggiore, and 
 others of equal antiquity, have lost their original 
 forms in a succession of repairs, and leave us 
 nothing to remark under this head, except, per- 
 haps, some rich tessellated pavement referable to 
 the founders. m 2 
 
 n. 
 
I 
 
 
 164 
 
 ROME. 
 
 These basilicas had probably been built before 
 the points of the compass became a point of reli- 
 gion ; for several of their chancels stand in a 
 western direction. So superstitious are some of 
 the Gothic churches in this particular, that where 
 their walls deviate by necessity from the east and 
 west line, the spine of the vault is observed to 
 incline to that side of the chancel where the 
 east lies. 
 
 Rome was always preser\'ed from the Gothic 
 taste which reij^ned in the north of Italy during 
 this period. Indeed, architecture, acting by rules 
 and measures which require no genius to observe 
 them, would not decline so rapidly as her sister- 
 arts in a city full of Vitruvian structures. The 
 very ruins of Rome supplied both models and 
 materials which kept the Romans within the pale 
 of their ancient architecture. Some approaches 
 to the Gothic struck me at the papal altars of 
 St. Paul's and the Lateran ; but those yiyramidal, 
 turreted and notched erections can be regarded 
 only as the furniture of the church, and their 
 columns or their arches give them a certain mix- 
 ture of Latinity. 
 
 To this head we may perhaps refer the Cata- 
 combs ; for though excavated during the empire 
 as quarries of tufo, yet, when they afterwards 
 gave retreat to the living and the dead, they as- 
 sumed certain forms of habitation which retrace 
 the state of art during this period. 
 
 i 
 
 MODERN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 165 
 
 The catacombs run into long, low, narrow gal- 
 leries, nearly parallel, and generally ending in a 
 lapse of earth or in stagnant water. Those gal- 
 leries are intersected by others at oblique angles, 
 and where they cross, the corner is supported by 
 masonry. At St. Sebastian's, the largest and 
 once the richest of them all, there are two stories 
 of catacombs, and in each of these is a kind of 
 master-line. The chambers or chapels are all 
 square, with arched recesses and rectangular gaps 
 both in the walls and flooring to receive coffins. 
 Wherever there are columns the orders are coarse. 
 Indeed, nothing beautiful could be expected in 
 such a place, and among persecuted men. The 
 paintings exhibit a medley of the two religions 
 which were then in conflict. In the midst of 
 scripture subjects sits Orpheus among the brutes. 
 Wherever Christ performs a miracle he employs 
 a wand, like Moses at the rock. 
 
 i 
 
 MODERN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 Loco si vede raro 
 
 Di gran fabbrlca, e bella, e ben iutesa. 
 
 Ariosto. 
 
 Man, though the child of imitation, imitates with 
 reluctance : his ambition, as an artist, is to in- 
 vent. In architecture, however, the grand ob- 
 
166 
 
 ROME. 
 
 MODERN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 167 
 
 jeets of invention are anticipated ; the constitu- 
 tive parts and proportions are already fixed ; the 
 mind must circulate round these, and be satis- 
 fied with innovating" only in combinations. The 
 artist must recur to the models established in his 
 art, and from them he derives notions of excel- 
 lence which confine him but the more. He 
 cannot safely depart from those models ; yet he 
 grudges every approach that he makes. His 
 poverty but not his will consents. Whatever he 
 steals he disfigures : he changes the scale, he 
 transposes the parts, he tries to efface the mark 
 of the original master, and inserts something of 
 his own to conceal the theft. No other principle 
 can account to me for the degenerate architec 
 ture of a city which contains the Pantheon, or 
 why artists should daily borrow the details of 
 that edifice, and never adopt the simplicity of its 
 design. 
 
 The ancients seem to have excelled us more in 
 architecture than in painting, or even in sculp- 
 ture. They trusted to magnitude and design for 
 the effects which we seek in ornament. It is 
 perhaps the misfortune of modern Rome to have 
 employed painters and sculptors too often as her 
 architects. Michael Angelo injured some of his 
 edifices by a passion for the awful and the sin- 
 gular; Bernini, by his addiction to the brilliant 
 and the ingenious ; Pietro da Cortona, by a lux- 
 
 uriance and prodigality of composition ; Dome- 
 nichino is charged with some licenses of the pic- 
 turesque ; Julio Romano built more chastely 
 than these ; his master Raphael built but little, 
 and little of what he did build subsists. 
 
 Architecture is more a science than her sister 
 arts;* more fixed in her principles, less sus- 
 
 * Though usually classed with Painting and Sculpture, 
 it may be questioned whether Architecture be, like them, 
 one of the fine arts. A fine art appears to me to imply the 
 faculty of inventing, and embellishing, and expressing, or 
 imitating whatever can affect the moral or intellectual 
 powers of man. Now, as this can be done only through 
 the medium of words, or of forms, or of both, perhaps the 
 fine arts may, in relation to these mediums, be reduced to 
 three — 1. Poetry, including Oratory — 2. Painting and 
 Sculpture, as the joint arts of design — ^3. The Histrionic 
 Art. 
 
 Poetry and Oratory, having the same powers, the same 
 vehicle, the same object, and being separated by limits 
 vhich are neither necessary nor ascertained, may be con- 
 sidered as branches of the same art ; an art which ex- 
 cludes history, ethics, and every exertion of language that 
 can neither invent nor embellish. 
 
 Painting and Sculpture, though they work with different 
 tools and upon different materials, have ultimately the same 
 object, and the same faculty of speaking, by the imitation 
 of forms, both to the memory and the imagination, to the 
 judgment and the affections. Their limits are more dis- 
 tinct than those of Poetry and Oratory, yet not absohite ; 
 for relievo goes far into the system of Painting, and both 
 are often blended in the same object of imitation. 
 
 But has Architecture the same powers, or the same 
 
I 
 
 J 
 
 168 
 
 ROME. 
 
 ceptible of increase or alteration than these, and 
 rather the subject of rules than of fancy. Of her 
 three cardinal virtues, stability is the object of 
 science alone ; conveniency, of good sense; and 
 beauty, of taste : but taste is perhaps as nearly 
 allied to reason as to sentiment, though it has 
 no common measure with either. 
 
 I do not, indeed, admire the philosophy which 
 has lately broken into architecture, nor the con- 
 tempt which some affect for Vitruvius. I would 
 not subvert the authority of example ; nor be 
 too severe on the ancient superstitions of the art. 
 Their very antiquity, if it does not satisfy our 
 reason, has a charm over the fancy ; and they fill 
 up a space, which our reverence for what is old 
 
 end ? Architecture may serve as a base to Sculpture and 
 Paintin^r j but can it, like them, create a fiction or tell a 
 story ? can it imitate like them ? is it an imitative Art at all ? 
 if it be, what are its prototypes but a cottage or a cavern ? 
 Architecture may affect the soul with admiration and evea 
 with awe. A temple or a palace may strike us as sublime; 
 but so does a ship of war under sail ; yet is ship-carpentry 
 therefore classed among the fine arts ? 
 
 The Histrionic Art, though not so elemental as the other 
 two, differs from both, and yet combines them. From 
 Poetry it borrows words ; from the arts of design, decora- 
 tion. Its own vehicle is motion and speech. Motion con- 
 nects it with dancing (in the latitude which Lucian gives 
 to this art) ; speech, with music. But dancing and music 
 appear only as accessories to the histrionic art, and derive 
 all their dignity from that connexion. 
 
 MODERN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 169 
 
 would make it difficult for a reformer to fill up 
 more pleasingly. A second order of columns on 
 a lofty edifice, a pilaster on the face of an arcade, 
 an entablature under a vault, a pediment over an 
 altar, all these, rigorously considered, may be 
 thought superfluous or even improper; but though 
 we may still blame their abuse, who shall now 
 dare to proscribe what is found here in the work 
 of every age and of every architect ? 
 
 In Rome, however, the darling fault of archi- 
 tecture is excess of ornament ; an excess more 
 licentious in the sacred buildings than in the pro- 
 fane, and in sacred buildings most licentious in 
 the most sacred part. Every where you see orna- 
 ment making great edifices look little, by subdi- 
 viding their general surfaces into such a multitude 
 of members as prevents the eye from re-combining 
 them. Sometimes, indeed, those decorations may 
 favour neighbouring defects ; as the jewels of an 
 ugly dowager kindly divert us from her face.* 
 
 The churches are admirable only in detail. 
 Their materials are rich, the workmanship exqui- 
 
 * The love of finery, however, is oflen the property of the 
 sloven. Those very artists, who labour their mouldings 
 with pedantic precision, leave the holes of their scaffolding 
 in the walls. This practice may plead the example of an- 
 cient brick ruins. On the Palatine and at the Baths are 
 rows of such holes wherever the walls are lofty ; but traces 
 of a scaffold suggest only the idea of an unfinished work, 
 or the expectation of repairs. 
 
170 
 
 ROME. 
 
 MODERN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 171 
 
 site, the orders all Greek. Every entablature is 
 adjusted to the axis of each column with a ma- 
 thematical scrupulosity which is lost to the eye. 
 One visionary line runs upward, bisecting super- 
 stitiously every shaft, triglyph, ove, bead, dentil, 
 mutule, modilliou, lion's head that lies iu its 
 way. — But how are those orders employed ? In 
 false fronts, which, rising into two stages of 
 columns, promise two stories within—in jjedi- 
 ments under pediments, and in segments of pedi- 
 ments — in cornices for ever broken by projections 
 projecting from projections— in columns, and pi- 
 lasters, and fractions of pilasters, grouped round 
 one pillar. Thus Grecian beauties are clustered 
 by Goths : thus capitals and bases are coupled, 
 or crushed, or confounded in each other ; and 
 shafts rise from the same level to different heights, 
 some to the architrave, and some only to the im- 
 post. Ornaments for ever interrupt or conceal 
 ornaments: accessories are multiplied till they 
 absorb the principal : the universal fkult is the 
 too many and the too much. 
 
 Few churches in the city show more than their 
 fronts externally. Their rude sides are generally 
 screened by contiguous buildings, and their tiled 
 roof by a false pediment, which, rising to an im- 
 moderate height above the ridge, leads to certain 
 disappointment when you enter. Every front 
 should be true to the interior. In the ancient 
 
 temple this principle was religiously obser\'ed, and 
 the pediment resting on a colonnade, became, as 
 genius willed it, either beautiful or grand ; but 
 so simple a polygon would neither suit nor con- 
 ceal the vaults and aisles of a Roman church. 
 
 Those aisles, shelving out under the side win- 
 dows, give rise to a series of connected faults. 
 First, two orders of columns become necessary in 
 front, and make it " a splendid lie."— Then, the 
 lower order must extend on each side beyond the 
 upper, in order to cover the aisles. To palliate 
 their inequality, the upper order is flanked by two 
 huge, reversed consoles, like inverted eiirs, pro- 
 ducing a mixed polygon, a vicious outline both 
 straight and curved, more fit for joinery than for 
 regular architecture. The Romans seem fondest 
 of those fronts where most columns can be stuck 
 and most angles projected. Some, as Sf*. Maria 
 in Portico, the Propaganda Fede, &c., are bent 
 out and in, like brackets. Quadrangular fronts, 
 like those of St. Peter's, the Lateran, &c., are 
 fitter for a palace than for a church. How speci- 
 fically truer is the old Gothic front which admits 
 but one large window similar in form to the front 
 itself ! 
 
 The belfries are generally composed of stories 
 formed by the ancient orders. But the belfry is 
 an object unknown to the ancients. It is of Gothic, 
 or rather of Moorish origin. Springing out of that 
 
 I 
 
172 
 
 ROME. 
 
 spiry architecture, it tends naturally to the lofty, 
 and therefore should not be crossed by horizontal 
 divisions, but spun upwards in narrow, length- 
 ening members. In fact, the belfry will never har- 
 monize with any work that imitates a temple. 
 
 The cupolas are built entirely of brick, and 
 generally rest on four concave pannels. An Ita- 
 lian cupola is in itself a fine object, and opens to 
 Painting a new region, new principles, and eflfects 
 unknown to the ancients ; but its drum, being 
 narrower than the church, is adjusted to it by 
 segments of intersecting vaults, which are rather 
 airy than grand. 
 
 Some churches, as those twins in the Piazza 
 del Popolo, those at Trajan's column, &c., seem 
 constructed for their cupolas alone. Their fronts 
 will admit but one order of columns, and so essen- 
 tial is simplicity to their plan, that they are beau- 
 tiful inversely as they are rich. To the cupola- 
 form we may refer also the Corsini, Borghese, and 
 Perretti chapels, which some admire even for the 
 architecture ; but more, I suspect, for the sculpture 
 and precious materials of their tombs and altars. 
 
 The Palaces are built rather for the spectator 
 than for the tenant. Hence the elevation is more 
 studied than the plan. Some are mere fronts 
 " Facciate (said a friend of mine) con mobilia e 
 quadri dietro." Tlieir fronts, too, are so crowded 
 with stories, that the mansion of a prince often 
 
 MODERN ARCIIITFXTURE. 
 
 173 
 
 suggests the idea of a lodging-house. The lower 
 range of windows is grated like a gaol : the upper 
 are divided by wretched mezzanines. Where 
 different orders are piled in front, which is fortu- 
 nately rare, their natural succession is seldom ob- 
 served ; it may be seen even reversed. The gate- 
 way, with the balcony and its superstructure, 
 generally forms an architectural picture at discord 
 with the style of the palace, and breaks its front 
 into unconnected parts. This is conspicuous at 
 Monte Cavallo, Monte Citorio, &c. In private 
 palaces, it forms the grand scene of family pride, 
 which makes strange havoc on the pediments. 
 Sometimes the armorial bearings break even into 
 the capitals of columns ; as the eagle at the Gius- 
 tiniani palace, the flower-de-luce at the PanjilL 
 This last edifice, though the finest of the four 
 which belong to Prince Doria, has been erected in 
 contradiction to the first elements of the art : its 
 corners are pared round, and the corners of the 
 windows, to sympathize in absurdity, are filled up 
 with mouldings which break the rectangle, and 
 remind us of swallows' nests. 
 
 Wherever the palace forms a court, the porticos 
 below are composed of arches resting on single 
 columns. This jumble of arcade and colonnade, 
 of two architectures different even in origin, was 
 imknown to the ancients, and crept first into the 
 basilical churches from economy in building, and 
 
174 
 
 ROME. 
 
 MODERN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 175 
 
 from a command of ancient columns. Its liirht- 
 ness will not compensate a certain look of insta- 
 bility, which arises from truncated arches and in- 
 terrupted forms. Coupled columns, like those of 
 the Borghese palace, rather extenuate than remove 
 the defect : they lose just half their own beauty, 
 and in widening the vacuum of an arch, they 
 only tend to destroy the equilibrium of the mass 
 supported. 
 
 You enter the palace in search of the Vitruvian 
 decorum. A staircase of unexpected grandeur, 
 usurping perhaps more than its proportion of the 
 interior, tends both to expand and to ventilate the 
 mansion. Its grandeur does not consist in those 
 quaint, difficult, incommodious curves which only 
 show the wit of our stone-cutting architects, and 
 frighten people with the appearance of unsup- 
 ported weight. Here you always ascend by a few 
 flights, straight, easy, and wide, but sometimes 
 tremendously long, which lead to the Sala, 
 
 The Sala is the common hall of the palace, and 
 if the prince has the right of canopy, here stand s 
 the throne fenced with a rail. Its ceiling opens 
 a wide field for fresco, and, being loftier than all 
 the apartments on the same floor, it leaves in the 
 intermediate height a range of low rooms, which 
 give rise to vicious mezzanines. 
 
 From this great hall, when it occupies the 
 middle of the first floor, you command the palace 
 
 in different directions, and can pierce it at a 
 glance through lengthening files of marble door- 
 posts. In the distribution of the houses the grand 
 object is the picturesque. Nothing is done for the 
 comfortable, a term unknown to the Italian lan- 
 guage, and a state unfelt in a hot country. Even 
 in England, where it is most studied and best 
 understood, the comfortable is rather a winter- 
 idea and a winter-feeling. 
 
 The Villas are to this day the " ocelli Italiae." 
 Their casinos generally stand to advantage in the 
 park. Light, gay, airy, fanciful, they seem to 
 court that load of ornament to which all architec- 
 ture must here submit. Some of their fronts are 
 coated with ancient relievos, and their porticos 
 composed of ancient columns. The Belvedere 
 above is often a blot in the symmetry, an excres- 
 cence too conspicuous ; a hut stuck upon a house- 
 top, and seldom in the middle. 
 
 In the ancient villas, the buildings were low, 
 lax, diffused over the park, and detached. In the 
 modern, they are more compact, more commo- 
 dious, and rise into several stories. In both, the 
 gardens betray the same taste for the unnatural ; 
 the same symmetry of plan, architectural groves, 
 devices cut in box, and tricks performed by the 
 hydraulic organa. Could the ancient Topiarii 
 transform wood or water into more fantastic 
 shapes than we find in the Villa Panjili ! — walls 
 
 j' I 
 
176 
 
 ROME. 
 
 of laurel, porticos of ilex, green scutcheons, and 
 dipt coronets vegetating- over half an acre, theatres 
 of jets d'eau, geometrical terraces, built rocks, and 
 measured cascades ! 
 
 The Fountains of Rome display a great variety 
 of composition, without borrowing, so incessantly 
 as ours do, the furniture of ancient fountains. 
 Some of them are beautiful -, one or two are grand. 
 On an object so simple as the emission of water, 
 the danger of doing wrong will be ever in pro- 
 portion to the quantity of embellishment used. 
 On this principle the magnificent vases before St. 
 Peter's, and the Farnese palace, are much safer 
 from criticism than Bernini's creation in the 
 Piazza Navona, which affects puzzling conceits, 
 and looks like a fable of Esop done into stone. 
 The sculpture of Trevi is another pompous con- 
 fusion of fable and fact, gods and ediles, aque- 
 ducts and sea-monsters : but the rock work is 
 grand, proportioned to the stream of w ater, and 
 a fit basement for such architecture as a castel 
 d'acqua required, not for the frittered Corinthian 
 which we find there. The design of rennini, 
 (Moses striking water from the rock,) if better 
 executed, would be more appropriate to this seat 
 of religion, more simple and sublime than any. 
 The basalt lions spouting water there bear some 
 relation to Moses as an Egyptian j but those 
 lions were made in Egypt for a nobler character, 
 
 MODERN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 177 
 
 as symbols of the Sun in the sign Leo bringing 
 on the inundation of the Nile ; on modern foun- 
 tains a spouting lion has neither meaning nor 
 beauty. The Acqua Paola derives all its effect 
 from the volumes of water ; for its elevation is 
 poor, and absurdly imitates the gable of a church. 
 Had the divided streams been collected into one 
 sheet, and committed with the glorious site to 
 the genius of M. Angelo, what a number of faults 
 would there be for the critics ! but how sublime 
 the result ! 
 
 The Gates of Rome, as they announce a seat 
 of art, not a fortress, might adopt the style of its 
 triumphal arches. M. Angelo's part of the Porta 
 del Popolo owes its principal defect to the four 
 ancient columns which were assigned for its de- 
 coration. These, being too small for the eleva- 
 tion sought, obliged him to raise the other mem- 
 bers of the order beyond their due proportions ; 
 and even then he failed of the expected gran- 
 deur. But this will ever happen, where the 
 design, instead of commanding, is made subject 
 to the materials; as the same great artist ex- 
 perienced in his colossal David. On the Porta 
 Pia he has heaped lintels and entablatures suffi- 
 cient for three gates, and mixed the polygon, the 
 parallelogram, the circle, the triangle with masks 
 and festoons in the most capricious confusion. 
 In his villa-gates he seems too fond of intervveav- 
 
 N 
 
 I ^ 
 
178 
 
 ROME. 
 
 ing rustics with the most elegant orders of ar- 
 chitecture. The columns stand there like the old 
 Termini, showing only their heads and feet, their 
 capitals and bases ; while the body lies buried in 
 hatched, chipped, or vermiculated blocks, which 
 sometimes re-appear in the entablature, or shoot 
 up into the pediment. 
 
 The public Stairs at Trinita de' Monti, the 
 Ripetta, the Capitol, St. Peter's, &c., have a cer- 
 tain air of grandeur, and a compact solidity un- 
 known in our climates, where the splitting frosts 
 and penetrating thaws soon impair such construc- 
 tions. Some stairs, intended for carriages, pre- 
 sent an inclined plane paved with upright bricks 
 and crossed by narrow bands of marble which in- 
 dicate steps. Bramante's spiral staircase at the 
 Belvedere* and two of its imitations at the Bar- 
 herini and Cavalieri palaces, are made for horses 
 as well as men. The ancients have left nothing 
 admirable in this kind. At the temples their 
 stairs are incommodiously steep : at Caracalla's 
 baths they are wretchedly narrow ; at the Coli- 
 seum we can praise only their muhiplicity. Stairs 
 form no article in Vitruvius, and could not be 
 very important in ancient palaces, where the 
 master's apartments occupied the ground-floor. 
 
 * Perhaps Ariosto alludes to this work of his contem- 
 porary : 
 
 • ove si poggia 
 
 Si facil che un somier vi puo gir carco. 
 
 MODERN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 179 
 
 These remarks will appear, I hope, fairly drawn 
 from the general architecture of Rome. In 
 blaming the puerile, poetical taste of the seicento 
 builders, I do not advert to single extravagancies, 
 nor the wild conceits of Borromini alone. Bor- 
 romini being mad, I am surprised at nothing 
 that he has done. I am surprised only that, after 
 having built one church, he was ever employed 
 on a second ; yet the man went on, murdering 
 the most sumptuous edifices in Rome, until at 
 last he murdered himself. 
 
 CHURCHES. 
 Cura tibi DivCim effigies et templa tueri.— Virg. 
 
 The principal churches of Rome, however differ- 
 ent their style of building and ornament may be, 
 are distributed in the same manner. Their aisles 
 are generally formed by arcades : over these are 
 sometimes grated recesses, but never open galle- 
 ries. The choir terminates in a curve, which is 
 the grand field of decoration, blazing with leaf- 
 gold and glories. In the middle of the cross 
 stands the high altar. The chapels of the Holy 
 Sacrament and of the Virgin are usually in the 
 transepts. Those of the Saints are ranged on 
 the sides ; and each, being raised by a different 
 
 N 2 
 
180 
 
 ROME. 
 
 family, has an architecture of its own at variance 
 with the church, which thus loses its unity amid 
 nests of polytheism. 
 
 Saint Peter's. How beautiful the colonnades ! 
 how finely proportioned to the church ! how ad- 
 vantageous to its flat, forbidding front, which 
 oui^ht to have come forward, like the Pantheon, 
 to meet the decoration ! How grand an enclosure 
 for the piazza ! how fortunate a screen to the 
 ignoble objects around it ! But, advance or retire, 
 you will find no point of view that combines these 
 accessories with the general form of the church. 
 Instead of describing its whole cycloid on the 
 vacant air, the cupola is more than half hidden by 
 the front ; a front at variance with the body, con- 
 founding two orders in one, debased by a gaping 
 attic, and encumbered with colossal apostles. 
 
 One immense Corinthian goes round the whole 
 edifice in pilasters, which meeting a thousand 
 little breaks and projections, are coupled and 
 clustered on the way, parted by windows and 
 niches, and overtopt by a meagre attic. Yet the 
 general mass grows magnificently out, in spite of 
 the hideous vestry which interrupts it on one side, 
 and the palace which denies it a point of view on 
 the other. 
 
 The right portico leads to the Scala Regia, an 
 object too much exaggerated by prints, and, like 
 its model at the Spada-palace, too evidently 
 
 CHURCHES. 
 
 181 
 
 formed for a picture. An inclined plane is not 
 the natural seat of a colonnade :* but what could 
 be natural that was borrowed from Borromini ? 
 Turning round, you enfilade the lofty vestibule, 
 vaulted with gilt stuccos, paved with various 
 marbles, lengthening on the eye by a grand suc- 
 cession of doors, and niches, and statues, and 
 fountains, till it ends in the perspective statue of 
 Charlemagne. This is one architectural picture 
 which no engraving can flatter. 
 
 On first entering the church, I was prepared 
 for that disappointment which strangers generally 
 feel ; and which some regard as a merit, others as 
 a defect. Our St. Paul's, they will tell you, ap- 
 pears fully as great. But greatness is ever rela- 
 tive. St. Paul's is great, because every thing 
 around it is little. At Rome the eye is accus- 
 tomed to nobler dimensions, and measures St. 
 Peter's by a larger scale. Perhaps we may esti- 
 mate the apparent diminution of the whole pile 
 from Algardi's relievo, where the front figures 
 are fifteen feet long, yet appear only of the na- 
 tural size. How fortunate that a structure. 
 
 * Mnesicles, when obliged to build the Propyleon on an 
 inclined plane, avoided this fault. Instead of sloping, he 
 levelled the stylolxUa, and led to them by separate flights of 
 stairs. Yet how superior, even as a picture, is the lower 
 aspect of the Athenian ruin to this studied perspective of 
 Bernini's at the Vatican ! 
 
182 
 
 ROME. 
 
 created by so many pontiffs, and subject to so 
 many plans, should keep its proportions inviolate 
 even in the meanest ornament ! M. Angelo left 
 it an unfinished monument of his proud, tower- 
 ing, 2:iganticpowers,and his awful genius watched 
 over his successors, till at last a wretched plas- 
 terer came down from Como to break the sacred 
 unity of the master-idea, and him we must exe- 
 crate for the Latin cross, the aisles, the attic, and 
 the front. 
 
 The nave is infinitely grand, and sublime with- 
 out the aid of obscurity ; but the eye, having only 
 four pillars to rest on, runs along it too rapidly 
 to comprehend its full extent. Its elevation and 
 width forbid all comparison with the side aisles, 
 which hardly deserve the common name of " na- 
 vate" and seem but passages leading along the 
 chapels. 
 
 The cupola is glorious. Viewed in its design, 
 its altitude, or even its decorations ; viewed either 
 as a whole or as a part, it enchants the eye, it 
 satisfies the taste, it expands the soul. The very 
 air seems to eat up all that is harsh or colossal, 
 and leaves us nothing but the sublime to feast on : 
 — a sublime peculiar as the genius of the immor- 
 tal architect, and comprehensible only on the spot. 
 The four surrounding cupolas, though but satel- 
 lites to the majesty of this, might have crowned 
 four elegant churches. The elliptical cupolettas 
 
 CHURCHES. 
 
 183 
 
 are mere expedients to palliate the defect of Ma- 
 derno's aisles, which depend on them for a scanty 
 
 light. 
 
 Perhaps the picturesque has been too much 
 studied in the interior. The bronze canopy and 
 wreathed columns of the high altar, though admi- 
 rably proportioned, and rich beyond description, 
 form but a stately toy which embarrasses the 
 cross. The proud chair of St. Peter supported 
 by the fingers of four scribbling doctors is, in 
 every sense, a trick. The statues recumbent on 
 the great arches are beauties which break into 
 the architrave of the nave. Tlie very pillars are 
 too fine. Their gaudy and contrasted marbles 
 resemble the pretty assortments of a cabinet, and 
 are beneath the dignity of a fabric like this, 
 where the stupendous dimensions accord only 
 with simplicity, and seem to prohibit the beauti- 
 ful. Vaults and cupolas so ponderous as these 
 could be trusted only to massive pillars. Hence 
 flat surfaces which demand decoration. Hence 
 idle pilasters and columns, which never give 
 beauty unless they give also support : yet remove 
 every column, every pilaster that you find within 
 this church, and nothing essential to its design 
 
 will fall. 
 
 The middle vault is composed of gilt stuccos 
 on a white ground, arranged in unequal bands, 
 to comply with the windows of the vault. Those 
 
184 
 
 ROME. 
 
 i 
 
 stuccos consist in large, oblong coffers, including 
 each some flowered ornament, rich, noble, various', 
 not heavy, but too prominent, I apprehend, to be 
 durable ; for the roses are generally fallen in ruins 
 from the deeper lacunaria, and remain only where 
 the relief was low. Indeed the chief of those 
 stuccos has already fallen a victim to the vanity 
 of an old priest. The late Pope, whose arms are 
 carved, painted, inlaid, cast, or hammered all 
 over St. Peter's, had long beheld with envy the 
 middle orb of the vault adorned with the dragon 
 and eagle of Borghese ; but, dreading the imtta- 
 tion of his own example, he durst not supplant it 
 openly. It therefore fell down in the dark, (by 
 accident, to be sure,) and was presently replaced 
 by the armorial puff of Braschi. 
 
 The statues and relievos, being all subservient 
 to the architecture, and proportioned to different 
 elevations, are differently colossal ; but in the 
 colossal size it is difficult to excel, particularly 
 where the subject is young or delicate. For three 
 centuries have the greatest sculptors of Europe 
 been contending here with that module, and, 
 obliged to toil for the general perspective, have 
 produced only architectural Saints and Apostles. 
 The papal tombs are richer than any line of 
 kings can boast. Each kneeling, dressed in the 
 pontifical habit; but this habit is frittered into 
 too many pieces, is too jagged, and plaited, and 
 
 CHURCHES. 
 
 185 
 
 cut, to become an old man in the grave and 
 solemn act of benediction ; an act but poorly de- 
 noted by the divergent fingers. The last tomb is 
 the best; and surely the Genius sighing celes- 
 tially at the foot of Rezzonico is the most beau- 
 tiful statue in the church. Even the lions of 
 that tomb, (for a dead Pope must always have a 
 couple of lions or of young women at his feet,) 
 Canova's lions, are unrivalled in marble. 
 
 St. Peter's no where unfolds its dimensions so 
 strikingly as on the roof, where cupolas form 
 streets, which are elsewhere lost to every eye but 
 the bird's, and the dome appears in itself one 
 immense temple, encircled with magnificent co- 
 lumns. But here again comes the question ; 
 what do these columns apparently support ? They 
 mask, you will say, the buttresses of the dome, 
 and form a part of those buttresses. If they do 
 mask them, they also conceal their own utility ; 
 and, as part of those buttresses, they have failed 
 in their office, for the cupola is rent. 
 
 No architecture ever surpassed, in effect, the 
 interior of this pile when illuminated at Easter by 
 a single cross of lamps. The immediate focus of 
 glory — all the gradations of light and darkness — 
 the fine or the fantastic accidents of this chiaro- 
 scuro — the projection of fixed or moving shadows 
 — the sombre of the deep perspectives — the mul- 
 titude kneeling round the Pope, the groups in the 
 
 ^n 
 
186 
 
 ROME. 
 
 distant aisles— what a world of pictures for men 
 of art to copy or combine ! What fancy was ever 
 so dull, or so disciplined, or so worn as to resist 
 the enthusiasm of such a scene ! I freely aban- 
 doned mine to its illusions, and ranging among- 
 the tombs, I sometimes mistook remote statues 
 for the living. The St. Andrew, being near the 
 luminous cross, developed all that awful sublime 
 which is obscured in the day. Above the Vero- 
 nica they unfolded her real handkerchief im- 
 pressed, said the priest on the balcony, with the 
 original features of Christ ; but the abdicated 
 king of Sardinia, who was then kneeling below, 
 seemed to think his own sudarium the genuine 
 relic of the two. 
 
 Jesus and St. Ignatius. All churches, even 
 the patriarchal class, stand at an awful distance 
 from the majesty of St. Peter's : but if churches, 
 like men, are to take rank from their riches, 
 these two Jesuits come next. Jesus was infinitely 
 too rich to escape the late revolution. Its silver 
 Loyola went then a martyr to the furnace, and 
 all his jewels vanished ; but his altar remains 
 the most gorgeous in Rome. Its globe and co- 
 lumns of lapislazzoli, its crystal and gilt bronze, 
 its piles of pedestals and crowds of sculpture, are 
 left to amaze the multitude. What was ever so 
 magnificently frightful as the burnished rail and 
 lamps which surround this most elaborate altar ! 
 
 CHURCHES. 
 
 187 
 
 At St. Ignatius is a more temperate work of 
 Le Gros, the apotheosis of St. Lewis Gonzaga. 
 This large relievo is much admired for the group- 
 ing and the glory, for the incidence of light, the 
 suspension of clouds, the flow of drapery, the in- 
 treccio of angels, and the evanescence of cherubs. 
 All this may be very heavenly, for I know nothing 
 like it on earth ; but what pleased me most was 
 the young Prince himself springing out of this 
 confusion in all the beauty of holiness. 
 
 Both these churches are horrible with the 
 works of faith. Here you see a mob of poor 
 allegorical wretches hurled down to hell by the 
 liffhtnin": which issues from three letters of the 
 alphabet: there two ugly, enigmatical devils, 
 which pass with the vulgar for Luther and his 
 wife, blasted by a fine young woman, named 
 Religion : on this side, David with one bloody 
 head : on that, Judith with another : here the 
 massacre of the Philistines : there the murder of 
 Sisera ; and every where, death or damnation. 
 
 S. Martino ai Monti. This church, once re- 
 vered for its antiquity, aims now at the elegant. 
 Its aisles are formed by ancient columns which 
 have been scoured and gilt, till they ceased to be 
 venerable. Their frieze is covered with instru- 
 ments of martyrdom, some of which are grotesque 
 enough; yet still are they intelligible, significant, 
 appropriate to this scene of ancient persecution, 
 
188 
 
 ROME. 
 
 I 
 
 ^> 
 
 and more at home than the ornaments which 
 modern artists borrow from Roman temples. 
 Festoons, bulls' skulls, paterce, fasces, lyres, &c., 
 really existed in ancient usage, and therefore 
 belonged, by right and fact, to ancient architec- 
 ture ; but in ours they are foreign, ideal, false, 
 and show but the poverty of modern life, which 
 can furnish art with nothing poetic or picturesque. 
 The choir is scenical in its form, and raised to 
 the usual height of a stage. Under this erection 
 you enter a sunken church, dusky and solemn ; 
 whence you descend to another still more dark 
 and more sacred, which communicates by sub- 
 terranean passages with the baths of Trajan, or 
 rather Trajan's continuation of Titus's baths. 
 
 S. Pietro in vincoli. Here sits the Moses of 
 M. Angelo, frowning with the terrific eyebrows 
 of Olympian Jove. Homer and Phidias, indeed, 
 placed their God on a golden throne : but Moses 
 is cribbed into a niche, like a Prebendary in his 
 stall. Much wit has been levelled of late at his 
 flowing beard, and his flaming horns. One critic 
 compares his head to a goat's ; another, his dress 
 to a galley-slave's; but the true sublime resists all 
 ridicule : the offended Lawgiver frowns on un- 
 depressed, and awes you with inherent authority. 
 S. Pietro in Montorio* St. Peter died in the 
 
 * Here is Sebastian del Piombo's fine picture of the 
 Flagellations of Christ.— C. 
 
 CHURCHES. 
 
 189 
 
 cloister of this convent, and, on the spot where 
 his cross was fixed, Bramante has erected a round, 
 little, dappled, Doric church, which is much ad- 
 mired as a model of the ancient temple. As a 
 model, indeed, it is beautiful enough, a beautiful 
 epitome ; but in architecture, design and propor- 
 tion are not sufficient ; dimension is another ele- 
 ment of beauty. In its present dimensions the 
 Pantheon is sublime : but reduce it to the tiny 
 span of this templet on Montorio, and it would 
 degenerate into the pretty. 
 
 Carthusian church. This is but a consecrated 
 hall ; for altars and crucifixes have not been able 
 to efface the original character of the Pinacotheca. 
 To this a circular exhedra or balneum serves as 
 vestibule, an accessory very rare in Rome, though, 
 perhaps, more necessary to worship, and to the 
 sanctity of churches, than the chapels which 
 usually besiege them. Here are no aisles to 
 diminish, or darken, or embarrass. M. Angelo, 
 hi reforming the rude magnificence of Diocletian, 
 has preserved the simplicity and the proportions 
 of the original, has given a monumental import- 
 ance to each of its great columns, restored their 
 capitals, and made one noble entablature pervade 
 the whole cross. 
 
 S. Bihiana. The Saint of this little church is 
 perhaps the nearest approach Bernini ever made 
 to the serene pathos of the antique. Nothing 
 
190 
 
 ROME. 
 
 m 
 
 equivocal here, like the ecstasy of his Theresa. 
 This beautiful martyr breathes chastely the celes- 
 tial hope of death. Her cinctured mantle is 
 rather a license in costume ; yet this falls in fine 
 parallel folds, free from the flutter and the eyes 
 which generally abound in Bernini's drapery. 
 At the high altar is an alabaster sarcophagus 
 filled with the bones of murdered saints, and'' in 
 the wall a drowning-stone of rosso d' Egltto : so 
 that martyrdom itself had its finery. 
 
 Capuchine church. These mendicants found 
 means to preserve their St. Michael from the late 
 visitation. This figure of Guido's is the Catholic 
 Apollo. Like the Belvedere God, the Archangel 
 breathes that dignified vengeance which animates 
 without distorting; while the very devil derives 
 importance from his august adversary, and es- 
 capes the laugh which his figure usually pro- 
 vokes. Caravaggio, in treating the same subject, 
 has thrown a few streaks of brassy light on his 
 fiend, and plunged the monster part of him into 
 his own darkness; thus eluding the ridicule which 
 he could not conquer. 
 
 Under this church is a charnel-house divided, 
 like some of the ancient hyi>ogc2a, into recesses. 
 Each recess is faced with marrow-bones and 
 shoulder-blades of disinterred Capuchines, and 
 adorned with lamps, festoons, rosoni, crosses, &c., 
 formed of the same reverend materials. A few 
 
 t 
 
 CHURCHES. 
 
 191 
 
 skeletons are drest in their tunics, and set in 
 various attitudes, each in a niche built up with 
 " reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls." 
 
 S. Maria in Araceli puts your faith to some 
 trials. You must believe that the temple of 
 Feretrian Jove stood on the very foundations of 
 this church, because Dionysius happens to place 
 it on a summit of the Capitol. You must believe 
 that the columns of the aisles supported the last 
 temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, in other words, 
 that granite was Penielic marble. You must 
 believe that the altar, which gave name to the 
 convent, was raised by the Christian piety of 
 Augustus. You must believe that a waxen 
 figure of the infant Jesus, which a friar of the 
 convent farms, and lets out to the sick, was 
 dropped in the porch at midnight by an Angel 
 who rang the bell, and flew back to heaven. 
 
 In such a multitude of churches I specify these 
 rather by chance than for their own pre-eminence; 
 and even in these few I omit a thousand singula- 
 rities, a thousand fine pictures and statues, from 
 mere satiety. As for the mob of churches, and 
 their decorations, ceremonies, relics, miracles, 
 
 Non ragionam' di lor, ma guarda e passa. 
 
 C^ 
 
1^ 
 
 192 
 
 ROME. 
 
 PALACES. 
 
 193 
 
 PALACES. 
 
 Omnibus h8Bc ad visendum patebant quotidie; domus 
 erant non domino magis ornamento quam civitati.— Cic. 
 
 Such is the general vacancy of Rome, that the 
 palaces, with all their apjjurtenances, cover more 
 ground than the private habitations. As the 
 multitude of those palaces forbids all detail, I 
 shall only select two or three as a specimen. 
 Those of the Princes display in front a row of 
 painted hatchments, one of which displays the 
 shield of Rome and the solemn formula of 
 S. P. Q. R. inscribed on it, and surmounted by a 
 coronet !— others bear the arms of those foreign 
 sovereigns who protect the palace ; thus insulting 
 the Roman government as an impotent presbytery 
 
 Of Priests, and cowards, and men cautelons, 
 Old feeble carrions, and such suffering souls 
 As welcome wrongs. 
 
 The CoLONNA Palace has other decorations 
 allusive to its name— a long Doric colonnade 
 fronting the court, and the armorial column 
 placed over the gates. Within, too, is a little 
 old, gothic, twisted column which, they absurdly 
 pretended, was the colmina Bellica of the Roman 
 Republic. 
 
 This palace lately contained pictures which 
 used to excite a great deal of rapture, real or 
 pretended : but the finest, it seems, have been 
 sold.* I saw two beautiful Claudes, and several 
 round-faced, mild, unimpassioned beauties in the 
 form of Madonnas. Those of Guido have a faint 
 tinge of melancholy diffused over their large eyes 
 and Httle mouths. What a world of still-life 
 do we find both in modern and in ancient art ! 
 The Madonna, like the Venus, seems multiplied 
 only as a subject of animal beauty. Deprived of 
 the interest which high passion or story gives to 
 other compositions, such figures can please only 
 by the perfection of forms. Hence they provoke 
 the cold severity of criticism, and correct beauty 
 must compensate the want of pathos. 
 
 The saloon called the Galleria is itself too 
 brilliant a picture for the pictures which it con- 
 tains. A gallery should not draw off the atten- 
 tion from its contents by striking architecture or 
 glittering surfaces. This, however, is supported 
 by polished columns of the richest giallo antico. 
 Its storied ceiling displays the battle of Lepanto, 
 which raised a Colonna to the honour of a Roman 
 triumph. Its pavement is Parian marble laid in 
 the form of tombstones. 
 
 This pavement was sawn out of an ancient 
 
 * Though most of the good pictures are gone, several 
 are left— among others, a very good Bouifaccio. — C. 
 
 ^1 
 
 Tfl 
 
194 
 
 ROME. 
 
 PALACES. 
 
 195 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 pediment, of which there are still twostiipeiiflous 
 blocks lyina: in the palace-irarden, without any 
 specific mark that could ascertain their edifice. 
 Antiquaries, who have seldom the courage to rest 
 ignorant, fly in such cases to Victor and Rufus, 
 where they are sure to finrl some name which 
 they can at least dispute on. As these blocks 
 lie on the Quiriwd, one culls them part of the 
 Mre.sa, another of Helioirabalus's female senate- 
 house. Others assign them to the temple of 
 Health, to that of Mithra, to the tower of 
 Mc-ecenas, to the vestibule of Nero's house. 
 Being found near Constantine's baths, and too 
 beautiful for the sculpture of his age, they had 
 been probably removed, like the materials of his 
 arch, from some noble edifice ; and the grandeur 
 of their style would not disgrace the temple of 
 Peace itself Palladio, who kindled at every 
 thing great in anti(piity, has reared for those 
 blocks an imaginary temi)le lor Jupiter ; and, 
 looking round for something to embellish his 
 creation, the nearest object he could find were 
 the two equestrian groups of Monte Cavallo, 
 which he sets on the acroteria of the enormous 
 pediment, and supports the whole front by twelve 
 Ionic columns ! This at best is but a romance 
 built on fact. 
 
 The princely house of Colonna has produced 
 more illustrious men, and can boast nobler descent 
 
 than any in Rome. Petrarch calls it the glorious 
 Column on which Italy reposed her hope. The 
 present constable is too excpiisitely benevolent to 
 shine, like his ancestors, in the cabinet or the 
 field, and is often obliged to retreat from excess 
 of sensibility. As for the other princes of Rome, 
 most of them date from upstart Popes. Two, 
 indeed, pretend to a higher origin, which they 
 trace from the ancient republic. Though we 
 smile at such pretensions, yet we fondly catch at 
 the very shadow of a descendant from Fabius or 
 Publicola. 
 
 The GiusTiNiANi Palace* is built on the ruins 
 of Nero's baths, and contains an astonishing num- 
 ber of statues, which were found there mutilated, 
 but are now all entire. The Minerva Medica 
 came from another bath, or rather exhcdra, 
 which is therefore named the temple of that 
 Goddess. But is the 2*oddess herself ritrhtly 
 named ? is the serpent sufficient authority for the 
 epithet which she bears ? is not the serpent a 
 common attribute of Minerva on coins ? was it 
 not necessary to the Minerva Polias, and an- 
 nexed to her statue in the Parthenon 1 — On 
 another Minerva the (je(]is forms a tippet, ele- 
 gantly swelling over the breast, and a single ser- 
 
 * Tlie collection of the Giustiuiani Palace has now for 
 a long lime been dispersed. Many of the marbles are at 
 Dresden. — C. 
 
 o2 
 
196 
 
 ROME. 
 
 pent is twisted as a tier to the Gordon, which 
 usually serves as a clasp on the groat-skin : on a 
 third, there is no cegis at all, but a chain of ser- 
 pents curlinp: into knots rounrl the breast, like 
 a collar of the i^-arter. 
 
 The celebrated vestal, being; very ancient and 
 very stiff, passes for Etruscan. I found La Ber- 
 tinotti here consulting^ the drapery of the statue, 
 which appeared to me too massive, too perpendi- 
 cularly straight, too poor in effect for the vestal 
 of an opera. But is the fio-ure really a vestal ? 
 Here is a common veil thrown over the shoulders 
 and a spiral lock of hair falling- on each side the 
 neck ; but where is the wreathed miira, found on 
 the m.edallions? where are the tceniolce and licicE 
 attributed by the poets ? The vestal Bellicia has 
 her head wrapt in a close nig^ht-cap bound with 
 a broad infnla ; but no hair. 
 
 Here are at least a dozen statues of Venus, 
 nearly as many of Apollo, with Dianas, and Bac- 
 chuses, and Herculeses in proportion. The pro- 
 prietor, I suppose, having a command of antique 
 trunks which could be made up into such figures, 
 formed an assortment of each divinity : but some 
 appeared to me rather improperly restored. Two 
 figures of Isis (such at least the drapery on the 
 breast would indicate) are now converted into a 
 Juno, and a Ceres, by the help of a modern 
 sceptre, and a few ears of corn. 
 
 PALACES. 
 
 197 
 
 A number of female busts, probably of Nero's 
 time, shew the extravagant height of ancient hair- 
 dressing. Two tower-crowned Cybeles appear 
 among those anonymous portraits, like ladies of 
 the imperial court dressed in their tutuliJ^ 
 
 Caravaggio wrought some years exclusively for 
 this palace, where he found an asylum from the 
 gallows, and painted in a room which was black- 
 ened to harmonize with his genius and his heart. 
 The ruffian loved the Scriptures, and rarely ex- 
 celled out of them. His frugal pencil gives but 
 few figures, nor much of those few ; for his lights 
 fall in red and partial masses without any dif- 
 fusion. Whatever they fall on, indeed, starts into 
 life ; but the rest is lost in abrupt darkness : a 
 transition hardly in nature, or true only in candle- 
 lights. Here are his Christ awaking his disciples, 
 Thomas touching the wound, a faun squeezing 
 grapes, and some fine old saints. This gloomy 
 man could paint deep thoughtfulness, strong 
 passion, intense devotion or broad laughter ; but 
 he had no pencil for smiles, or beauty, or placid 
 dignity, or love. 
 
 Here are two figures of St. John writing the 
 Revelation, the one by Raphael, the other by 
 
 * Tot premit ordinibus^ tot adhuc compagibus altiun 
 
 yl^^dificat caput. — Juv. 
 Such head-dresses have led antiquaries to dignity some 
 doubtful busts with the name of an Augusta, 
 
 ■V. 
 
 V 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 !> 
 
 i 
 
f 
 
 198 
 
 ROME. 
 
 Domenichino. Raphael places the Evanirelist 
 among clouds and thunders, in the act of obeying 
 the call " Write ;" Domenichino sets him on a 
 stone, turning in ecstasy from his books and 
 angels, to the Voice which dictates. Both the 
 figures beam with beauty, and grace, and soul, 
 and inspiration ; but their beauty is that of the 
 young Aj^ollo, and St. John, at Patmos, was near 
 a hundred years old.* 
 
 The Massacre of the Innocents, a subject inex- 
 plicably horrible to me, forms here an admirable 
 picture, where the horror is not, as usual, dissi- 
 pated in a multitude of details. Like Aristides 
 in painting the sack of a town, Poussin gives only 
 one child and one mother, but a mother whose 
 shrieks frighten away her friends. Expression is 
 just on the extreme. Agony carried one point 
 farther would fall into the ludicrous. 
 
 Guido's Paul and Anthony is a noble picture, 
 but the glory above, which he refused to paint, 
 was obtrudc^d, it is said, by an inferior pencil. 
 Superstition, being then the chief patron of paint- 
 ing, dictated her own absurdities to the masters 
 
 * There are some ideal laces established in art which no 
 painter or sculptor can safely depart from, the styles of 
 countenance for a Christ and a St. Peter are as fixed as those 
 of the Jupiter and the Hercules. St. John appears most 
 frequently in the Last Supper, and is therefore known in art 
 only as a handsome young man. 
 
 i< 
 
 PALACES. 
 
 199 
 
 whom she paid ; and though glories broke into 
 the art during its Gothic period, they still prevail 
 over all its philosophy and improvement. 
 
 The Christ before Pilate is by Honthorst. 
 Here, left to himself and in himself, the Saviour 
 awakes all those sacred prepossessions which must 
 be felt for arraigned and insulated virtue. Here 
 is no dignity of costume, no glory above him, no 
 ring nor rays round his head, no light but a candle 
 flarinjr on his benign features. Bring round him 
 those childish heads called cherubim, and all the 
 interest escapes : we regard the whole as a fiction 
 
 of the pencil. 
 
 The DoRiA Palace (I mean that which the 
 prince inhabits) contains the largest collection of 
 pictures in Rome. Where so many are excellent 
 it would be difficult, I suspect, to settle their de- 
 grees of comparison. Titian's Abraham, Annibal 
 Caracci's dead Christ, Sassoferrato's Holy Family, 
 Guido's Judiih, and a few others contended for 
 distinction in the crowd, which might be thrown 
 into classes. 
 
 One of the first rooms is full of Rembrandt's 
 old heads, called here i)liilosophers, which are all 
 marked with that strong character and cast of 
 thought pecidiar to this artist. Complete the 
 fiffures, jrive each a subject or a scene, and these 
 heads, which have now only the importance of 
 portrait, would shine in the historical sphere ; but 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
»«; 
 
 •200 
 
 ROME. 
 
 in history Rembrandt knew that he was some- 
 times ridiculous. 
 
 Bassan is next in multitude. This indefatigable 
 painter had a hand too ready for his head : hence 
 repetitions, monotony, manner: no poetry, no 
 choice. He degrades the sublimest scripture with 
 peasant-forms, makes the history of a jjicture 
 subordinate to the landscape, the men and angels 
 mere accessories to the brutes, and brings no 
 other merit than truth, or rather naivete, into 
 subjects which demand epic elevation. 
 
 Honthorst's surprising candlelights are dis- 
 persed through the rooms to contrast with the 
 sage and sober colouring of the Italian schools ; 
 but they draw the eye mechanically from better 
 pictures, and are dangerous neighbours to all 
 that surround them. 
 
 This gallery is very rich in landscape. One 
 room is completely covered with Caspar Poussin's 
 works, and now that the Claudes of Prince Altieri 
 are gone, Doria can boast the two best in Italy. 
 I was surprised to find here so many landscapes 
 by Titian, Annibal Caracci, Domenichino, and 
 the greatest historical painters. 
 
 Some of the portraits are celebrated. The 
 Macchiavel is by Andrea del Sarto, the Bartolo 
 and Baldi by Raphael, the Jansenius by Titian, 
 and Joan II. of Naples by Da Vinci. I saw but 
 two family portraits, and those also were great 
 
 \> 
 
 PALACES. 
 
 201 
 
 men painted by great artists ; Andrew Doria by 
 Titian, and Innocent X. by Velasquez. An 
 Italian excludes from his gallery all portraits that 
 are not excellent as pictures, or curious from their 
 antiquity : for there the painter is every thing ; 
 the person painted nothing. If you wish for col- 
 lections of portraits, you must go to convents and 
 college-halls, where the mitred monk and the 
 titled scholar are the only objects admitted or 
 remarked. 
 
 Here are St. Jeromes alone sufficient to fill a 
 short gallery. This anatomical figure is the 
 favourite subject of Spagnolet, Salvator Rosa, 
 Caravaggio, and that gloomy sect. The Magda- 
 lenes also crowd on your attention. They have 
 all something meretricious in their very penitence, 
 for " loose hair and lifted eye" will hardly excuse 
 a lascivious display of bosom. But why are those 
 courtezans called Magdalenes ? Mary Magdalene 
 seldom appears in Scripture, and never in that 
 character. 
 
 I saw nothing in the class of comic painting 
 except Albert Durer's Misers, and a few Teniers, 
 to which perhaps might be added a repose in 
 Egypt, where the Virgin and Child are lulled 
 asleep by an Angel, who plays the fiddle and 
 leaves poor Joseph to hold the music-book. 
 Scripture, though a wide field, is so exhausted in 
 painting, that an artist, who received orders for 
 
 r 
 
 p 
 
202 
 
 ROME. 
 
 a Holy Family, was often driven, from the very 
 poverty of the thinjr, into the low or the iniairi- 
 nary. Sometimes he introduced a dug;, a cat, a 
 sack of corn, a porrin^rer, a washini>-tub ; and 
 sometimes preternatural glories. 
 
 Variare cupit rem proiligialiter unam. 
 
 THE VATICAN.* 
 
 Hi, qui hospitt's ad eu qufe visenda sunt ducere solebant 
 — ut ante demousirabaut quid ubique esset, ita nunc quid 
 undique ablatum sit ostendunt. — Cic. 
 
 Belvedere. Who, but a Frenchman, can enter 
 the present museum without some reirret ? I 
 should have thoui^ht the very beauty of these 
 c^alleries and halls a protection to the treasures 
 for which they were erected. Here ancient and 
 modern art seemed to contend for pre-eminence — 
 storied pavements assembled from distant ruins^ 
 and bordered with the mosaic of the })resent day 
 — columns, once the ornament of temples, ar- 
 ranged in rotondos which emulate those temples, 
 and lately embellished, like them, with the statues 
 of gods and of deified emperors. 
 
 Thinned as it is, we may still trace through 
 this museum the sculpture of ancient Rome from 
 
 * The fine collections of the Vatican, the loss of which 
 Forsyth so much lepfrets, have been restored to it — and 
 many additions have been nnade.— C. 
 
 THE VATICAN. 
 
 203 
 
 its dawn to its decline, from the old Doric tomb 
 of Scipio Burbatus in plain Alban stone, to the 
 porphyry sarcophagi of St. Constantia and St. 
 Helen, where men stand erect under horses' bel- 
 lies. Between these extremes what a rich grada- 
 tion of risin"- and fallinii: art ! but, alas ! where 
 are the glorious objects which stood on the middle 
 height ? 
 
 A natural horror of mutilation leads men to 
 complete whatever they possess; and thus the 
 statues of Belvedere have received so much mo- 
 dern work to restore the ancient, that we can 
 hardly distinguish what is original from what is 
 added. Either the old surftice is scraped into the 
 whiteness of the new, or the new has received the 
 yellow ivory gloss of the old; while the cement 
 which unites them is so imperceptibly fine, that 
 Persius' metaphor is here realized — their juncture 
 literally eludes the severest nail. 
 
 How boldly do those restorers make up dis- 
 membered trunks, and affix attributes ! Having 
 found at Prceneste one female body in a stooping 
 posture, they stuck an ancient head with half-shut 
 eyes on the shoulders, set a pail at the feet, and 
 then called the whole a Danaid. Another female 
 being found drest like a General, in a double 'palu- 
 damentum without any cecjis, the most essential 
 attribute of all, has been transformed into a Mi- 
 ner\-a Pacifica, by fixing a head unarmed on her 
 
(Ii 
 
 I 
 
 204 
 
 ROME. 
 
 shoulders, a bronze helmet in her right hand, and 
 a sprig of olive in her left. Another headless 
 trunk, having the left arm wrapt in a mantle, has 
 been converted into a Perseus by the addition of 
 a winged head and a harpt. Thus we lose the 
 freedom of judging on the original trunk, and 
 the pleasurable torment of conjecture. Whoever 
 would know what really remains here of the 
 ancients must examine on the spot. Engravers 
 have published the chief objects, rather as orna- 
 ments for a cabinet or a portfolio, than as docu- 
 ments for study. Piranesi's fine prints give the 
 statues entire, and, when compared here before 
 them, they even fail in resemblance. Besides, 
 one good engraving is sufficient for any picture ; 
 but the details of a single statue would require 
 fifty, and perhaps the sublime of the original 
 would escape them all. 
 
 What this museum has lost it is now too late 
 to deplore. There still remain some excellent 
 busts and Termini, a fine statue of Nerva sitting, 
 and another of Tiberius, purchased by the j)resent 
 pope, who has also placed here the Perseus and 
 the Creugas of Canova. 
 
 The statue of Perseus stands frontin«r the cast 
 of the departed Apollo, and seems to challenire 
 comparison. Alike in sentiment, in occasion, and 
 in point of time, Apollo has just shot the arrow, 
 Perseus has just cut off the beautiful head of 
 
 THE VATICAN. 
 
 205 
 
 Medusa.* Perhaps the hero is too delicate and 
 smooth for a mortal warrior; he has the soft 
 beauty of a Mercury, or an Antinous. Instead of 
 turning in horror from the petrific head, he eyes 
 it with indignant complacency — but it is criminal 
 to object, for marble has seldom received a form 
 so perfect. 
 
 The Creugas is a fine model of the Athletic. 
 His face bears the fair, frowning defiance of a 
 pugilist. " But then his posture !" said an Eng- 
 lishman to me ; " one hand on his head, and the 
 other at his back ! this is no defence, this is not 
 in our art."—" That may be true. Sir ; but 
 Creugas's agreement with his antagonist allowed 
 no defence. This posture, open for the blow, 
 accords with Pausanias and suited Canova. It 
 developes the whole figure which your scientific 
 
 * This Apollo is usually called the Pythian ; though such 
 diviue indignation as his called for a nobler and more moral 
 cause than the death of a filthy reptile. Two great sculptors, 
 however, gave him victims still more contemptible than the 
 serpent. Praxiteles represented Apollo killing a lizard ; and 
 Scopas, crushing a field-mouse. 
 
 On the aegis of Minerva, the Gorgon is generally a flat, 
 round, gaping face ; on the vases, called Etruscan, it has 
 the tusk of a boar ; but Canova's Medusa has classic au- 
 thority for its soft and feminine beauty. — The Harpe, which 
 Perseus wields, is copied from a damaged picture of Hercu- 
 laneum. This weapon is not, as represented in the Monu- 
 ment! Inediti, a scimitar ; for the blade is straight to the 
 point, and distinct from the broad reflex hook which rises on 
 the back. 
 
Hi 
 
 206 
 
 ROME. 
 
 wards would tend to collect, and pinch, and 
 stiffen." This statue has a waxen g-loss which 
 dazzles the eye,* and gives such illusion to the 
 high finishing, that you imagine the very texture 
 of the skin in the marble. 
 
 The Library. A vast glaring hall brings you 
 into the middle of the library, which is near a 
 thousand feet long;, and terminated on the rijrht 
 by the richest staircase on earth, on the left by an 
 object still more beautiful, the Stanza r/e' Papiri. 
 This Stanza, its design, its decorations, its marbles, 
 the incomparable frescos of Mengs, every object, 
 every figure in the saloon is Egyptian, except St. 
 Peter ; but St. Peter is master of the whole palace. 
 
 By the treaty of Tolentino the French obtained 
 500 manuscripts from this library. Some of the 
 old charters written on papyrus remain ', but 
 Marini informed me that all the literary works 
 anterior to the ninth century had disappeared. On 
 the book-cases are a few painted vases, the leav- 
 ings of the richest collection on earth. A cabinet 
 of church antiquities f remains untouched. 
 
 The Pauline and Sistlne Chapels. I could not 
 
 * This gloss is produced by a process similar, perhaps, to 
 the circumlitio, or KaZiri; ; for its effect on my eyes was like 
 that of the Ephesiaa Hecate, •' in cujuscontemplationead- 
 monent aeditui parcere oculis, tanta marmoris radiatio est." 
 — Plin. 
 
 f The cabinet of Christian Antiquities is very curious in 
 itself, and particularly interesting to those artists who wish 
 to trace the history of art. — C. 
 
 THE VATICAN. 
 
 207 
 
 behold without feelings of regret the sepulchral 
 illuminations of passion-week blackening here the 
 frescos of M. Angelo, particularly the crucifixion 
 of St. Peter, and the conversion of St. Paul. 
 How divinely terrible are his thick-bearded brawny 
 prophets ! Yet these and all the vaults are subor- 
 dinate to his Last Judgment. 
 
 This immense work of the resurrection is too 
 learned for me. I revered it rather as a monu- 
 ment in the history of Painting, and the cause of 
 a great revolution in the art, than for any pleasure 
 that it gave me. It concludes too many pictures 
 in one. The separating figure of Christ gives 
 order and even symmetry to the upper region of 
 the work ; but plunging downwards, I was lost 
 among Gods and men — angels and demons — in 
 air, on earth, and the waters under the earth. In 
 this dingy field, you stop only to smile at singu- 
 larities, such as Peter restoring the keys with grim 
 reluctance, Dante's devils, his Minos and his 
 Charon diabolified. 
 
 How congenial the powers of the poet and the 
 painter ! Bold and precipitating, they dash on 
 to their immediate object in defiance of rules and 
 ridicule. One critic charges this mighty master 
 with anatomical pedantry, stripping every thing 
 to display the muscles. Another condemns the 
 intermixture of epic and satire, of Scripture and 
 profane fable : a third, the constant repetition of 
 the same Tuscan figure : a fourth heaps on him 
 
f 
 
 208 
 
 ROME. 
 
 all the sins of the sublime — i^loom, harshness, 
 neffliirence — the fierce, the austere, the extrava- 
 gant — tension, violence, exaj^geration. In short, 
 had we anv doubt of that one transcendant merit 
 which could atone for so many faults, the very 
 multitude of his critics would dispel it. 
 
 RavhaePs Saloons, This is passing from Homer 
 to Virgil. The mechanism of the glorious works, 
 which are now perishing on those damp and dusky 
 walls, discovers itself to none but the artist who 
 would copy them ; but that something beyond 
 mechanism, that diffusion of mind and philosophy 
 which Raphael has here thrown into his art, is 
 obvious to any man that can think. 
 
 A battle must be a difficult subject for a painter, 
 as it is often so to a spectator ; but that of Con- 
 stantine and Maxentius has one general effort, a 
 regular confusion, and two grand objects to which 
 the eye can always rally from the throng. The 
 very throng itself is finely detailed into groups, 
 and includes some affecting episodes. The same 
 spirit, variety, and fire, reign through the Helio- 
 dorus and the Miracle at the Borgo. 
 
 The Attila is another grand composition, where 
 Raphael, as he wrought upon Papal walls, was 
 obliged to sacrifice truth to his patron. lie has 
 therefore brouo-ht the fable of Peter and Paul into 
 his glory, giving an idle exaggerated dignity to 
 the Pope, thrown the royal Hun, though hero of 
 the storv, into the back-ground, detached him 
 
 THE VATICAN. 
 
 209 
 
 from his holy suppliant, and turned a retreat, which 
 policy commanded, into a miracle. 
 
 His patron appears also in the miracle of the 
 mass, a work full of inspiration, and admirably 
 adjusted to the window which divides it. The de- 
 liverance of St. Peter had to contend with another 
 window which has rather injured it. There, in- 
 deed, the apostle appears three times in three 
 different lights, and in three places not separated 
 by frames, but included in the same picture : a 
 license this common to the ancient relievos which 
 Raphael was so fond of studying. 
 
 The School of Athens is a composition perfectly 
 encyclopedic. Every head is a portrait, and eveiy 
 portrait is finished with a fidelity which usually 
 enslaves ; yet what variety of expression here ! 
 Every science is separate, yet what a chain of 
 groups ! No principal action prevails, yet how 
 harmonious the whole ! How superior such mor- 
 tals, both in interest and effect, to the genii of alle- 
 gory ! How pardonable the anachronism which 
 brings such a family together ! Perhaps the 
 divine painter caught his first idea from the 
 divine poet : 
 
 Vidi '1 maestro di color che sauno 
 Seder tra filosofica famiirlia : 
 Tutti lo miran, tutti honor li fanno. 
 Quivi vid' io e Socrate e Platone, 
 Che innanz' a gli altri piu presso gli stanno, &c. 
 
m 
 
 "1 
 
 p 
 
 fi 
 
 ; 
 
 I 
 
 210 
 
 THE CAPITOL. 
 
 Capitolium quoque saxo quadrate substnictum est, ojms 
 vel in hac ma^nificentia Urbis conspiciendum. — Liv. 
 
 None of its ancient works remain on the Capitol 
 except a corner of the temple called Jupiter 
 Tonans, and some substructions behind the Sena- 
 tor's palace, which are probably a part of those 
 mentioned in the motto. The modern architec- 
 ture struck me as unworthy of ground once so 
 sacred and so august. Instead of the Herculean 
 and monumental majesty which he called forth on 
 the Farnese palace, M. Angelo has raised on the 
 Capitol two, if not three, Corinthian edifices, so 
 open, so decorated, that, abstract all their defects 
 (two orders in one, the scale of orders reversed, ill- 
 proportioned columns, double pediments, liroken 
 lintels, &c.) and the result will be nothing- above 
 elegance. But he built for modern Rome ; he 
 built for a mount which is sunk from its ancient 
 form, and height, and sanctity, and domination. 
 
 The great statue of M. Aurelius, or rather of 
 his horse, which was once the idol of Rome, is 
 now a subject of contention. Some critics find 
 the proportion of the animal false, and his atti- 
 tude impossible. One compares his head to an 
 owl's ; another, his belly to a cow's ; but the well- 
 known apostrophe of the third will prevail in your 
 
 THE CAPITOL. 
 
 211 
 
 first impressions : the spirit and fire of the general 
 figure will seduce the most practised eye. Ancient 
 sculptors, intent only on man, are supposed to 
 have neglected the study of animals; and we 
 certainly find very rude accessories affixed to some 
 exquisite antiques. Perhaps they even atfected 
 such contrasts as strike us in the work of the 
 Faun and his panther, the Meleager and his dogs, 
 the Apollo and his swan. The horse, however, 
 came so frequently into heroic subjects, that the 
 greatest artists of antiquity must have made him 
 their peculiar study, and we learn that they did 
 so. But it were unfair to judge of their excellence 
 from this bruised and unfortunate animal, or even 
 from those of Venice and Portici ; as the ancient 
 bronze was too thin for figures of so large a 
 volume. On some ancient relievos, where the 
 horse was traced con amore^ we find all the truth, 
 and spirit, and character which moderns have 
 given to this noble animal, the subject of their 
 severest study. 
 
 The Museum has been impoverished rather 
 than thinned by the French. 'I'he portico they 
 left full, because it contained nothing very excel- 
 lent j for the warrior called Pyrrhus is admired 
 only for his armour. Near him is a hideous pan- 
 theon of Egyptian Gods, either original, or copied 
 for Adrian. In these we see the artist con- 
 demned, both by his laws and his religion, to a 
 
 p 2 
 
lii 
 
 212 
 
 ROME. 
 
 barren sameness of manner; yet allowed a variety 
 of monsters to work on. Whether standing- or 
 sitting, kneeling or squatting, the limbs of those 
 figures are parallel, the flesh appears blown, the 
 knees inarticulate, the faces, where human, are 
 unmeaning, the drapery indistinct, the attitudes 
 are motionless as their mummies; and the want 
 of nature but poorly supplied by the high polish 
 given to impassive materials; for nothing but 
 basalt, touchstone, porphyry, granite, and the 
 marbles the most improper for sculpture, was 
 used by the Egyptians. 
 
 The Stair-case is incrusted with an old plan of 
 Rome, or rather with its fragments, which, though 
 of soft alabaster, formed originally a pavement, 
 and a pavement not improper for the temple of 
 Romulus. Bellori and Amadusi have endeavoured 
 to make those detached pieces useful to topo- 
 graphy, and have brought coins to connect the 
 plan of some edifices with their elevation. 
 
 The Gallery contains a number of rejected 
 statues, and the casts of those which were taken, 
 as the warrior called the Dying Gladiator, the 
 Venus, the Faun, the Apollo, the Mercury mis- 
 named Antinous, the Philosopher called Zeno, 
 the Muse which passed here for Juno, the Cupid 
 and Psvche. 
 
 Among the objects still remaining are the two 
 Furietti Centaurs, whose veined hoofs indicate 
 
 THE CAPITOL. 
 
 213 
 
 that license which the ancients sometimes affected 
 in the sculpture of animals — the Praefica, which 
 some have called a Sibyl, others Hecuba* — the 
 bronze urn which bears the names of Mithridates, 
 struck with a bodkin, and is therefore boldly as- 
 signed to the King of Pontus — the four doves, a 
 mosaic still regarded here as the original of Sosus. 
 If it really is that original, PHny's admiration of 
 the work only proves how greatly the ancients are 
 now excelled in the art of tessellation, an art more 
 necessary to them than to us. 
 
 The collection of Imperial busts is numerous 
 only from several repetitions of the same subject, 
 and, though joined to that of the Vatican, would 
 still leave chasms in the series. The Getas and 
 Caracallas are here much superior to the sculpture 
 
 * The age, the expression, the retortion of head, the 
 very dress of this singular figure, embodied my idea of the 
 " mobbled Queen," 
 
 a cioul upon that head 
 
 Where late the diadem stood, and, for a robe, 
 About her /ank and all o'er-teeined loins 
 A blanket in the alarm of fear caught up. 
 She could not be a Prsefica ; for both Terence and Plutarch 
 represent the women, who wailed at funerals, with imcovered 
 heads and dishevelled hair. The anatomical part of this 
 figure is well described by Ovid, and might be studied as an 
 exquisite model of tigliness. 
 
 Cullum nervosum, scapularum cuspis acuta, 
 Saxosura pectus, laxatum pellibus uber, 
 Non uber, sed tam vacuum quam moUe. &c. 
 
214 
 
 ROME. 
 
 of" their fathers' arches. The taste for ideal 
 beauty, which alone can maintain the g'eneral 
 powers of art, had but just declined ; and must, 
 therefore, on yieldinp: to the demaiuls of vanity, 
 have left a few good sculptors to work on the Im- 
 perial busts. 
 
 The collection of Hermes, which pass here for 
 the heads of Philosophers, was, till very lately, 
 the largest and the best in Europe. Most of 
 those which remain were found in Adrian's villa, 
 and are such as adorned the ancient libraries and 
 gardens. In gardens they stood as Termini on 
 pilasters to support the railing ; as may still be 
 observed on Coustantine's arch in two cancelli ; 
 an office which accounts for the square holes so 
 often found in their shoulders. Some, indeed, 
 consider those holes as designed for the metal bars 
 which supported the busts in processions ; but 
 such bars have been found only in busts of bronze, 
 objects more portable than these. 
 
 Some of these busts are anonymous ; and the 
 names inscribed on others are very doubtful. 
 Ever since Cicero's time have the manufacturers 
 of antiques been affixing new names to old anony- 
 mous heads, or new heads to old inscribed busts. 
 This confusion increased under the selfish vanity 
 of the great. Caligula set his own portrait on 
 the shoulders of every God that he coidd pur- 
 chase, and his successors took the same freedom 
 
 THE CAPITOL. 
 
 215 
 
 with his statues. So common grew the abuse, 
 that heads have been found which were originally 
 prepared for the expected outrage, and made to 
 separate without fracture from the bust. Such 
 havoc and confusion did that invidious tyrant 
 make in the public collection of marble portraits, 
 that the heads could never be restored to their 
 several inscriptions.* 
 
 In the court of the opposite palace are some 
 heads and feet of colossal statues : the bodies fell 
 a sacrifice to artists themselves, who wanted the 
 marble for small sculpture and even for building. 
 The lion tearing a horse is an ancient group re- 
 ptored by M. Angelo, but not, it seems, with that 
 truth of detail which the present artists study on 
 
 such subjects. 
 
 A Rome Triumphant is seated here on an 
 ancient pedestal well enough proportioned to the 
 figure ; though more probably designed for the 
 stttue of some Conqueror, as a Province, like 
 Germany, sits desolate in front, t The two captive 
 
 * " Ita subvertit atque disjecit, ut restitui, mlvh titu/is, 
 non valuerint." — Sueton. 
 
 I should doubt the excellence of those houorary statues, 
 from the circuitous manner in which they were ordered. 
 Cicero hints that the senate left the business to the consuls, 
 the consuls to the qusestor, the quaestor to the contractor, 
 and the contractor, of course, to the artist. 
 
 f Crinibus en etiam fertur Germania passis, 
 
 Kt ducis invicti sub pede mossta sedet.— Ovm. 
 Several coins hear the image of a Province sitting downcast, 
 
216 
 
 ROME. 
 
 THE CAPITOL. 
 
 217 
 
 kin^s are called in the modern inscriptions Nu- 
 midians, perhaps because the marble is black : 
 some have even baptized them Jugurtha and 
 Syphax. A statue surely does better with a name 
 than without one ; but these are breeched in the 
 Parthian anaxyrides, their chlamys seems too 
 full and their faces too fine for Africans. 
 
 The Rostral Column represents that of Duilius 
 as accurately as coins can g-ive it ; and the muti- 
 lated inscription on the pedestal has also been 
 well restored by Ciaccioni and others. Some an- 
 tiquaries doubt whether even the ancient part, 
 which forms a kind of oval, be the original in- 
 scription ; yet the very place where it was found, 
 the very antiquity of diction which Quintilian re- 
 marked in it, overcome in my mind the objections 
 brought against it from the materials being marble, 
 and from the accidental blending of two letters in 
 the word Navebuos. 
 
 In the first room, D'Arpino has painted the 
 history of the kings; in the second, Lauretti 
 takes his subjects from the infant republic, sub- 
 jects which, if not strictly Capitoline, are nearly 
 related to the spot. In the other rooms, Vol- 
 terrano and Perrugino have flown away from 
 
 like this, and leaniuj; her head on her hand, with the legend 
 Germania Siibacta. The modern inscription calls this figure 
 Daciay perhaps from the scaly armour and polygonal shields 
 which appear in the back-ground ; but such armour and 
 shields are also found on Germans in ancient relievos. 
 
 I 
 
 \>;) 
 
 \ 
 
 Rome to the Cimbrian wars, and Annibal's pas- 
 sage over the Alps. How superior in interest 
 are the consular Fasti, the bronze geese, the 
 thunder-struck she-wolf, from their local relation 
 to the ground ! No object in Rome appeared 
 to me so venerable as this wolf The Etruscan 
 stiffness of the figure evinces a high antiquity, its 
 scathed leg proves it to be the statue which was 
 ancient at the death of Caesar, and it still retains 
 some streaks of the gilding which Cicero re- 
 marked on it. The ancient statues, though thin- 
 ner in the bronze than the modern, received a 
 much thicker gilding, by a process different from 
 ours. Hence the gold-coat of Hercules, which 
 remains here, has resisted the file of time. Every 
 ao-e has been barbarous enough to gild bronze 
 statues; yet, would it be more absurd to pamt 
 marble ones? 
 
 A gallery where Pietro da Cortona takes the 
 lead cannot be very rich. His Rape of the Sa- 
 bines, his Triumph of Bacchus, his Sacrifice of 
 Iphigenia, and Battle of Arbela display that ex- 
 pertness of grouping which a painter, so fond of 
 brino-iniT multitudes on his canvass, must natu- 
 rally attain. The Conoscenti find in these pic- 
 tures a lucid richness of colouring, and a fire, a 
 movement, which appear something like flutter 
 to me. Guido has left here some unfinished 
 things of infinite promise ; particularly a Blessed 
 
218 
 
 ROME. 
 
 Spirit soaring to Puradise. What pity that his 
 passion for play should have forced him to pre- 
 cipitate his happiest conceptions, and placed a 
 great man and his works under the control of 
 brokers ! 
 
 I had imagined that the Capitol of Rome and 
 the seat of its corporations should belong to the 
 people, and be open to the world ; but I found 
 it locked up, subdivided into different farms, and 
 rented by different keepers. Entrance fees are 
 a serious expense to the curious at Rome. You 
 pay for admission to the Pope, to the cardinals, 
 and to all other antiquities. Your first and your 
 last call on a private friend costs you a testoon : 
 
 quid te moror ? Omnia Romse 
 
 Cum pretio. Quid das ut Cossum aliquando salutes ?- 
 Cogimur et cultis augere peculia servis. 
 
 VILLAS. 
 
 219 
 
 VILLAS. 
 
 VlIX.'E BuRGIIESkB PlNClAN.K CUSTOS H.ISC EDICO. QuiS- 
 QUIS ES, SI MBEU, MiGUM COMPEDES NE HIC TIMEAS. 
 Ito quo voles, PETITO QU^ CUPIS, ABITO QUANDO 
 
 VOLES. Exteris magis h-eg parantur quam hero. 
 Inaureo SECULO, ubi cuncta aurea, temporum secu- 
 
 RITAS FECIT. BeNE MORATO HOSPITI FERREAS LEGES 
 PR.EFIGERE HERUS VETAT. SiT HIC AMICO PRO LEGE 
 HONESTA VOLUNTAS. VeKUM SI QUIS DOLO MALO, LUBENS 
 SCIENS, AUREAS URBANITATIS LEGES FREGERIT, CAVEAT 
 NE SllU TESSERAW AMICITLE SUBIRATUS VILLICUS AD- 
 
 vo Rsu M FR ANGAT. — Inscription. 
 
 A FEW cardinals created all the great villas of 
 Rome. Their riches, their taste, their learning, 
 their leisure, their frugality, all conspired in this 
 single object. While the Eminent founder was 
 squandering thousands on a statue, he would 
 allot but one crown for his own dinner. He had 
 no children, no stud, no dogs, to keep. He built 
 indeed for his own pleasure, or for the admiration 
 of others; but he embeUished his country, he 
 promoted the resort of rich foreigners, and he 
 afforded them a high intellectual treat for a few 
 pauls, which never entered into his pocket. This 
 taste generally descends to his heirs, who mark 
 their little reigns by successive additions to the 
 stock. How seldom are great fortunes spent so 
 elegantly in England ! How many are absorbed 
 
2-20 
 
 ROME. 
 
 in the table, the field, or the turf; expenses 
 which centre and end in the rich ei^otist himself ! 
 What English villa is open, like the Borghese, as 
 a common drive to the whole metropolis ? and 
 how finely is this liberality announced in the in- 
 scription which I have copied above from the 
 pedestal of an ancient statue in that park ! 
 
 The Villa Borghesi has a variety of surface 
 formed by two hills and a dell, and a variety of 
 embellishments — casinos, temples, grottos, avia- 
 ries, modern ruins, sculptured fountains, a crowd 
 of statues, a lake, an aqueduct, a circus ; but it 
 wants the more beautiful variety of an English 
 garden ; for here you must walk in right lines and 
 turn at right angles, fatigued with the monotony 
 of eternal ilex. 
 
 The principal casino is decorated to excess. Its 
 fronts serve as frames for the ancient relievos 
 which coat them. The very porch contains sta- 
 tues which would grace the interior of any palace. 
 What then is within ? Within are the Gladiator,* 
 the Silenus, the Hermaphrodite, the Apollo and 
 Daphne, each supreme in its own saloon, and 
 encircled with subordinate statues and paintings 
 related to it. In the hall is Curtius starting from 
 the wall, and in the magnificent galleria an as- 
 semblage of busts which the world cannot match. 
 When dazzled with sculpture and scagliuola, the 
 
 * These are now in the Louvre. — C 
 
 VILLAS. 
 
 221 
 
 eye has rare basalts, and oriental granites, and 
 porphyries to repose on ; porphyry red as blood,* 
 and green, and even grey. 
 
 The Gladiator is now the last of those great 
 preceptive statues which served at Rome as 
 canons of the art. But is the figure a Gladiator ? 
 On the left arm are straps which indicate a shield, 
 and the head is bare. Now, all gladiators, ex- 
 cept the Retiarius, wore helmets, and the Re- 
 tiarius had no shield. The elastic bound of this 
 admirable figure was not more appropriate to the 
 amphitheatre than to the field of battle. But as 
 the face bears nothing of the heroic or ideal style, 
 perhaps the subject was only a Barbarian Chief, 
 like the Dying Gladiator ; for both had shields, 
 but no helmets. Some, I understand, have lately 
 called this figure a Hector : but should Hector 
 ever appear in art without that helmet which 
 gives him a kind of surname in Homer, and 
 atfords one of the finest pictures in the Iliad ? 
 Hector was for ages a common portrait in Greece, 
 and always young: the person who resembled 
 his portrait so much, and was trodden to death 
 by the curiosity of a Spartan mob, was a youth ; 
 but the figure in question is a man near 40 years 
 
 old. 
 
 The famous Seneca is another subject of dis- 
 
 * Porfido mi parea si fiammeggiante 
 
 Come sangue che fuor di vena spiccia. — Dante. 
 
 d 
 
222 
 
 ROME. 
 
 pute. Some think the figure an African fisher ; 
 and others a black slave. Indeed, a body of 
 touchstone, eyes of enamel, and a cincture of 
 yellow marble, are strange materials for a philo- 
 sopher. He was placed in a bath by the restorer, 
 and restorers may make the hands denote what 
 they please ; but the abject expression of the face, 
 and the stiff inclination of the body, are fitter for 
 the wash-tub than for the solemn act of libation 
 to Jove. The head certainly resembles the busts 
 called Seneca; but these busts are all anonymous, 
 authenticated by no medal, and as questionable 
 as the genius and virtue of Seneca himself.* 
 
 Here are two plaster-casts to represent the de- 
 parted legs of the Farnese Hercules, which 
 Prince Borghesi would never render up to the 
 body, while a hope remained of bringing the 
 body home to the legs. At last, when the mighty 
 statue was removed to Naples, he sold his limbs 
 for a star and riband. 
 
 A plainer casino has been lately built for the 
 ancient sculpture found at Gabii. This collec- 
 
 * I consider all busts as anonymous, on which the in- 
 scriptions are modern. See Capitol. No regard is due to 
 the contorniate medallion bearing the name of Seneca ; a 
 medallion depending only on the suspected authority of 
 Orsini, and no where else to be found. As for Seneca's 
 virtue, set aside the charges which Suilius or Dion bring 
 against it ; and what discord remains betAveen his philoso- 
 phy and his wealth ; between his epistles and his villas ! 
 
 VILLAS. 
 
 223 
 
 tion * includes a superb statue of Germanicus, 
 and some admirable busts of the Julian and An- 
 toninian reigns, such as M. Agrippa, Tiberius, 
 Corbulo, S. Severus, Geta. All these are entire ; 
 but most of the whole-length figures are made 
 up, and not always consistently. In one statue 
 the body is clad in armour, and the legs are bare ; 
 a peculiarity remarked in Adrian's mode of 
 marching; but the restorer, having a fine old 
 head of Trajan at hand, fixed it on these shoulders, 
 and then, to justify the union, found out some 
 vague allusions to Trajan's history in the carving 
 of the lorica. 
 
 The ancient artists were certainly attentive to 
 emblems, and attributes, and whatever could 
 mark or identify their subject ; but our antiqua- 
 ries ascribe to them perhaps more learning or 
 research than is due. Sometimes they v/ill de- 
 cide on the man from the mere shape of his 
 helmet, from the hilt of his parazonium, or the 
 adjustment of his falliiim. If the figure is naked, 
 they fly to the palm-trunk which supports it, to 
 the attitude, the cut of the hair, the place, or the 
 company in which it was found, and they are 
 never satisfied until the thing get a name. This 
 is a curiositv that should neither go too tar, nor 
 stop too soon ; for archaiology owes to it most of 
 its errors, and all its knowledge. 
 
 * These are now at Paris. — C. 
 
 ; n 
 
224 
 
 ROME. 
 
 Among these Gabine figures are several ma- 
 gistrates^'dressed in the toga ; but their toga is 
 not disposed in that solemn knot called the 
 " cinctus Gabinus ;" for the Gabines had that 
 privilege only in war. Here it may be traced 
 distinctly in its repHcations across the left shoulder, 
 and forms an umbo and a halteus which are far 
 more intelligible than the learning published on 
 these points. The sharp corners in which it ter- 
 minates would indicate that the toga was neither 
 square, nor round, nor any form assigned it in^the 
 Re vestiaria ; but rather something like a lozenge, 
 or a small segment of the circle. Its exaggerated 
 form and unnatural sinuosity, on these statues, 
 . tends to prove that ancient drapery was full of 
 composition. 
 
 A low marble cylinder, having the signs of the 
 Zodiac carved round its convex trunk, and the 
 Dii consentes round a hole in the top, is called an 
 altar of the Sun. The ancient altars, however, 
 rose to thrice the height of this : their cavity, too, 
 was shallow like a dish ; but here is a narrow, 
 deep, circular hole, perfectly unfit for sacrifice, 
 the fire of which would have burnt and defaced 
 the relievos. To me it appeared rather the plinth 
 or base of a temple-candelabrum, and for these 
 reasons. The socket would fit exactly the stem 
 of such a candelabrum, and fit nothing else so 
 ^vell — 5;onie of the Herculanean candelabra stand 
 
 VILLAS. 
 
 225 
 
 on plinths of this very cylindrical form — the 
 twelve Gods are found in this villa on another 
 candelabrum of the tripod shape — and the twelve 
 signs, if really an emblem,* would be an emblem 
 very proper for the support of a luminary. 
 
 Villa Albani. Deep learning is generally 
 the grave of taste. But the learning which is en- 
 gaged in Greek and Roman antiquities, as it em- 
 braces all that is beautiful in art, rather refines 
 and regulates our perceptions of beauty. Here 
 is a villa of exquisite design, planned by a pro- 
 found antiquary. Here Cardinal Alexander AI- 
 bini, having spent his life in collecting ancient 
 sculpture, formed such porticos and such saloons 
 to receive it, as an old Roman would have done :t 
 porticos where the statues stood free on the pave- 
 ment between columns proportioned to their 
 
 * The Zodiac was not always an emblem. It entered 
 into vases, coins, pavements, furniture, as a mere ornament ; 
 sometimes, indeed, as a conceit. Petronius describes the 
 Zodiac encircling a dining tray, where an opposite dish 
 was placed on each sign ; a whim similar to Gaeta's, who 
 used to eat alphabetically. 
 
 f *• Deinde porticus in D litterae similitudincm circura- 
 actae — ante porticum, xystus concisus in plurimas species, 
 distinctusque buxo — Inter has, marmoreo labro aqua 
 
 exundat Cavato lapide siiscipitur, gracili marmore con- 
 
 tinetur, et ita occulta temperatur, ut impleat nee redundet. 
 
 concisura aquarum cubiculis interfluentium." Such 
 
 were the objects which this villa seems to have copied 
 from Pliny's. 
 
 Q 
 
226 
 
 ROME. 
 
 stature ; saloons which were not stocked but 
 embelHshed with families of allied statues, and 
 seemed full without a crowd. Here Winkelmann 
 grew into an anticjuary under the Cardinal's pa- 
 tronaire and instruction ; and here he projected 
 his history of art, which brings this collection 
 continually into view. 
 
 The innocent creation of one cardinal fell a 
 sacrifice to atone for the politics of another. 
 Pius VI. had engaged to purchase peace of the 
 French ; but the present Cardinal Albani per- 
 suaded him to retract, and thus brought their 
 vengeance on all his familv. The blow was in- 
 deed severe — " at tu dictis, Albane, maneres !" 
 
 The spoils of this villa became a magnificent 
 supplement to those of the Vatican and Capitol. 
 Two hundred and ninety-four pieces of ancient 
 sculpture were sent hence to Paris, or lay in cases 
 at Ripagrande ready to be shipped. Some have 
 been fortunately ransomed; and the Prince, 
 though reduced in means, is now courageously 
 be"-innin<r to recombine the wrecks of this cele- 
 brated collection. It was affecting to see the 
 statues on their return to the villa. Some lay on 
 the ground shattered by their passage to the river, 
 others remained in their tremendous coffins, and 
 a few were restored to their former pedestals. 
 
 In the vestibule stood several imperial statues 
 — in the rooms a Canopus in basalt, very dif- 
 
 VILLAS. 
 
 •^27 
 
 ferent in relief from the Egyptian style, and 
 evidently a Roman imitation of the Serapis wor- 
 shipped in the form of a jar — one of those un- 
 natural figures of Nature, called the Ephesian 
 Diana ; a figure too hideous to be of Greek 
 origin, and perhaps, like the Canopus, an ancient 
 imitation of more remote antiquity, which would 
 probably end in Egypt — -a curious relievo of 
 Diogenes in an amphora — Termini on shafts of 
 oriental alabaster, where the flower of the mar- 
 ble projects for the sexual distinction. 
 
 All the beauties of the (jailcria are gone,* ex- 
 cept the ceiling. Why did Meiigs choose for this 
 ceiling such a subject as Mount Parnassus ? 
 When painters have the wide range of the Pan- 
 theon ; have Auroras, Phaetons, Ganymedes, 
 Paedalus; have ascensions, assumptions and 
 Elijahs ; have glories, apotheosis, and the winged 
 world of allegory to set floating over our heads, 
 and display their skill in foreshortening, why do 
 they force into ceilings the subjects of a lower 
 sphere ? why build earth upon the clouds ? 
 This admirable work, being foreshortened only 
 for a wall, required a vertical exposure. Be- 
 sides, the purpose of painting is to please ; but 
 who could peruse all the learned details of this 
 ceiling, without a fatigue which must pain ? 
 
 * Mostof thbMTiarbles are restored j hut the gems never 
 returned from Piuis. — C. 
 
 Q 2 
 
. I . W - 1 . 1 I .J . 
 
 22S 
 
 ROME. 
 
 Villa Lodovisi. Here is a villa within the 
 walls, nearly two miles in circuit. Rome is, in- 
 deed, so depopulated now, that the void incom- 
 modes no one ; but when the s^reat patricians 
 encroached, in this manner, on the ancient city,* 
 every acre of their parks must have crammed 
 hundreds, like poor Codrus, into the garrets. 
 These grounds include part of Sallust's gardens, 
 and must also include the spot where Romulus 
 was said to have ascended into heaven, in de- 
 fiance of his own laws as^ainst such fictions. 
 
 An infinite number of antiques are scattered 
 about the villa; but the principal statues are 
 placed in one of the casinos. This contains two 
 ancient groups which the Scltisti extol the more 
 extravagantly, for a pretence to disyjute the 
 longer on their subjects. It is pleasant to see 
 them poriiig into a marble head, and drawing 
 character or history out of every lineament. 
 
 The Papirius and his mother, (for I prefer the 
 popular name although that is Roman, and the 
 sculptor's Greek,) the Papirius particularly af- 
 fords ij^reat play to the fancy of critics. In this 
 expressive figure they find all the ingenuousness 
 of a sprightly boy, blended with a cunning as- 
 smned for the occasion : they see secresy con- 
 cealed under open manners, and a titter lurking 
 
 * '• Jam quidem hortorura nomine in ipsa urbu lielicias, 
 agros, vallascpie possideut.*' — Plin. Hint, 
 
 VILLAS. 
 
 229 
 
 under affected seriousness. But the ancient 
 artists seldom aimed at mixed passion.* They 
 knew practically the limited powers of art ; they 
 were content to bring forth one strong sentiment, 
 and left to us the amusement of analyzing that 
 one into fifty. 
 
 The group called Partus and Arria aims at a 
 higher degree of pathos. In fact, the subject 
 seems to be such, that the sculptor must be 
 either pathetic in the extreme, or ridiculous. 
 The ferocity of the man, however, is at variance 
 with the character of Paitus. Winkelmann thinks 
 him the Guard who slew both Canace and him- 
 self; but he looks still too fierce for so senti- 
 mental a cut-throat. Benedict XIV., when col- 
 lecting models for his academy at Bologna, re- 
 quested a copy of this admirable antique. The 
 Prince could not refuse his sovereiu^n, but no 
 sooner was the cast taken than he broke the 
 
 ' * Euphranor's statue of Paris is said by Pliuy to havo 
 expressed three characters at once — ''Judex dearum, 
 amator Helena?, tt tamen Achillis interfector." But Pliny 
 is a bad authority even in the history, and no authority at 
 all in the criticism, of the fine arts. On this point a late 
 statuary flatly contradicts him, and declares the thing to 
 be impossible. The Athenian Demos was certainly a 
 group, like the Polygyneticon ; for a single figure, like 
 the Spartan Demos, could not possibly express such a con- 
 trariety of passion. 
 
230 
 
 ROME. 
 
 moulds. How unfortunate for the arts to fall 
 under such gaolers ! 
 
 A sitting: warrior is too beautiful to remain 
 without a name, and is therefore called Mars, 
 although he has no spear nor victory, like the 
 sitting Mars on Constantine's arch. Mars is a 
 name too commonly Hven to the statues of stout, 
 broad-chested, frownins: young men, which more 
 probably belonged to the athletic class. 
 
 In another Casino is Guercin(/s great work of 
 the Aurora, which covers the ceiling and is de- 
 tailed into compartments. If compared with the 
 Aurora of the Rospigliosi pavilion, its composition 
 will be found less obvious and its story more 
 learned. In allegorizing Nature, Guercino imi- 
 tates the deep sliades of night, the twilight grey, 
 and the irradiations of morning with all the magic 
 of chiaroscuro ; but his figures are too mortal for 
 the region where they move. The work of Guido 
 is more poetic, and luminous, and soft, and har- 
 monious. Cupid, Aurora, Phcebus form a climax 
 of beauty, and the Hours seem as light as the 
 clouds on which they dance. At such ceilings 
 you gaze till your neck becomes stiff and your 
 head dizzy. They detain you, like the glorious 
 ceiling of the Caracci, the sole object left to be 
 admired at the Farnese palace, except the palace 
 itself. 
 
 This is the only jilace in Rome where a ticket 
 
 RELIEVOS. 
 
 231 
 
 of admission is required at the gates : not that 
 Prince Piombino reserves the sacred retreat for 
 himself; but his porters and gardeners take ad- 
 vantage of his absence and his order, and are 
 only the more exacting from those strangers whom 
 they admit without his leave. 
 
 O jaultores, villiciquo felices! 
 Dominis paiantur istu, serviuiit vobis. 
 
 RELIEVOS.* 
 
 Habent et minora sigilla, (juae, cum sint vestusta, sic ap- 
 partiit reccntia, at sint modo facta. — Vitruv. 
 
 Rome still contains a series of relievos, Egyptian, 
 Greek, Etruscan, Roman, Gothic, and modern ; 
 sufficient for tracing the rise, progress, and pas- 
 sage of the art throu2,li dilierenl nations for three 
 thousand years. Though the Muses and the 
 Nereids are gone, the Amazons, the Endymion, 
 the Andromeda, remain at the Capitol : the Me- 
 leager, the Acteon, the Esculapius, at the Villa- 
 Borghese ; the Dedal us, the Bellerophon, the 
 Paris, the Archemorus, at the Spada-Palace. 
 
 Very few of the ancient relievos are placed here 
 to advantage. Some stand on their sarcopliagiy 
 like cisterns in the corners of palace-yards : 
 others have been sawn olf to coat the casinos of 
 
 * The boautii'ul Etruscan relievo at the Villa Albani, the 
 Antinous, and the xlntiope with her sons, in the same villa/ 
 are still among the very tiucst things in ilomc. — C. 
 
 'Ml 
 
I r 
 
 2S2 
 
 ROME. 
 
 villas. If placed in museums, they lose their im- 
 portance amoni^ the statues. On the two his- 
 torical columns they stand too hio;h for minute 
 inspection. On the frieze and tympanum of pedi- 
 ments they are generally mutilated. On the 
 triumphal arches alone they preserve their orii^i- 
 nal effect. 
 
 Titus^s arch includes relievos of very different 
 styles. The largest stand within the arcade, re- 
 presenting the triumph with all the freedom and 
 grandeur of full relief. Another kind of alio 
 relievo, smaller in size, yet heavier in effect, is 
 placed very improperly in the frieze. The four 
 victories, so light and so elegant, being in lower 
 relief, are better preser\'ed than the more promi- 
 nent sculptures. 
 
 The medallions taken from Trajan's arch have 
 lately received new youth from the restoring 
 chisel. They finely illustrate some imperial func- 
 tions, and some religious rites. But Trajan's 
 religion is as foreign as his features to an arch 
 which makes Constantino a Christian at the ex- 
 pense of interpolation and forgery. 
 
 Trajan\s column^ considered as an historical re- 
 cord to be read round and round a long convex 
 surface, made perspective impossible. Every per- 
 spective has one fixed point of view ; but here are 
 ten thousand. The eye, like the relievos of the 
 column, must describe a spiral round them, widen- 
 ing over the whole piazza. Hence, to be legible^ 
 
 RELIEVOS. 
 
 233 
 
 the figures must be lengthened as they rise. This 
 license is necessary here ; but in architecture it 
 may be contested against Vitruvius himself. 
 
 This column is an immense field of antiquities, 
 where the emperor appears in a hundred different 
 points, as sovereign, or general, or priest. His 
 dignity he derives from himself or his duties; not 
 from the trappings of power, for he is dressed like 
 any of his officers : not from the debasement of 
 others, for the Romans, all save one, kissing his 
 hand, stand bold and erect before him.* How 
 unlike the modern relievos, where dress appears 
 in all its distinctions, and prostration in all its 
 angles ! none kneel here but kings and captives : 
 no Roman appears in a fallen state : none are 
 wounded or slain but the foe. 
 
 No monument gives the complete and real cos- 
 tume of its kind so correctly as this column. 
 Ancient sculptors, ever attached to the naked 
 figure,t either suppressed parts of the existing 
 dresses, or gave dresses which never existed at 
 
 * The younger Pliny remarks this popular habit of 
 Trajan ; he anticiiiates the column, and probably suggested 
 the very idea to the artist. " Nihil a ceteris nisi robore et 
 
 praestantia difierens non tu civium amplexus ad pedes 
 
 tuos deprimis tu tamen major omnibus quidem eras, sed 
 
 sine uUius diminutione major." 
 
 f Our great statues, being the work of Greek artists, 
 are naked. " Grjcca res est nihil velare." Some, like the 
 Laocoon, are naktd even against keeping. The Apollo's 
 mantle is only a support to his left arm. As the art of 
 
234 
 
 ROME. 
 
 all. Sometimes they throw the ijalud amentum 
 over the back of their emperors, and leave the 
 fore-fig-ure entirely naked. Sometimes the upper 
 half of their honorary figures is naked, and the 
 lower is vvrai)ped, like Jupiter, in a pallium. Even 
 where the body is cased in the lorica, tlie thio-hs 
 are half bare. But on this colunni we can see 
 parts of the suharmalia ; we can see real drawers 
 falling down to the officer's legs ; and some figures 
 ha\e focalia round the neck. In relating- the two 
 wars, this column sets each nation in contrast : 
 here the Moorishhorse all naked and unharnessed; 
 there the Sarmatians in complete mail down to the 
 fingers and the hoofs. It exhibits without embel- 
 lishment all the tactics of that age, and forms a 
 grand conmientary on Vegetius and Frontinus. 
 
 31. Aurdius's column is more defaced than the 
 Trajan; the figures more prominent, more con- 
 fused, and inferior in sculpture, in story, and in- 
 struction. The four relievos taken from M. Au- 
 relius's are much nobler compositions. 
 
 S. Severus's arch betrays a precipitate decline 
 in art ; figures rising in rows, heads o\ er heads, 
 and all equally protuberant. Indeed the marble 
 
 sculpture declinec], the load of drapery increased. From 
 Galiienus down to those crowned Goths at the Mattei-Palace, 
 every figure was overlaid with ornament. Valens and 
 Valentinian, Thcophihis and the Palseologi are in jewels all 
 over. Jewels <,new in number with the barbarisms, and, 
 like Apelles's pupil, they made that rich which they could 
 uot make beautiful. 
 
 RELIEVOS. 
 
 235 
 
 has been so burnt, washed, and scaled, that we 
 cannot judge of the original execution, nor catch 
 all the peculiarities of the Parthian cavalry. The 
 work raised to him in the Velabrum is little in its 
 design, rich only with chiselling, overcrowded 
 with objects of sacrifice : the offering of trades- 
 men, made to a tradesman's taste. 
 
 None of the relievos on Coiistaniine* s arch be- 
 long to his age except those in the narrow bands, 
 and over the lateral arches, carved in the style of 
 a village tombstone. 
 
 In those relievos every figure is historical ; no- 
 thing is fabulous. The Aurora and the ilesperus 
 on Trajan's column are but the times of action! 
 the divinities of rivers and of roads on his medal- 
 lions are but the objects of his improvement. All 
 other relievos, and indeed all the ancient works 
 of design, are taken from fable. Heroic fable is 
 the subject of all the great pictures of llercula- 
 neum, of those painted on the Greek vases, of 
 those described or imagined by the Philostrati, 
 and of those which Pausanias and Pliny enume- 
 rate. Every artist wrought on the elegant fictions 
 of Greece ; fictions which overspread poetry and 
 religion, nay, encroached on the sacred page of 
 history, and pretended to embellish that which 
 knows no beauty l)ut truth.* 
 
 * Hence arose the multitude of monsters which we find 
 in ancient sculpture, such as centams, satyrs, herraaphro- 
 
 A\ 
 
I! 
 
 I 
 
 236 
 
 ROME. 
 
 Most of the sepulchral relievos are works of a 
 bad a«:e. Very few are elegant in their desig-n, 
 or bear any relation to their office. Their sculp- 
 tors, or rather lapidarii, beinj^ confined to a nar- 
 row rectangle, crowd their figures in files, and, 
 anxious to tell all their story, they generally mul- 
 tiply its hero. All the ancient sarcophagi scattered 
 about Rome are but the copies of works still more 
 ancient and more excellent, copies which those 
 lapidarii kept in large assortments for sale.* 
 
 dites, sphinxes, nercids, tritons, and marine horses, &c. 
 The only monster admitted into modern art is the anj»el ; 
 and, when historically proper, as in the Annunciation or 
 the Nativity, this winged being is a subject of l)eauty. But 
 here angels intrude so constantly into sacred pictures, that, 
 instead of elevating, they flatten the imagination. Pre- 
 scription, indeed, may be pleaded in defence of these glories ; 
 but prescription is the common refuge of absurdity. If you 
 nrge the excessive height of church-pictures, and the vast 
 vacancy to be filled over the human figures ; fill up that 
 vacancy with natural objects, with sky, landscape, or archi- 
 tecture, not with beings which make the main action im- 
 probable, divert our attention from it, and divide one picture 
 into two. 
 
 * Sometimes, as a lure, they left two heads rough hewn 
 on the front, ready to receive the features of the man and 
 his wife who should buy and inhabit them. In this state is 
 one of the Disomatons preserved at the Vatican. You see 
 a great number of striated Sarcophagi about Rome, where 
 the two heads are enclosed within a scallop shell. These 
 are works of the lower empire, and many were found in the 
 catacombs. 
 
 RELIEVOS. 
 
 237 
 
 The subjects most frequent here are the Caly- 
 donian Hunt, the Battle of the Amazons, the 
 Rape of Proserpine, the Triumph of Bacchus, 
 the Death of Protesilaus, the Feast of the Indian 
 Bacchus, usually miscalled Trimalcion's Supper. 
 More than half of the ancient sculpture existing 
 is copy. Nothing bears the genuine name of any 
 celebrated master. Even the originality of the 
 Belvedere Apollo, the Laocoon, the Borghese 
 Gladiator, the Farnese Hercules, is now called in 
 question ; and to this practice of perpetually re- 
 producing the same great models, we may partly 
 ascribe the general excellence of Greek sculpture. 
 The architectural relievos differ much from the 
 monumental in character and desii2:n. Instead of 
 starting into the roundness of a statue, or confu- 
 sion of groups, they serve only as accessories to 
 the edifice which they announce or adorn. Their 
 relief is flattened to harmonize with the naked 
 wall, and leave to the mouldings their due effect 
 their size is well adjusted to the mass of building", 
 and their forms are lengthened in proportion to 
 their height above tlie eye. The figures stand 
 generally in pairs, returning in measured spaces 
 and balanced attitudes ; yet hnked by a latent un- 
 dulating connexion. Such is the style of the Par- 
 thenon friezes; a style equally conspicuous in the 
 ruins of Rome. This alternation discovers itself 
 not only in human figures, as at the Temple of 
 
 i 
 
233 
 
 ROME. 
 
 t 
 
 Pallas, but even in the griffins and candelabra on 
 that of Antoninus and Faustina, in the sacrificial 
 implements on that of Jupiter Tonans, in the sym- 
 bolical jwjnpa of four gods on a broken frieze at 
 the Capitol. 
 
 An ancient relievo may be considered as an 
 assemblage of little statues connected by a com- 
 mon story ; as a repository of costume in dress, 
 armour, and what players call property ; as a mo- 
 nument which records events, explains mythology, 
 or delineates manners; but never as a picture. 
 It groups men, but it seldom combines groups : 
 it errs in all the relations of space, makes the 
 houses as low as their inhabitants, and the boats 
 as small as the sailors, without making them ap- 
 pear more remote. 
 
 Modern sculptors aspire to something beyond 
 this. They have given to relievo the system of a 
 picture ; but have they also given it the illusion 
 of painting? they proportion mathematically the 
 prominence of each figure, the size, the different 
 degrees of rough and polished, to the plan in 
 which it stands. But what is degradation of size 
 without that of colour ? What is linear perspec- 
 tive without the aerial ? And what are their best 
 pictures in marble but stage-work, where the 
 figures stand, like actors, more or less forward on 
 the 'proscenium of a theatre, with a flat scene be- 
 hind, on which houses and trees are not painted, 
 but scratched ? 
 
 .-J 
 
 RELIEVOS. 
 
 239 
 
 The ancient relievos open an amusing field for 
 erudition, and are admirably contrived to torment 
 Italian scholars. These love such j)uzzles and 
 petty difficulties as require no liberal philoso])hy 
 to resolve them. Thev are excellent biblioo-ra- 
 phers. If not learned themselves, thev know 
 where learning lies. They can bring, like our 
 Warburton, quotations from every nook of litera- 
 ture on the most trivial points; and, like him, 
 they prefer the more ingenious solution to the 
 more natural one. What pom])ous volumes have 
 been spent on obscure or disputed relievos! 
 Liceti usually gave fifty folio pages of the closest 
 print to a lamp; and Martorelli wrote two 1 iroe 
 quartos in explanation of an old ink-stand. How 
 solemnly do these men sit down with their a])pa- 
 ratus of classical tools, to crack a few nut-shells 
 which either resist their skill, or, when opened, 
 yield nothing to repay them ! When at last the 
 (Edipus does enucleate one of those crusty eni«>*- 
 mas, the man of taste must come after him, to 
 sweep away the rubbish of his learning, cleanse 
 his discovery of all foreign matter, and class it 
 among things already known and allied to it. 
 
 .i 
 
t 
 
 ! 
 
 240 
 
 ROME. 
 
 LETTERS AND ARTS. 
 
 Rome has always adopted men of genius : but she 
 has g:iven birth to few. None of our remainino- 
 classics were born in the city except Lucretius, 
 Julius Cffisar and Tibullus. The artists who em- 
 bellished it were anciently Greeks. Such is still 
 the fortune of Rome. She is the nurse of c^reat 
 talents produced elsewhere. They flock to her as 
 the mistress of art and antiquity : she gives them 
 education, and makes them her own. 
 
 Science has never flourished under its old per- 
 secutor the Church. Rome was, indeed, the first 
 city in Europe that instituted an Academy for the 
 improvement of natural science and for the sub- 
 version of the old philosophy : but the mistake was 
 corrected. Galilei atoned for the license granted 
 to Duke Cesi : the penetrating Lincei fell into dis- 
 grace, while the innocent Arcadians were allowed 
 to warble on. Even now, men of science are 
 rather tolerated than encouraged. The govern- 
 ment suffers them to do good ; but the rew ard and 
 protection come only from individuals. P. Gan- 
 dolfi of the Sapienza, although not a Roman, has 
 laboured much to improve the economics, agricul- 
 ture and manufactures of this state ; simplifying 
 whatever was complex in the method or the ma- 
 chinery, and banishing the little quackeries of the 
 old school. 
 
 «j 
 
 LETTERS AND ARTS. 
 
 241 
 
 The business of the nation seems to be poetry. 
 Their common discourse is full of it : their com- 
 mon tone or recitative makes whatever they say 
 appear music. Considered even as a cantilenait 
 is too melodious, too soft; all vowel sounds, all 
 pulp and flesh, without nerve, articulation, or 
 bone. " I Romani non battono le consonanti" is 
 a common remark. Instead of striking the con- 
 sonants, they strike them out. For prendete they 
 say prenete ; for propria, propio ; for pantano, pa- 
 nario, &c. : their dialect is, in fact, the Ionic of 
 Italy. In every circle you meet versifiers or im- 
 provvisatori, who ha\e a satire or a sonnet ready 
 for every occasion, such as births, marriages, pro- 
 motions, arrivals, lent-preaching, monachization, 
 death. But fecundity does not always imply o-e- 
 iiius ; for the genius of this art seems to have 
 flown for the present from the multitudes of Rome 
 to a select few in Lombardy. 
 
 The Roman bar maintains its superiority in 
 learning, eloquence, and urbanity. All pleadings 
 are written, many are printed, and thus become 
 models to others in judicial composition. In such 
 a variety of courts, there is necessarily a mixture 
 of talents and pretensions, of honest practitioners 
 and of mozzorrecchi* No study opens a wider 
 
 * The Austrian ambassador, having lately occasion to 
 litigate a trifle, desired his people to call in some pettifogger. 
 A cut-ear presents himself, *' Chi siete voi ?'' — *^ Curiale per 
 
 R 
 
 ■|1'' 
 
242 
 
 ROME. 
 
 range than the law. It leads up to the purple, 
 and it descends to criminal courts where the 
 judge's salary is but ten crowns a month. How 
 wrekhedly poor must that rogue be who suffers 
 himself to be convicted at such a tribunal ! 
 
 The ancients have left us ten thousand monu- 
 ments of their genius, but not much criticism on 
 the arts in which they excelled. Modern Rome, 
 on the contrary, swarms with conoscenti, and con- 
 tains materials enough, above ground or below, 
 to keep them for ages at work. Her great Vis- 
 conti is ivone, and has left none here equal to him 
 in antiquarian depth and sagacity. The Abate 
 Fea, a lawyer from Nice, figures at present as 
 connoisseur to the Pope, and writes upon e^ ery 
 subject ; but his chief merit is activity. Monsieur 
 D'Azincourt has been for a long time collecting 
 here materials to elucidate the dark period of art, 
 from its decline to its revival. Zoega, a Swede 
 profound in Coptical learning, is now engaged in 
 explaining the Egyptian monuments and hiero- 
 glvphical obelisks of Rome. Marini, prefect of 
 the Vatican libran and Archives, is distinguished 
 by a felicity in ascertaining local antiquities, and 
 drawinn- sense and service from the most obstinate 
 inscriptions. The Caviliere Giov. Gherardo de' 
 
 ubbicirla." 
 zorrecchio."- 
 
 -" Cuiiale non mi cunviene : cercava un moz- 
 — " Non impoita, Eccellenza ; bon mozzor 
 
 LETTERS AND ARTS. 
 
 243 
 
 Rossi might, for depth and acumen, be classed 
 among those professional antiquaries, were he not 
 claimed by Thalia and other Muses. Rome 
 knows his value, and, in her late adversities, con- 
 fided her treasury to Gherardo. 
 
 All the artists of Rome yield the palm to Ca- 
 nova ; yet here he is admired only as the sculptor 
 of the Graces. Such a world of ideal and un- 
 created beauty has he evoked, so tenderly fasci- 
 nating are his Cupid and Psyche, liis Hebe so 
 elegant and aerial, and such his addiction to 
 subjects like these, that some critics would limit 
 his powers to the beautiful alone. But will the 
 Hercules and Lichas admit this limitation ? 
 Whatever critics may say of the anatomy, the ex- 
 pression of this group is sublime ; and the contrast 
 of passion and suffering is terrific. Hercules, per- 
 haps, too gigantic for his victim, holds the youth 
 by one foot finely reverted behind his back, and 
 looks furiously down the precipice; while the 
 fatal tunic, glued to the skin *, shews every muscle 
 under it swollen and starting with agony. 
 
 *The adhesion of the tunic is here true to nature and to 
 the story: it corresponds literally with Sophocles who, in 
 sketching the statue, debases this gluing part of it by a low, 
 unpoetical image. 
 
 TI^OffTTUfflTirO 
 
 rechio anche io per seuvirla." 
 
 X/T&»v ccTTd'j xar' ccrj^/jov — 
 So fund wei'e the ancient sculptors of this effect, that they 
 
 R 2 
 
 i 
 
w 
 
 i 
 
 244 
 
 ROME. 
 
 Here is an inferior class of artists who work 
 chiefly for the traveller. Of the thousands who 
 visit Rome few can purchase statues or pictures, 
 vet all wish to take home sor.ie evidence of their 
 visit, some portable remembrance of Roman art ; 
 as a mosaic snuff-box, an assortment of marbles, 
 impressions of gems, or even a few antiques. 1 he 
 cems, which are sold for antique in a city so full 
 of en-ravers, must be more doubtful than those 
 which come from the Levant. Many are notori- 
 ous forgeries : indeed the very multitude ot those 
 on sale excites a suspicion of their antiquity. Yet 
 when we reflect on the passion which Italians 
 have ever betrayed for rings,* we must allow that 
 a large proportion of those gems may be genuine. 
 
 soaked their fem.ale draperies, which moulded themselves 
 more impudently on the naked form than any real dress 
 could do. The Multitia, the Tarentinidiau, the Coan of- 
 fended rather from a transiarency ot texture. So, at least, 
 Ishould conclude from the Herculean figures called dancmg 
 "iris, and even from Horace ; 
 
 Cois tibi vulere est 
 
 Ut nudam : ne crure malo sit, ne sit pede turpi. 
 Torlonia is raising a temple for this Hercules, which should 
 stand poetically on a perpendicular cliff. 
 
 * *« In orani articulo gemma oisponitnr." — Senec. 
 Rings were anciently an object of state-regulation. At 
 this day you seldom see an Italian postilion, or rir;,ierone 
 without his cameo. A beggar once in the very act ot 
 
 I 
 
 LETTERS AND ARTS. 
 
 24.5 
 
 Canova, Kauffman, Beiiveiiuti, Denys, Thors- 
 waldeii, all the principal artists of Rome are 
 foreign to it. They came hither to form or to 
 perfect their style. Here they meet congenial 
 society, they catch inspirations from the sight 
 of great works, they contract a dependance on 
 such helps, and at last they can do nothing well 
 out of Rome. Poussin ascribed it to the air : 
 I have heard Angelica say that the water of 
 Rome revived her powers, and gave her ideas. 
 This amiable woman is the idol of her invidious 
 profession, the only artist beloved by all the rest. 
 
 Ars utinam mores animumque effingere posset; 
 Pulchrior in terris nulla tabella foret. 
 
 begging displayed to me a large paste-head on his finger. 
 To single rings add all the collections and dactyfiothecce 
 kept or consecrated since the first offering of Scaurus j add 
 the stones which studded the fingers of the gods, the dresses 
 of the great, and the necks and arms of their naked little 
 pages ; add the innumerable emhlemata which were set in 
 cups, statues, candlesticks, sword-hilts, belts : then con- 
 sider how great a proportion of the ancient gems were 
 engraven, as the Romans sealed not only schedules and 
 letters, but also caskets, doors, chests, and casks : consider 
 how indestructible such objects were, how easily preserved 
 from barbarians, how greedily treasured by the church ; 
 and your doubts on the multitude of antique gems will 
 considerably abate. 
 
 
iii 
 
 "T"»^r" 
 
 246 
 
 ROME. 
 
 THE CAMPAGNA. 
 
 Gal)ios, Veios(iiio, Coram [ue 
 
 PulvLTO vix tedse iioterunt moustrare ruiua?, 
 Albanosquu lares, Laiiventinosque Penates, 
 Rus vacuum, quod non habites nisi uocte coacta 
 Invitus. liUCAN. 
 
 The desert which encircles Rome owed its an- 
 cient saUibrity not to any natural advantages 
 which it now wants, but to the population and 
 tillas-e of its Latin states. During; the empire 
 the public ways were lined with houses from the 
 city to Aricia, to Tibur, to Ocriculum, to the sea. 
 in the interval between those lines the town and 
 country were so interwoven, that Nero projected 
 a third circuit of walls which should embrace 
 half the Campa£j;na. At this period, the bad air 
 infected but a small part between Antium and 
 Lanuvium, nor did it desolate these ; for Antium 
 o-rew maanificent under different emperors, and 
 Lanmium was surrounded with the villas of the 
 
 great. 
 
 At length, when a dreadful succession of 
 Lombards, Franks, and Saracens destroyed the 
 houses, pavements, drains, crops, plantations, and 
 cattle which had protected the Campagna from 
 
 THE CAMrAGNA. 
 
 247 
 
 mephitism, 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 drained 
 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 stratum for their bed, and a loose 
 one for their cover. Thus retired from his reach, 
 those invisible enemies attack man with exhala- 
 tions which he cannot resist. From those he 
 must fly, and for the present attempt more prac- 
 ticable contpiests. 
 
 This malaria (as the people here call it) is an 
 evil more active than the Romans, and continues 
 to increase in spite of all the science which they 
 publish agiiinst it. Last autumn four thousand 
 persons died victims to it in the Roman hospitals. 
 It is a battle renewed every spring, and lost every 
 fall. In the tracts mentioned in the motto, the 
 malaria has been established for many ages ; 
 but now it is advancing on the suburbs, and the 
 city of Rome, while the checks opposed to its 
 progress are either defective or absurd. 
 
 By clearing the woods of Nettuifo which the 
 ancients wisely held sacred, Government has 
 
 }i' 
 
 !i 
 
248 
 
 ROME. 
 
 lately removed one defence* against the sea- 
 vapours which now, mixin<^ freely with those of 
 the land, render them doubly noxious. It then 
 offered premiums for taking new ground into 
 culture, at the distance of a mile, either from the 
 walls of Rome, or from the hills which bound 
 the region infected ; thus vainly hoping to ex- 
 tend the arable, and reduce the unhealthy dis- 
 trict, by encouragements which are of no avail 
 against the tyranny of its own Annona. 
 
 The present Romans seem to have lost that 
 agricultural taste which so well promoted the 
 warlike institutions of their ancestors. They 
 abandon their richest grounds to the care of 
 sluffirards like themselves. Hence the Bailiff or 
 
 or? 
 
 the vigneronc often meets the landlord's demand 
 with a bill of expenses which exceed the rent. 
 
 • The mephitic air, being heavy and therefore low, may 
 be stopped by low hills, woods, and even building, lleuce 
 ancient Rome, which lay more on the south-east side of its 
 mounts, was naturally more imhealthy than the present 
 city ; for this, having shifted its population to the cmn/Ms 
 martins, is sheltered by those mounts from the winds which 
 bring mephitism, while it lies open to the ventilation of the 
 north. For the same reason, the difference of exposure is 
 very abrupt in its effects. Only a narrow road separates 
 the two villas Lodovisi and Medici ; yet tlie former is sub- 
 ject to the malaria, and the other a refuge from it. At 
 St. Calixtus, the cells next the country are unhealthy in 
 summer, while the opposite side of the convent is safe. 
 
 THE CAMPAGXA. 
 
 249 
 
 The landlord complains that " chi ha vigna, ha 
 tigna :" he sells his paternal acres, and prefers 
 the monte di pietd, although lately a bankrupt, 
 as a surer source of revenue. 
 
 Thus the soil falls into the hands of a few ac- 
 cumulating proprietors ; and the enormous feuds 
 of the Borghesi and Colonna families, of the 
 hospital of Santo Spirito, and some religious 
 houses are divided into few farms. The farmers, 
 not enjoying the free sale of their own grain, 
 raise little here besides grass, which costs only the 
 trouble of cutting it. To check this practice, a 
 fine of five j^auls has been lately imposed on every 
 ruhhio of land lying untilled in certain districts ; 
 but the farmer who can afford to pay eight 
 crowns a ruhbio for land which he does not sow, 
 will hardly, for so trifling a penalty, abandon his 
 usual course, and contend with a soil where the 
 depth of vegetable earth and the hardness of the 
 surface often require six ploughings for a crop. 
 
 Thus the Campagna remains the same melan- 
 choly waste: divided only by ruined aqueducts; 
 without habitation, or hedge, or tree ; and all this 
 in spite of Doctors who are daily offering new 
 recipes to cure the air. Some prescribe the 
 planting of olive or mulberry trees, at once to 
 absorb the miasma and enrich the country. One 
 Cardinal has recommended a nightly patrol of 
 the sheep and black cattle ; another has proposed 
 to pave the Agro Romano. 
 
t 
 
 250 
 
 ROME. 
 
 The Romans allow that agriculture and drain- 
 ing- would reduce both the extent and the viru- 
 lence of the mephitic air; but then they enlarge 
 on the sacrifice of lives which the enter])rise 
 would cost, on the want of wholesome water, 
 which in some parts is dearer than wine, on the 
 scarcity of labourers and of cattle ; on the con- 
 fusion which would ensue in the " grosse pos- 
 sidenze," on the opposition of great feudatories 
 and o-reat farmers. Thus difficulties ar€ ever 
 multiplied by men who want decision. But had 
 they spirit for an attempt so durably beneficent, 
 the first dangers would be the greatest, and even 
 these might be lessened in the worst air, by at- 
 tention to food and night-shelter, by retiring 
 from the field before sunset, and not returning to 
 it before sunrise, by burning wood in the bed- 
 chambers, and never sleeping on the ground. 
 But whoever would project here a distant benefit 
 to humanity against the present interest of great 
 men, deserves to be sent, with the two cardinals, 
 to the academy of Lcifjoda. 
 
 251 
 
 TIVOLI. 
 
 Domus Albuneae resonantis, 
 
 Et praeceps Aiiio, et Tiburni lucus. — Hok. 
 
 Tins excursion taught me to appreciate the pro- 
 mise of sounding names. At the " Domus Al- 
 buneae resonantis," I found nothing but a deep 
 pool of bluish water impregnated with sulphur, 
 and hardly accessible from stench. The wonderr 
 fid floating islands dwindled into small masses 
 of reeds which were matted in a bituminous turf, 
 and which break off or return to the bunks, pre- 
 cisely like those of the Vadimon lake.* The 
 sacred groves and the temple of Fauuus exist 
 only in poetry. Agrippa's baths are interred, and 
 Virgil's lofty Albunea, if the same as Horace's, 
 is now a flat. 
 
 In their time, indeed, the ground miy have 
 risen into hills, and been levelled by the effect of 
 a petrific stream which flows from the lake. The 
 incrustrations formed during so many ages may 
 have dammed up the water till it flooded the 
 environs, where its ttirtareous deposite, called 
 Testina, is now grown into one wide plain of 
 Travertine stone. 
 
 This deposite increases everywhere in propor- 
 tion to the strength of the current. At Tivoli it 
 
 * 
 
 See Pliny's long description (Ep. 8. 20,) which in- 
 cludes every thing that I saw in the water of Albunea. 
 
 I 
 
 
-^ — -r*. 'M 
 
 !l 
 
 I 
 
 9\0 
 
 ROME. 
 
 gains annually about half an inch on the rocks 
 exposed to the fiills. On descending these to the 
 tremendous grotto of Neptune, I saw the impres- 
 sion of a modern wheel which had lain on the cliff 
 till the stone grew over it. An iron crow was 
 lately hewn out of a Travertine block, where some 
 ancient quarry-slave had probably left it. 
 
 On arriving at Tivoli we hired a Cicerone and 
 asses for the picturesque tour of the hills. First 
 appeared the villa of Vopiscus, which stands only 
 on one bank of the Anio, and at the verge of the 
 fi-reat cascade, in a situation so noisy, so rugged, 
 SO rocky, in every point so opposite to Statins s 
 description, that no lapse of time, or change in 
 the river could well reconcile them.* 
 
 Turnino- round the woody hill of Catilus, we 
 passed by two convents where two great poets 
 are said to have resided. Catullus's villa is ascer- 
 tained by his own minute description of the place, 
 by excavated marbles, and by the popular name 
 of Trufflia ; but it is not so evident that Horace 
 possessed any house at Tivoli. He might muse 
 occasionally at Tibur, just as he studied history 
 at Prseneste ; he might admire this retreat, just 
 
 * Inj^enium quam mite solo ! nemura alta citatis 
 
 Incubuere vadis • 
 
 Ipse Allien, (miranda fides !) infraque siiperque 
 Saxeus, hie tumidam rabiem spumosaque jxtmt 
 
 Murmura 
 
 Littiis utrinnqve domi ; nee te mitissimus amnis 
 Dividit, a/ternas servant praetoria ripas. 
 
 
 TIVOLI. 
 
 253 
 
 as he admired that of Tarentum : but the Sabine 
 farm, where the well, and the ruined fane, and 
 every little object around gains that importance 
 which a poet would naturally give to his home, 
 has nothing to represent it within twelve miles of 
 Tivoli. Horace calls that farm his only posses- 
 sion, and surely we may believe the poet himself 
 rather than a biographer whose very name is 
 disputed. 
 
 The ruins of Varus's villa furnish a singular 
 specimen of reticular work in stone. This Varus 
 is always called the unfortunate, an epithet which 
 implies more regret than is due to the fall of a 
 slave attacking the sacred retreats of freemen. 
 
 We re-crossed the river at the Ponticello, a 
 poor substitute for the Caelian bridge. We rode 
 up to the celebrated range of lofty, Doric arcades, 
 which bear the very disputable name of Maicenas's 
 villa. Half the charm of the Tiburtine villas 
 consists in the names which they bear. These 
 rustic and grand substructions, however, crown 
 the hill so admirably, that, whatever they ori- 
 ginally were, they now appear the master object 
 of Tivoli, and prove how happily the ancient 
 architects consulted the elevation of site and the 
 point of view. 
 
 The Via Publica separates these ruins from the 
 Villa d'Este. This villa was created by cardinal 
 Hippolito, nephew of Ariosto's patron; and an 
 unnatural creation it is. The palace above is 
 
 f'< 
 
 ! 
 
 t* r 
 
 ii 
 
w 
 
 t 
 
 I 
 
 254 
 
 .ROME. 
 
 empty and forlorn : the garden * affects both re- 
 «rularity and confusion, rock-work and girandoles 
 of water, grottos and rows of perspective temples, 
 mathematical mazes, and a theatre of stairs. 
 
 On the south side of the hill is a number of 
 ancient villas, or rather sites of villas ; for the 
 imposing names of Brutus and Cassius, of Sallust, 
 Lepidus, and the Pisos, lead only to unintelligible 
 ruins, or to no ruins at all. None of these build- 
 in "-s rose above the basement story, except in the 
 towers which, flanked them,t and therefore the 
 present remains were mere substructions ; for all 
 villas standing, like these, on a declivity, were 
 based upon vaulted terraces, the front of which 
 rose in proportion to the slope. 
 
 Our guide was a local Latinist. Though as 
 ignorant of the language as any other parrot, he 
 
 '■' It is nevertheless pleasiniij as a garden. The cypresses, 
 under which tradition says Ariosto sat, and the beautiful 
 Italiiin pines, are unrivalled, and form a furej^round to the 
 distant Campagna, interestiu*; both to the poet and the 
 
 painter. — C. 
 
 f •' Turres in propugnaculuin villse utrinque subrectas.'* 
 — Sen. Their town-houses, on the contrary, ran into so 
 many stories, that Augustus found it necessary to restrict 
 their height to 70 feet, and Trajan to CO. In the upper 
 part of those mansions were the freedmen of the family, or 
 poor tenants lodged in separate coenacida. Modern Ita- 
 lians reverse this arrangement. They give up the ground 
 floor to their servants and to the common offices : the first 
 story is open to the public as a gallerj-; the second and 
 third tliev reserve for themselves. 
 
 TIVOLI. 
 
 255 
 
 quoted, with good accent and good discretion, all 
 the ancient poets that bore ui)on his rounds. His 
 Latin could even go twelve miles up the country 
 to Horace's place at Licenza : it took in Blan- 
 dusia, Lucretilis, Digentia, Mandela, Vacuna, and 
 entertained us during half our tour, till at last we 
 detected the harmless imposture, by quoting out 
 of his beat. Yet poor Donato excelled in his 
 narrow sphere. Before he installed himself a 
 Cicerone, he had been employed by landscape- 
 painters to carry their implements round the hill. 
 From them he had picked up the best remarks 
 on its scenery, he stopped us at the finest points 
 of view, he lectured, he grinned with admiration, 
 he amused us, and was happy. 
 
 On returning to the Sibilla-Inn we found tour- 
 ists like ourselves, on asses like our own, carica- 
 tured on the walls by English draughtsmen.* The 
 Sibyl was from time immemorial in possession of 
 the elegant round temple on the cliff; but an- 
 tiquaries have now turned out the poor prophetess 
 into a neighbouring fane, and given up her 
 Corinthian rotonch, merely because it is round, 
 to Vesta. Now Vesta is not recorded amona: 
 the Tiburtine deities ; nor would the niche front- 
 ing the door of this temple suit a goddess whose 
 temples, if we believe Ovid, admitted no statues. 
 But the Sibyl, we are certain, had a temple at 
 
 * Such were the subjects of Ludius's old frescos. " Va- 
 rias ibi species villas adeuntium asellis.'' — Plin. Hist. 
 
 II 
 
, 1 
 
 256 
 
 ROME. 
 
 Tivoli, and a statue which was removed thence 
 to the Capitol. Aii^ain : the traditional name of 
 the round temple has been always Sibilla. The 
 traditional name of another round temple here 
 has conjured up an unheard-of goddess, and a 
 stranire one she is — Cou2:h.* The traditional 
 names of I'Opiscone, Bassi, Pisanetti,Quintigliolo, 
 Campolimito, Cassiano, have served to identify 
 the villas of Vopiscus, Quintidius, Bassus, Piso, 
 Quintilius Varus, Lepidus, and Cassius. Why 
 then should tradition, which is called in to as- 
 certain the other antiquities of Tivoli, lose its 
 authority on the Sibylline, the most beautiful of 
 them all ? This singular ruin has been too often 
 engraven to need description ; yet though prints 
 may combine it with the immediate landscape, 
 what pencil can reach into the black gulf below ? 
 Tlie hill of Tivoli is all over picture. Tlie city, 
 the villas, the ruins, the rocks, the cascades, in 
 the foreijround : the Sabine hills, the three Mon- 
 ticelli, Soracte, Frascati, the Campagna, and 
 
 * Had Cough been really deified, how has she escaped 
 St. Augustine, ArnoLius, or Tertullian, who have dragged 
 out from their holes all the obscure, queer, filthy, and 
 obscene gods in the ancient rubric ? If a structure so full 
 of windows could well be a temple, I should rather suppose 
 that Tosse, the name of its divinity, has shared the fate of 
 so many others round Tivoli, and been altered by tradition 
 from the name or the epithet of some other deity or hero. 
 
 [This temple of Cough tlerives its name from the family 
 name ofthose buried within, for it is a sepulchre I — C] 
 
 t] 
 
 TIVOLI. 
 
 257 
 
 Rome in the distance : — these form a succession 
 of landscapes superior, in the delight produced, 
 to the richest cabinet of Claude's. Tivoli cannot 
 be described : no true portrait of it exists : all 
 views alter and embellish it : they are poetical 
 translations of the matchless original. Indeed 
 when you come to detail the hill, some defect of 
 harmony will ever be found in the foreground or 
 distance, something in the swell or channelliniy 
 of its sides, something in the growth or the group- 
 ing of its trees, which painters, referring every 
 object to its effect on canvass, will often condemn 
 as bad Nature. In fict, the beauties of land- 
 scape are all accidental. Nature, intent on more 
 important ends, does nothing exclusively to please 
 the eye. No stream flows exactly as the artist 
 would wish it; he wants mountains where he 
 finds only hills, he wants hills where he finds a 
 plain. Nature gives him but scattered elements ; 
 the composition is his own. 
 
 I went down to Adrian's villa with exalted ideas 
 of its extent, variety, and magnificence. On 
 approaching it, I saw ruins overgrown with trees 
 and bushes — mixed-reticular walls stretchina: 
 along the side of a hill, in all the confusion of a 
 demohshed town — but no grandeur of elevation, 
 no correspondence in the parts. On proceeding, 
 however, its extent and its variety opened before 
 me — baths, academies, porticos, a library, a 
 
 s 
 
 H 
 
 , I. 
 
 !f 
 
 i! 
 
 ; \ 
 
fi 
 
 rrmmmmam 
 
 4 
 
 258 
 
 ROME. 
 
 palestra, a hippodrome, a menai^ery, ^naumacliia, 
 an aqueduct, theatres both Greek and Latin, 
 temples for different rites, every appurtenance 
 suitable to an imperial seat. But its maj^nificence 
 is gone : it has passed to the Vatican, it is scat- 
 tered over Italy, it may be traced in France. 
 Anv where but at Tivoli may you look for the 
 statues and caryatides^ the columns, the oriental 
 marbles, and the mosaics, with which the villa 
 was once adorned, or supported, or wainscoted, 
 
 or floored. 
 
 This too conspicuous beauty has been exposed 
 even to worse enemies than time. Adrian's invi- 
 dious successors neglected or unfurnished it. 
 The Goths sacked it. The masons of the dark 
 a^i-es pounded its marbles into cement. Anti- 
 quarian popes and cardinals dug into its conceal- 
 ing continents, only to plunder it. Even the 
 traveller's penknife attacks the stuccos, or the 
 stripes painted on the vaults, and thus lays open 
 the whole succession of coria. 
 
 This villa was at first so diffuse, so deficient 
 
 in symmetry or connexion, and is now so ruined, 
 
 so torn bv excavation, that its original plan is 
 
 become an object extremely difficult for a stranger 
 
 to recover ; and should therefore be reserved till 
 
 his eye is practised in such antiquities. Our 
 
 Cicerone rattled well enough over the ground, 
 
 till our inquiries checked his eloquence. When 
 
 I asked why parts of the prcctorium or palace- 
 
 TIVOLI. 
 
 259 
 
 walls were double, he flew off to those of the 
 ceyito camerellc, and explained why they were so. 
 " But where are the nares of these double walls?" 
 — " No'l capisco." — " And this same piazza 
 d'oro, what gave it that name ?" — " Non si sa." 
 — " But you have not shown us where those 
 porticos connect with the library ?" — " Caro lei, 
 non sono capace." — " And where did this cham- 
 ber receive light ?" — ^^Monsii mio, non saprei dire." 
 It is not the crypio-porticus alone that was 
 built for obscurity. In this villa of Adrian's I 
 saw some loop-holes like the rimce of Scipio's 
 time, but none that could pass for windows : yet 
 windows were common in the patrician villas long 
 before the reign of this imperial architect. Find- 
 ing none in the walls, some antiquaries have sup- 
 posed windows in the vaults ; and certainly the 
 round or the polygonal rooms may have been 
 Hghted by an orb like the Pantheon ; but in other 
 cases I know no mark nor mention of ancient 
 skylights. Glass, indeed, was employed on some 
 ceilings ; but only in mosaic* On these vaults 
 there is no decoration bat stuccos in low relief, 
 and some arabesque paintings. 
 
 * It is a mosaic, not a skylight, that Statins describes in 
 the "' Effulgent earner ac vario fastigia vitro." Pliny also 
 represents the same kind of glass mosaic passing from the 
 pavement to the ceiling ; but in all the remains that 1 have 
 seen, this vitrum appears an opaque and coloured paste. 
 
 s2 
 
 i' 
 
\ 
 
 I 
 
 260 
 
 ROME. 
 
 The distribution of the parts inhabited, and 
 particularly of the baths, was such as the climate 
 and the modes of life reciuired. The rest of this 
 villa discovers that foreign taste which Adrian 
 had contracted by living so much abroad. The 
 Lyceum, the Academm, the Stoa, the Pcpcile, the 
 PryianeuTih the Tempe, show his predilection for 
 Greece. The Egyptian temples and statues, and 
 other affectationsof remote antiquity, betray the 
 same cast of mind as our modern imitations of 
 the Gothic do. 
 
 From Tivoli I made an excursion to Fras- 
 CATi, to view the Tusculan villas, which are still 
 as conspicuous and as white as of old. At present 
 Prince Borghesi is the Lucullus of the hill ; for 
 the three largest of its palaces, Mondragone, 
 Tavema, and Belvedere, belong to that family. 
 
 Belvedere commands most glorious prospects, 
 and is itself a fine object, from the scenic ettect 
 of its front and approaches. Behind the palace 
 is an aquatic theatre formed by a stream which 
 flows from Mount Algidus, dashes precipitately 
 down a succession of terraces, and is tormented 
 below into a variety of tricks. The whole court 
 seems alive at the turning of a cock. Water 
 attacks you on every side; it is squirted on your 
 face from invisible holes, it darts up in a constel- 
 lation oijets cPeaii, it returns in misty showers, 
 which present against the sun a beautiful Iris. 
 
 TIVOLI. 
 
 261 
 
 Water is made to blow the trumpet of a Centaur, 
 and the pipe of a Cyclops: water plays two 
 orsrans ; makes the birds warble, and the Muses 
 tune their reeds ; sets Pegasus neighing, and all 
 Parnassus on music. I remark this magnificent 
 toy as a specimen of Italian hydraulics. Its 
 sole object is to surprize strangers, for all the 
 pleasure that its repetitions can impart to the 
 owners is but a faint reflection from the pleasure 
 of others. The Borghesi, I understand, seldom 
 visit the place. 
 
 At the villas Conti, Bracciano, Rospigliosi, 
 &c., I saw white casinos, grand fountains, em- 
 broidered parterres, terraces encircled with ba- 
 lustrades; but such were not the objects that I 
 souffht on the Tusculan hill. Modern architec- 
 ture and made ground are seldom picturesque 
 either in the landscape, or on canvass. Painters 
 may account for this defect from their profes- 
 sional dislike to right lines and right angles, of 
 the dry, and the uniform ; but I would rather 
 consider the picturesque as a species of poetry, a 
 subject of the imagination and memory. In 
 landscape we love ruined temples, a Gothic 
 castle, a moss-grown cell, more than the most 
 elegant villa ; because ancient Romans, a feudal 
 baron, and a hermit, being remote from our own 
 times or manners, are more poetical beings than 
 a private gentleman or a modern prince. We 
 know what the villa and its inhabitants are ; one 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
-'■! 
 
 262 
 
 ROME. 
 
 o-lance ffives us all, and exhausts the subject. 
 But we must fancy what a ruin has been ; we 
 trace and we lose its design, we re-build and re- 
 people it, we call in history, we compose, we 
 animate, we create; and man ever delights in 
 his own creation. 
 
 Some of this delight I expected at Grotfa For- 
 rata ; but when I asked the monks w^hat vestiges 
 they had discovered of Cicero there, " We have 
 discovered (said they) the body of Benedict IX., 
 which had been long supposed to lie in the 
 clutches of the devil."^ " But of Cicero ? "— " Of 
 Cicero we have only found an old trapezopkoron.^^ 
 Cicero, who was extravagant in the article of 
 tables * talks indeed of a trapezophoron which he 
 wished to purchase ; but whether he did so, and 
 whether that was the very marble found here, are 
 equally uncertain. In fact, no positive remains 
 of his Tusculanum exist heref. Not far from this 
 convent thev found Cicero's name on a headless 
 bust ; but at the convent of Rufinella, farther up 
 the hill, they found his name stamped on some 
 ancient tiles, which should ascertain the situation 
 of a villa in preference to any moveable. 
 
 At the Rocca I was introduced to Cardinal 
 York, and felt some emotion on seeing the last 
 
 * " Marcus TuUius quingentis millibus nummum orbem 
 citri emit." — Tektull. 
 
 t The beautiful Greek bas relief, now at Grotta Ferrata, 
 had uot been discovered, it seems, when Forsyth wrote. — C 
 
 { 
 
 JOURNEY TO NAPLES. 
 
 263 
 
 withered branch of that unfortunate family which 
 had reigned in my country for so many ages. The 
 cardinal appeared to me an hospitable, warm- 
 hearted, testy old man; and discovered, even at 
 his own table, something of that peremptory 
 manner which, being supported by long seniority 
 and illustrious birth, gave him, I understood, an 
 ascendant in the sacred college over minds supe- 
 rior to his own. 
 
 I 
 
 JOURNEY TO NAPLES. 
 
 Appia longarum teritur regina viarum, 
 
 Sed juvcre morae. Stat. 
 
 This journey alone might furnish volumes ; but 
 I describe nothing, and shall confine my remarks 
 to very few objects. At Albano we passed those 
 venerable cones which most people call the 
 Tombs of the Horatii. Of the Iloratii they 
 cannot be, or Livy is wrong : yet the original 
 design, so different from that of other tombs, and 
 so much in the style of Porsenna's, as described 
 by Pliuy, would indicate a higher antiquity than 
 others suppose, in assigning them to the reco- 
 vered ashes of Pompey. 
 
 We went \i\^ the woody hill of La Riccia by 
 traverses which brought Lavinium, Laurentum, 
 and the scene of half the /Eneid into view. Near 
 
264 
 
 JOURNEY TO NAPLES. 
 
 La Riccia was the retreat where Egeria took 
 charge of Hippolytus, not that where she met 
 Numa : for inNuma's reign Aricia was distant and 
 foreign from Rome. Afterwards, indeed, when 
 Rome spread into the country, and encircled his 
 Egerian grotto, Aricia, being then more solitary, 
 was thought by some the scene of their myste- 
 rious meetings ; and two different retreats of the 
 same nymph were thus confounded. La Riccia 
 is a little removed from the site of its ancestor ; 
 yet, as it traces its origin from Aricia, and 
 Aricia from the first Siculi, it may perhaps dis- 
 pute the palm of antiquity with Cortona itself. 
 
 On arriving atVELLEXRi, my eye ran delighted 
 over the rich expanse of the Pontine Marshes, 
 which then glowed under the tints of a glorious 
 sun-set : but all the picturesque vanished next 
 mornins: when I entered on this desolate tract. 
 Pliny can hardly convince me that the present 
 marshes contained thirty- three cities;* even ad- 
 mitting that the Volsci were a populous nation 
 and the marshes once healthy and dry. But 
 healthy they were never ; nor does any authentic 
 record prove that, from the first attempt to drain 
 them to the last, from Appius Claudius to Bras- 
 chi, one half of them was ever habitably dry. 
 Virgil found them a " a black bog ;" and Silius, 
 
 * A gentleman, who had been engaged in the last sur- 
 vey, gave me 138 Roman square miles, 36 rubii, and a 
 fraction, as the exact measurement. 
 
 JOURNEY TO NAPLES. 
 
 265 
 
 filling up, as usual, the sketch of his master, de 
 scribes them exactly as they now are. 
 
 Rappini, it would appear, began the operations 
 of the late reign without carrying his levels on to 
 the sea ; and, at an enormous expense of human 
 lives, he pursued his Linea Pia (which an intel- 
 liirent friend of mine calls the Linea Impia) 
 throuffh the middle of the marshes, without suf- 
 ficient depth to receive water from the lower 
 parts. A canal cut on a firm bottom close to the 
 crescent of the Apennines, and large enough to 
 convey all those hill-streams which originally 
 formed and still feed the marshes, would have 
 left the old canals free for the discharge of those 
 waters which are lodged in the middle. But 
 Braschi cared little for the merit which was not 
 to be seen. His canal, therefore, runs along his 
 road to court the admiration of travellers for 
 twenty miles, while tiaras, and scutcheons, and 
 inscriptions, remind them continually of this 
 modern Appius. 
 
 This road has been ever the scene of Roman 
 ostentation. Here the ancient patricians con- 
 tended for the office of curator vice, and for the 
 honour of inscribing their names and D.S.P. over 
 works and repairs which exhausted their fortunes. 
 But none of those inscriptions, nor any ancient 
 monument except Trajan's mile-stones and Theo- 
 dorics's tablets, remain to dispute your attention 
 with Braschi's. 
 
 i. 
 
266 
 
 JOURNEY TO NAPLES. 
 
 A few square miles of meadow and some arable 
 land have been drained on the left, where I saw 
 herds of horses, and myriads of wild-fowl. To- 
 wards the sea the marshes present one impene- 
 trable thicket of reeds and saplings, which screen 
 every object except the Circcean promontory. 
 
 Pius VI., having kept his road mathematically 
 straight for more than twenty miles, would not 
 turn it, as Trajan had done, at a place which can- 
 not be far from the Temple of Feronia, and where 
 no solid bottom could be found. The Pope, more 
 obstinate than the Emperor, pursued at a tenfold 
 expense his dear right line to the end. We 
 foolishly followed his Holiness, and were obliged 
 to drive for half a mile through a tract of water 
 which the postilions call " il pantano dell' inferno." 
 Pius forgot that the ancient engineers were as 
 fond as himself of a right line, nor ever circum- 
 flexed their ways, but when compelled by im- 
 perious nature. 
 
 Pius VI. has left here a ij-rand succession of 
 works, in his road, canal, bridges, and inns on the 
 marshes, his palace, public offices, wharfs and 
 granaries, at Terracina. Terracina pleases only 
 as you approach it from the desert. Its cathedral 
 is a wretched tissue of ancient and modern, Greek 
 and Gothic, brick and marble. The recent build- 
 ings dazzle the eye by the same whiteness which 
 Horace remarked here. Theodoric's palace on 
 the mountain and the mole on the sea show how 
 
 JOURNEY TO NAPLES. 
 
 267 
 
 greatly Anxur extended, on both sides, beyond 
 Terracina. 
 
 A frontier between two such states as Rome 
 and Naples must abound in crimes. At Terra- 
 cina every fifth man you meet is a shirro, or an 
 assassin, or both. The Pontine Marshes were in- 
 famous for robbery in Juvenal's time, and most 
 of the postilions who are now stationed there have 
 retired from punishment to the horrid asylum of 
 a climate where none but criminals could be forced 
 to reside. The Italian postilions are now forbid- 
 den to wind their horn or even crack their whips, 
 which had served too long as a call to robbers. 
 
 On entering Fondi we drove to the custom- 
 house, where a tall castrone sat muffled up to his 
 nose in a cloak, basking over a pan of charcoal — 
 a modern edition of the scribe who amused Horace 
 at this town. Advancing solemnly with a pen at 
 his ear, he fell into argument with a Neapolitan 
 advocate, one of our party, and pretended to 
 teach him the law of Na])les. Their altercation 
 was at first civil enough, till the lawyer, ashamed of 
 his opponent, culled him a miiskotto. — " Do you 
 know whom vou insult ?' ' cried the man of office ; 
 " I am here the organ of government." — " And 
 a well-toned organ thou art," said our companion, 
 " the prettiest treble that I ever heard in a cus- 
 tom-house." This poor joke cost him dear ; for 
 the vindictive scribe returned to the charge, and 
 condemned a small package which had occasioned 
 
'ir 
 
 f 
 
 I 
 
 Ti 
 
 268 
 
 JOURNEY TO NAPLES. 
 
 the dispute to be carried by express tu Xaples at 
 the punster's expense. 
 
 At every stage on this road you perceive a 
 marked difference in the female costume, and 
 those provincial modes never vary. The young 
 women of Mola* have probably coiled their hair 
 *' alia lumaca" from ancient times ; for this mode 
 is common on Greek statues. I observed a group 
 of those nymphs standing up to their knees in a 
 fountain at washing-stones ; while their idle swains 
 were leaning over a bridge, admiring those co- 
 quetries which are natural to all women on a 
 partial display of their forms. Such figures come 
 often into Italian landscapes; and here the painter 
 might bring in the Liestrygonian princess filling 
 her pitcher ; for this fountain, like Homer's 
 Artacia, is a source emitting a full stream and 
 flowing direct to the sea, just without the town. 
 I saw nothina: at Mola that could retrace the 
 fatal harbour which he paints so minutely ; but 
 Homer's topography is not always real, nor is it 
 probable that the Lcestrygoncs ever left Sicily. 
 
 Some vague ruins on the shore are called the 
 remains of Cicero's Formianum ; which would 
 imply some irruption of the sea since his time. 
 Cicero talks rather too much of his villas, and too 
 vainly of this. In one letter, he compares his 
 Formianum to a basilica; in a second, he is 
 
 * Mola di Gaeta.— C. 
 
 JOURNEY TO NAPLES. 
 
 269 
 
 ordering away from it statues which he had never 
 seen ; in a third, he affects to condemn his own 
 extravagance for repairing a place which he 
 seldom could visit — but peace to the frailties of a 
 great man ! Here let us contemplate his virtues 
 alone, his patriotic eloquence and honest dexterity, 
 which laboured so long for the independence of 
 Rome. If he slackened in its last struggle, here 
 he atoned for his fatal timidity, and was caught 
 by the cruel policy of Augustus. That skilful 
 hypocrite, who could direct so well the villainy of 
 others to his own ends, would suffer nothing to 
 remain at Rome, no virtues, no genius, no energy, 
 that he could not chain to his own chariot-wheels, 
 and reduce into an apyjendage of his own glory. 
 
 The country now opens, nature breaks out into 
 new luxuriance ; wild fig-trees and myrtles over- 
 spread the ruined tombs of the Appian Way, and 
 huge aloes shoot up in the very ditches. The 
 plain itself is highly cultivated, yet not a house 
 can be seen. The labourers retire before night 
 from the exhalations of the low grounds to towns 
 built on the skirts of the Apennines, such as Castel 
 Onorato, which furnishes vipers for sale, or Tri- 
 menzo and Traietto, which stand more advan- 
 tageously on a long green hill. 
 
 From that hill the Minturnian Aqueduct 
 stretches across the plain, on to a ruined amphi- 
 theatre near the banks of the Garigliano. At 
 
270 
 
 JOURNEY TO NAPLES. 
 
 '»( 
 
 the ferry is a tower based on the marble tomb of 
 a proud Roman, who appears, from the inscrip- 
 tion,* to have been unsociable even in death, and 
 to have endowed, like other great men, some 
 sepulchral banquet, such as an annual or a decen- 
 nial supper. Here the Liris, as it acts ag-ainst 
 soft banks, is still biting silently into the plain, t 
 
 We saw large herds of butfaloes grazing on the 
 Minturnian marshes from the Garigliano on to 
 the Massic hills. We stopped at St". Agata in 
 hopes of drinking some real Falernian ; but this 
 degenerated wine seemed much inferior to the 
 Formian which we had drunk at Mola. Indeed 
 the Falernian was naturally harsh : it required 
 more age than modern Italians allow to any wine, 
 and, though Martial calls it the Immortal, it soon 
 lost that celebrity which it owed principally to the 
 Augustan poets. 
 
 We then passed from rude Apennines into the 
 luxuriant Campania, and drove too rapidly through 
 a succession of beauties which elude description. 
 We stopped but a short time on the parades of 
 Capua and in the markets of Aversa, the trans- 
 lated descendants of old Capua and Atella. 
 
 * The following is the inscription as I copied it while 
 crossing in the boat. ^- Hujus monimenti jus qua maceria 
 cliisum est cum taherna et cenaculo heretles uon sequetur, 
 neque intra raaceriam humari quemquam licet." 
 
 f ■ Rura quae Liris quieta 
 
 Mordet aqua. — HoK. 
 
 271 
 
 NAPLES. 
 
 THE CITY. 
 
 Genio 
 CiviTATis Neapolitan-^. Inscripfioif. 
 
 To enjoy the picture of Naples at its finest point 
 of view, you must sail out in the morning about 
 a mile from the mole, and catch the sun rising 
 behind the hills. There you can distinguish at 
 once the three celebrated craters upon which the 
 city forms a loose amphitheatre : you see the whole 
 elevation broken into great masses and crossed by 
 great lines ; lines formed of long palaces, hanging 
 gardens, ajid regular rows of terraced roofs : you 
 trace the outline on the sea curiously indented, 
 the shipping clustered behind the moles, and 
 castles or towers on the points of projection. — 
 Such is the city taken in one broad view. To 
 describe its buildings I leave to the guide-books ; 
 its environs belong to the painter. 
 
 Naples, in its interior, has no parallel on earth. 
 The crowd of London is uniform and intelligible : 
 it is a double line in quick motion ; it is the crowd 
 of business. The crowd of Naples consists in a 
 general tide rolling up and down, and in the 
 middle of this tide a hundred eddies of men. 
 
272 
 
 NAPLES. 
 
 1 
 
 <«' 
 
 Here you are swept on by the current, there you 
 are wheeled round by the vortex.* A diversity 
 of trades dispute with you the streets. You 
 are stopped by a carpenter's bench, you are lost 
 among shoemakers' stools, you dash among* the 
 pots of a maccaroni-stoWj and you escape behind 
 a laxzarone*s nijjht-basket. In this resrion of 
 caricature every bargain sounds like a battle : the 
 popular exhibitions are full of the grotesque ; 
 some of their church-processions would frighten a 
 war-horse. 
 
 The mole seems on holidays an epitome of the 
 town, and exhibits most of its humours. Here 
 stands a methodistical friar preaching to one row 
 of lazzaroni : there. Punch, the representative of 
 the nation, holds forth to a crowd. Yonder, an- 
 other orator recounts the miracles performed by a 
 sacred wax-work, on which he rubs his agnuses 
 and sells them, thus impregnated with grace, for 
 a grain a-piece. Beyond him are quacks in hussar 
 uniform, exalting their drugs and brandishing 
 their sabres, as if not content with one mode of 
 killing. The next professo7'e1i is a dog of know- 
 
 * Qui vid' io gente, piu che altrove troppa, 
 E d' una parte e d' altra con grandi urli 
 Percuotevans' incontro. — Dante. 
 t Professore is a title given here to every performer, 
 every fiddler, court-tailor, truss-maker, &c. ; just as that of 
 doctor was given by the ancients to fencing-masters, archers, 
 book-binders, &c. 
 
 THE CITY. 
 
 273 
 
 ledge, great in his own little circle of admirers. 
 Opposite to him stand two jccund old men, in the 
 centres of an oval group, singing alternately to 
 their crazy guitars. Farther on is a motley 
 audience seated on planks, and listening to a 
 tragi-comic^Yo^o/o, who reads, sings, and gesticu- 
 lates old Gothic tales of Orlando and his Paladins. 
 This is a theatre where any stranger may study 
 for nothing the manners of the people. At the 
 theatre of San Carlo the mind, as well as the man, 
 seems parted off from its fellows in an elbow- 
 chair. There all is regulation and silence : no 
 applause, no censure, no object worthy of atten- 
 tion except the court and the fiddle. There the 
 drama — but what is a drama in Naples without 
 Punch ? * or what is Punch out of Naples ? Here, 
 
 * Capponi and others consider Punch as a lineal repre- 
 sentation of the Atellan farcers. They find a convincing 
 resemblance between his mask and a little chicken-nosed 
 figure in bronze, which was discovered at Rome ; and from 
 his nose they derive his name, " a puUiceno pullicineila!" 
 
 Admitting this descent, we might push the origin of 
 Punch back to very remote antiquity. Punch is a native of 
 Atella, and therefore an Oscan. Now, the Oscan farces 
 were anterior to any stage. They intruded on the stage only 
 in its barbarous state, and were dismissed on the first ap- 
 pearance of a regular drama. They then appeared as Ejcodui 
 on trestles ; their mummers spoke broad Volscan ; whatever 
 they spoke they grimaced, like Datus ; they retailed all the 
 scandal that passed, as poor Mallonia's wrongs ; their parts 
 were frequently interwoven with other dramas, " couser- 
 
274 
 
 NAPLES. 
 
 THE CITY, 
 
 275 
 
 1 
 
 ! 
 
 in his native tongue, and among his own country- 
 men, Punch is a person of real power ; he dresses 
 up and retails all the drolleries of the day; he is the 
 channel and sometimes the source of the passing 
 opinions ; he can inflict ridicule, he could gain a 
 mob, or keep the whole kingdom in good humour. 
 Such was De Fiori, the Aristophanes of his nation, 
 immortal in buffoonery. 
 
 In general the streets are straight, but very 
 narrow. The Larghi (for none can be called 
 squares) are irregular, both in aspect and plan. 
 Some are refreshed with fountains, others are de- 
 corated with statues or sculptured obelisks. The 
 houses are lofty, the roofs flat; more than half 
 the fronts consist in window, and every window 
 is faced with an iron balcony. 
 
 The Royal Palace, though only a part of Fon- 
 tana's design, is large enough for Naples. Its 
 front includes the three Greek orders ; but neither 
 its style nor materials required oriental columns 
 
 taque fabellis (says Livy) potissimum Atellanis sunt. Quod 
 genus ludorum ab Oscis acceptura : '* and in all these re- 
 spects the Exodiarius corresponds with the Punch of Naples. 
 Yet if we return from analogy to fact, we shall find that 
 Master Punch is only a caricature of the Apulian peasant, a 
 character invented, as some suppose, by the Captain Matta- 
 moros, improved by Ciuccio the tailor, and performinjr the 
 same part as the Fool or the Vice in our English plays and 
 moralities. 
 
 at the gates : the court, if not grand, is noble : 
 the admired staircase is only vast. 
 
 Capo di Monte is so majestic a situation, that it 
 somewhat extenuates the blunder of building a 
 lumpish palace on a hollow and quarried shell. 
 Here are still some remains of the Parma gallery, 
 though most of the pictures * serve as mere up- 
 holstery. Indeed, the keeper himself felt shame 
 for his stores, an*d condemned by a " non guardi'^ 
 whole rooms to neglect. The conoscenti admire 
 here a recumbent Venus, which has, however, too 
 much of the statue — one musician tuninir his 
 guitar, and another composing — some saints by 
 Guercino — some portraits by Raphael and Andrea 
 del Sarto. Two of Parmigianino's are praised for 
 that grace, which struck me as too peculiar, too 
 characteristic for so vague a quality as grace. 
 
 The Studii is another vast and unfinished 
 palace, where I found them arranging the Far- 
 nese and the Palatine libraries. The junction of 
 two such collections has brought together all the 
 earliest productions of printing, and, of course, 
 many duplicates. But when great men study 
 Mattaire and collect first editions, they soon find 
 out the absurdity of leaving more than one copy 
 of a rare book in a public library, subject to their 
 control. 
 
 * The pictures are all removed to the Museo Borbonico, 
 
 Naples.— C. 
 
 T 2 
 
276 
 
 NAPLES. 
 
 i 
 
 In the Studii I found the Farnese statues 
 rather warehoused than arranged. There lay the 
 Urania returned, for the second time, from Rome 
 in a tremendous case which had been prepared 
 for this colossal captive. The great Hercules 
 stood bedaubed with plaster amidst the rubbish 
 of a workshop. The muscular surface of this 
 statue is truly Herculean, perhaps too Herculean, 
 too tense and spasmodic for a state of repose. 
 His placid attitude and benign inclination of 
 head seem to invite adoration, and rather an- 
 nounce the divinity of some temple, than a mere 
 object of sculpture displaying, as it is thought, 
 the muscles of a man just respiring from toil. 
 
 The famous Toro* is placed in a public walk 
 near the sea, and scraped white, to expose it the 
 more effectually to the corroding spray. Pliny 
 describes this once-admired group as cut out of 
 one block ; but, unfortunately for his credit, Pliny 
 says the same of the Laocoon. So pieced a thing 
 is the Toro now, that the work of Apollonius is 
 mixed with Bianchi's in every figure, and the 
 principal figures are the most restored. No head 
 is original but the herdsman's, which is thought 
 disproportioned to the rest. 
 
 The Francavilla palace contains a few pictures 
 of the first order — two wonderful dead Christs by 
 Schidoni— a Madonna in Raphael's largest man- 
 
 * Now in the Studii. — C. 
 
 THE CITY. 
 
 277 
 
 ner — a St. John the Baptist by Da Vinci. So 
 fresh is this figure that I doubted its antiquity. 
 So jocund is his smile and so delicate his beauty, 
 that, were the crossed reed transformed into a 
 thyrsus, and the skin round his loins into a 
 panther's, he might pass for a young Bacchus. 
 How mere a trifle can canonize a figure, which, 
 placed in a church, would be worshipped by 
 thousands ! 
 
 Above this place stands the Certosa on a height 
 which commands a bird's-eye view of the most 
 curious city, the most singular coast, the most 
 beautiful bay, and the most picturesque islands in 
 Europe. This convent was thought too opulent 
 for a few Carthusians : their estates were lately 
 sequestered and their church deprived of its plate 
 and jewels. The high altar is still enriched with 
 amethyst, sardonyx, chalcedony, and other kinds 
 of agate. Along the nave are the twelve prophets 
 of Spagnolet, each thundering down from his own 
 compartment; all seem variously inspired, yet 
 all are children of the same dark, deep-featured 
 
 family. 
 
 Both architecture and sculpture seem here to 
 perpetuate that sekento-idisie which originated in 
 a Neapolitan. They delight in the crooked, the 
 piebald, the gaudy, and push irregularity to its 
 farthest bourn. Alfonso's arch in Castel-Nuovo, 
 though a mixed composition of the 15th century, 
 
I I 
 
 r 
 
 iKf; 
 
 h 
 
 278 
 
 NAPLES. 
 
 is purity itself, compared with those abominable 
 heaps of sculpture called guglias which were 
 raised in the last rei^n. Some of the modern 
 churches are striking- to the eye ; but so is every 
 monster. Within they are spotted things, mere 
 harlequins in marble, quite ugly with decoration. 
 Carving is tormented, and gold-leaf laid on where- 
 ever it can find room. A rage for gilding runs 
 through the nation. It disfigures walls, furni- 
 ture, carriages. Even the hackney calash must 
 have its coat of gold, the collar-maker gilds his 
 hames, the apothecary gilds his pills, the butcher 
 sticks gold-leaf on his mutton. 
 
 In other respects Naples, though still behind 
 other nations, is gradually following their ad- 
 vanced improvements. Of late the houses are 
 more adapted to modern life : the apartments are 
 cleaner and more commodious ; their casements 
 no longer consist of oiled paper or shutters, nor 
 their hangings of greasy old silk or velvet. The 
 streets are no longer pestilential with filth, or in- 
 fested with beggars. These are now confined in 
 the serraglio, and are there maintained at the ex- 
 pense of the shop-keepers. Thus the sound part 
 of the community must feed the diseased ; yet the 
 sore itself is rather cicatrized than healed ; for 
 thousands of the poor conceal their wants through 
 terror of confinement, and prefer dying, at their 
 own freedom, at home. 
 
 w 
 
 THE CITY. 
 
 279 
 
 To a mere student of nature, to an artist, to a 
 man of pleasure, to any man that can be happy 
 among people who seldom affect virtue, perhaps 
 there is no residence in Europe so tempting as 
 Naples and its environs. — What variety of attrac- 
 tions ! — a climate where heaven's breath smells 
 sweet and wooingly — the most beautiful inter- 
 change of sea and land — ^wines, fruits, provisions, 
 in their highest excellence — a vigorous and luxu- 
 riant nature, unparalleled in its productions and 
 processes — all the wonders of volcanic power spent 
 or in action — antiquities different from all anti- 
 quities on earth — a coast which was once the 
 fairy-land of poets, and the favourite retreat of 
 great men. Even the tyrants of the creation 
 loved this alluring region, spared it, adorned it, 
 hved in it, died in it. This country has subdued 
 all its conquerors, and continues to subvert the 
 two great sexual virtues, guardians of every other 
 virtue, — the courage of men and the modesty of 
 women. 
 
280 
 
 THE PHLEGR.^AN FIELDS. 
 
 Nee desunt variae circum oblectamina vita?, 
 Sive vaporiferas, blandissima littora, Baias, 
 Enthea fatidicae seu visere tecta Sibyllas 
 Dnlce sit, Iliacoque jui^um memorabile remo; 
 Seu tibi Bacchei vineta madentia Gauri. — Stat. 
 
 This wonderful tract exhibits the various action 
 of fire and water upon ground which has been 
 rocked by earthquakes, slashed by lightning, 
 blown up into more than twenty distinct volcanos, 
 and scooped, bored, shaven, or rent by the sea. 
 It is separated from Naples by the narrow ridge 
 of Posilipo, 
 
 la beata spiap^s^ia 
 
 Che di Virgilio e Saiinazar nasconde 
 II cener sacro. 
 
 VirgWs tomb is so called, I believe, on the 
 single authority of Donatus. Donatus places it 
 at the right distance from Naples, but on the 
 wrong side of the city ; and even there he omits 
 the grotto of Posilipo, which not being so deep in 
 his time as the two last excavations have left it, 
 must have opened precisely at his tomb. Donatus 
 too gives, for Virgil's own composition, an epitaph 
 now rejected on the cliff as a forgery. And who 
 is this Donatus ? — an obscure grammarian, or 
 
 THE PHLEGRiEAN FIELDS. 
 
 281 
 
 rather his counterfeit. The structure itself re- 
 sembles a ruined pigeon-house where the numer- 
 ous co/r/m^ar /a would indicate a family-sepulchre; 
 but who rshould repose in the tomb of Virgil, but 
 Virgil alone ? Visitors of every nation, kings and 
 princes have scratched their names on the stucco 
 of this apocryphal ruin, but the poet's awful 
 name seems to have deterred them from versifying 
 here. I met a party of foreigners full of the god, 
 reeling down from the neighbouring vineyard, be- 
 tween two precipices, to make further libations to 
 the shade of Virgil. 
 
 From Virgil's tomb we descend to Sannazaro^s, 
 where all is certain, safe and entire, except the 
 Apollo's fiddlestick, which some fastidious tra- 
 veller broke off. Such ambiguities as an Apollo 
 named David, and a Minerva named Judith, are 
 proper figures for the tomb of an Italian Latinist 
 who, like his brethren Vida, Cortese, Bembo, 
 jumbles the sacred and the profane,^ Angels and 
 Naiads, Saints and Sibyls, Prophets andProteuses 
 in the same poem. The epitaph, taking advan- 
 tage of the ground, ranks Sannazaro next to Virgil 
 in genius ; and Pope applies the same local com- 
 pliment to Vida.* But Virgil is a poet ; Sanna- 
 
 * Martial pays a similar compliment to Silius Italiciis, 
 for buying Virgil's tomb, and exalts the ape to a level with 
 his master. Since local compliments are thus lavished on 
 Virgil's plagiarists, some share is due to the three Capilupi 
 of Mantua, for their superior knack of clipping their coun 
 trj'men down into professed centos. 
 
282 
 
 THE PHLEGR^AN FIELDS. 
 
 H 
 
 zaro and Vida are mere versifiers, whose languan-e 
 can be safe only while it imitates, and pleases 
 most when it betrays imitation. 
 
 On passing the Pausilipan grotto, you cross the 
 valley of Bagnuoli, and meet everj- where those 
 " veteris vestigia flammae" which gave the name 
 of Phlegrsean to this volcanic tract. 
 
 Larjo (V Agnano. A notion prevails that the 
 old Norman town of Anglano, which sunk in this 
 crater, as Bassano has done since I left Italy, may 
 still be perceived under the water ; but a name- 
 keeper, who was daily on the lake and had just 
 landed from duck-shooting, assured me that it 
 cannot. 
 
 Grotto del Cane. Though torches and jrun- 
 powder lose their inflammability here, yet phos- 
 phorus resists the carbonic acid. 
 
 Sivfe di San Germano. The sulphur and alum, 
 diffused over all the Phlegra}an fields, rise here 
 together in intense vapour, which, being confined 
 to a low tufo building, has formed a kind of 
 sweating hospital universal in its practice. " On 
 those stone-benches," said our guide, " lie the 
 mattresses of the rheumatic — into that closet the 
 Mai Franzese retires — under this tunnel stand the 
 consumptive — ^yonder recess is reserved for the 
 bilious— to this hole the deaf apply their ears." 
 In short, opposite diseases come here into con- 
 tact. These stoves may probably have served as 
 a natural laconicum to the ruined Villa which 
 
 THE PHLEGRJEAN FIELDS. 
 
 283 
 
 adjoins them; for the ancient patricians, being 
 fond to excess of hot and steam bathing, settled 
 in the environs of Naples purposely for such a 
 convenience as nature affords here. 
 
 Pisciarelli. Of late the water of these hot- 
 wells has removed to a new basin, yet the vapour 
 and the bubbhng noise remain behind in the 
 former one. On the cliffs above is a cottage 
 which commands a view of the two promontories 
 of Misenum and Minerva, the whole crater of 
 sea,* all the islands before, and the volcanos be- 
 hind. Here I drank some red wine of volcanic 
 growth, still more delicious than the lacrime of 
 Vesuvius. 
 
 Solfaterra. I went down into this crater over 
 rocks which had been converted from the hardest 
 lava into the whitest clay, by the evaporation of 
 sulphur. On reaching the floor of this wonderful 
 " Forum," the heat, the vapour issuing from 
 various fumerole, the hollow reverberation of 
 stones, and the noise of subterraneous water ; all 
 gave warning that I trod on a vault excavated by 
 hot minerals. Nature is detected here in the act 
 of fabricating sulphur, which she crystallizes 
 above ground in the moist way, and exhibits in 
 
 * When Cicero describes to Atticus the " cratera ilium 
 delicatum," (Ep. 2. 9.) he can mean only the circuit of these 
 two bays ; for, viewed from this cottage, they suggested to 
 me the precise idea of a basiu. 
 
284 
 
 THE rULEGR^EAN FIELDS. 
 
 filaments, flakes, and prisms. One of the lam-e.t 
 jnmaroh is inclosed in a small buildino-, where 
 the walls serve as a base to the minerafs evapo- 
 rated, which are brushed off for manufacture 
 
 LabrjTinth of Dadalus. This is a stran-e mis- 
 nomer for an ancient reservoir ; yet, though its 
 form IS re-ular and its purpose obvious, the ,,eopIe 
 here will never give up a high-sounding name. 
 
 Colosseo. This amphitheatre is much older 
 than that of Rome. Its outer elevation has two 
 orders, and the basement consists in two series of 
 van ts iorming two elliptical rings, in which every 
 vault radiates from the centre of the arena. Be- 
 vveen those rings runs a dusky corridor round 
 the ellipse, and fascinates the eye by its fine eva- 
 nescent curves. 
 
 A grand succession of antiquities led us to Poz- 
 zuoU. This capacious amphitheatre, the long line 
 of neighbouring tombs, the magnificent baths 
 below, the mole striding on arches into the sea. 
 the rums of v.Ilas defaced, the un<lefaceable beauty 
 of the sites, all conspired fo exalt my ideas of an- 
 cient Puteoli. I enter the modern town, and 
 meet nothing but filth, beggary, and disease. 
 
 The temple of Jupiter Serapis consists in a 
 rectangular cloister surrounded by porticos, cells, 
 and lustral chambers, inclosing a round temple 
 in the court. I would therefore call the whole a 
 Serapeon, as the temple forms but a part of the 
 
 THE PHLEGR.aSAN FIELDS. 
 
 285 
 
 ruins. Some would assign them all to the 
 Nymphs : but, independently of the long inscriiv 
 tion which proves that a temple of Serapis stood 
 somewhere here, the very plan of these structures 
 convinces me that they were raised for Egyptian 
 worship. It corresponds with the design of the 
 heon at Pompeii, and with Rufiuus's description 
 of the great Serapeon at Alexandria. A few 
 columns of the portico remain erect, but their 
 modules are too various for any regular elevation. 
 These columns are corroded by sea-worms, up 
 to the height of fifteen feet from the pavement; 
 which proves that the sea was, at one period^ 
 considerably higher in the Bay of Baiaj than it is' 
 now. Cross that bay, and you will suil over 
 ancient villas, you will discern, deep under your 
 boat, a branch of the Domitian way; which 
 proves that the sea, at another period, was much 
 fower in the same bay than it is now. This sub- 
 mersion may be traced to Capri and the coast of 
 Sorrento. Some attribute it to an earthquake, 
 others to a partial lapse of the surface, or a slight 
 bruise in the shell of our jrlobe.* 
 
 Misenum. In this harbour, once the Ports- 
 mouth of the Roman Empire, I saw no other 
 vessel than our own boat. On the promontory 
 itself is a crowd of ruins, so very indistinct as to 
 
 multae per mare pessiim 
 
 Subsedere, suispariter cum civibus, urbes.-— Lucret. 
 
286 
 
 THE PHLEGR^AN FIELDS. 
 
 admit any name. I therefore allowed our guide 
 to call them the villas of Pliny, Lucullus, Marius, 
 and whomever he pleased; but when he pointed' 
 out the Styx, and the Acheron, and the Elysian 
 Fields, I felt some poetic anger on hearing names 
 so awful and sacred in my imagination bestowed 
 on a pitiful ditch, a fish-pond, and a few vine- 
 yards ; and that too in defiance of Virgil, who 
 places the two rivers between Avernus and Ely- 
 sium. 
 
 Piscina MirahHe. If disappointed in the 
 poetical region, I was astonished by the stupend- 
 ous pillars of this reservoir. In a monument 
 like this both solidity and usefulness conspired 
 to protect it from the destruction to which works 
 of mere magnificence or beauty lay exposed. 
 Hence a cistern now remains— the most lofty and 
 picturesque object of a coast which is covered 
 with patrician ruins. 
 
 BaicB was usurped by the Great alone. They 
 admitted no towns, no commonalty, nothing but 
 palaces on their « golden shore." Men, who 
 possessed half a province elsewhere, contended 
 here for a single acre. They who wanted room 
 on the bank built into the sea, and met there the 
 freshness and salubrity of another element. In 
 the course of a few minutes you sail past the 
 highest names of antiquity. You see Marius, 
 Sylla, Pompey, Piso, Caesar, Tiberius, Nero, all 
 
 •i;i 
 
 THE PHLEGR^AN FIELDS. 
 
 287 
 
 crowding in for the most beautiful angles, and 
 elbowing each other's villas. Yet where are 
 those villas now ? Alas ! nothing but masses of 
 built tufo which you can hardly distinguish from 
 the tufo of the hill, naked walls, skeletons which 
 were concealed from the ancients themselves, 
 and covered with marbles too beautiful to remain! 
 
 Cento Camerelle. I crawled into the substruc- 
 tions of this palace where the reticular tufo is 
 astonishingly perfect. Some of the cells struck 
 me as being too well adapted for those ergastula 
 which the tyranny even of the old republicans 
 found necessary, wherever the villa was large 
 and the slaves were numerous. 
 
 Agrippina's tomb is a long vaulted gallery 
 lined with elegant stuccos ; a form very far from 
 sepulchral, and still farther from the idea of a 
 " levis tumulus," as Tacitus describes her tomb 
 to have been. This gallery seems to have been 
 connected with a little theatre above it, and both 
 probably belong to some villa. 
 
 I found the mole of Baics crowded with corn 
 ships from the Levant ; which recalled the idea 
 of the old Alexandrian fleets that brought their 
 annual tribute of grain to this very bay, and had 
 the privilege of hoisting the supparum when they 
 approached it. 
 
 Temples of Venus, of Mercury, and of Diana. 
 These three rotondos have been the sport of dif- 
 
2SS 
 
 THE PIILEGR.EAN FIELDS. 
 
 ferent systems. The study of antiquities on'o-i- 
 nated here with churchmen who went, full of 
 their own profession, among ruins, and stuck the 
 name of temple on every monument that would 
 bear it. The world acquiesced in those names, 
 and transmitted them to posterity. Archaiolo^y 
 thus took a taint from superstition, till at last 
 a spirit of scepticism entered into the study and 
 introduced a new nomenclature. The prevailino- 
 name now for all round buildini^s bein«r Bath 
 these three Rotondos are called the Baths of 
 Nero's palace. To me they appeared rather the 
 master-objects (for the ruins which connect them 
 are very inferior) of some mag-nificent villa which 
 would include several grand saloons, as the Peos, 
 the triclinium, the cccnatio, and a variety of 
 cxiiedrce, all susceptible of the same round form 
 and noble dimensions as these. The temple called 
 Venus's has too many windows for either a tem- 
 ple or a bath, and the flattened arches of those 
 windows seem to deny them a classical antiquity. 
 Some baths may be traced near the temple called 
 Mercury's, but the ro^o/ic/o itself is distinct and 
 dissimilar. The third ruin, if indeed (as Mazzella 
 asserts) the nameof Diana Lucifera was inscribed 
 on its entablature, must be the very temple 'of 
 that goddess which Propertius mentions. Some 
 have considered these three rotondos, including 
 the ruins annexed and the fields inter^ening, as 
 
 THE PHLEGR.I-AN FIELDS. 
 
 289 
 
 forming only the baths of one general palace 
 which embraced the whole coast — a modern' 
 chimera too extravagant even for Nero. 
 
 Siufc dl TritolL Here again are baths called 
 Nero's ! This subterranean fountain is so in- 
 tensely hot, that the long and steaming galleries 
 which lead to it, serve for sweating baths. ^ Horace 
 seems to ascribe the heat to sulphur,* and Pliny 
 to different minerals ; but the vapour leaves on 
 the wall no incrustation, no mark of sul])hur or 
 of any mineral that can account chemicallv for 
 a fire which has kept this caldron boiling for 
 more than two thousand years. 
 
 The Lake Lucrinus, having shrunk into a pool 
 on the sudden formation of Monte Nuovo, is now 
 removed from any visible remains of the Julian 
 Port, where it once formed the middle basin. 
 
 Monte Barharo. This name, and the epithet 
 of " inanis," which Juvenal gives it, convey a 
 truer idea than the motto does of the present 
 Gaurus— a volcano rugged without, and ernptv 
 within. * 
 
 The Lake Avernus has lost all its poetical hor- 
 rors. Its clear blue sheet no longer exhales 
 
 * Dictaque ccssantem Dorvis elidere morbuni 
 Sulfura — 
 
 If Horace confines his allusion to Bais proper, lie must 
 meanthis fountain, which in his time evaporated through 
 issues different from the present. 
 
290 
 
 THE niLEGRiEAN FIELDS. 
 
 death, and is now expanded beyond its ancient 
 margin ; for the round structure, which has been 
 misnamed the temple of so many gods, stands 
 half in the water. The banks are now cleared of 
 their black Tartarean woods ; and their variety 
 of tillage, their long vineyards, and their white 
 villas, tend to efface the original crater from your 
 ideas. 
 
 The SihijVs Cave. Avernus was, even in re- 
 mote antiquity, dreaded as a passage to the infer- 
 nal shades. Hence Virgil, attentive to every local 
 superstition, takes advantage of this, and con- 
 verts a grotto, which still opens on the lake, into 
 a mouth of hell. This grotto was certainly not 
 Nero's work, for it does not lie in his projected 
 line, nor bear any marks of a canal. It was a 
 passage leading from Avernus to Baia?, and 
 should rather be ascribed to the gloomy Cimme- 
 rians whose crypts perforated this country in all 
 directions. Such a thoroughfare we have found 
 at Posilipo; .another, called the Grotta di Pietro 
 Pace, went from Cumae to the Lucrine Lake ; a 
 third may be traced near Solfatara. This tunnel 
 at Avernus had passed originally through the hill, 
 until some lapse of the incumbent earth stopped 
 up the passage, and gave it that obscurity and 
 solitude which the poets sought and improved. 
 Yet this grotto is, in flat contradiction to him, 
 called the Sibyl's cave ; and here they even show 
 
 L •* » •- 
 
 THE PHLEGR^EAN FIELDS. 
 
 291 
 
 you the Sibyl's secret door, the Sibyl's seat of 
 oracle, the Sibyl's baths, &c. A reasonable man 
 will seek nowhere for a poetical being, except in 
 the poem which produced it; but as Viro-il o-ives 
 locality, either flmcied or traditional, to whatever 
 he describes, if we would follow him, we must 
 look for the cave of his Sibyl at Cumae. 
 
 Cmnce. Here in fact we find in the castle-hill 
 several excavations which a poet might fairly 
 multiply " into a hundred passages, a hundred 
 doors, and here only was the Sibyl's abode 
 People usually confound the two caves, or sup- 
 pose a subterranean communication between 
 them; but the direction of those caves could 
 admit no communication, and the poem implies 
 none. ^ 
 
 u2 
 
292 
 
 PORTICI. 
 
 Hie locus Herculeo nomine clarus erat 
 Ctmcta jacent flammis et tristi mersa favilla. 
 
 Maut. 
 
 In other words — here lies Herculaneum, a city 
 now rendered back to its volcanic grave, which 
 they had pierced rather than opened. The the- 
 atre, indeed, remains in the state of a mine : its 
 cunei receive a feeble daylight from the tunnel 
 over them, and torches lead you through dark 
 galleries round the rest of the structure ; but the 
 lava perpetually intervenes, and you can discover 
 its magnificence only by glimpses. You see the 
 orchestra paved with giall^ antico, you see parts 
 of the walls incrusted with marble. On the Co- 
 rinthian scene is some oriental alabaster which 
 had escaped calcination, and a few painted ara- 
 besques remain in the rooms behind. 
 
 Museum.* At Rome you see the Romans 
 only in public life and in public works ; but here 
 you are admitted into their houses and families, 
 yet admitted with a certain restraint which allows 
 you to admire rather than to learn. Unfortu- 
 nately for me, the more precious articles were 
 then at Palermo ; but the papyri and the pictures 
 could not be removed in the late retreat. 
 
 The Papyri Simoxmi to 1700. Mr. Hayter fol- 
 
 * The contents of this Museum have very properly been 
 removed for greater safety to the Studii at Naples.— C. 
 
 PORTICI. 
 
 293 
 
 lows Piagi's process, but with a greater com- 
 mand of assistants, and has in less than two years 
 unrolled forty volumes. 
 
 These rolls, before they are devolved, look like 
 sticks of charcoal. They have no vestige of um- 
 bilicus, or cornua, or any ornament. Their cha- 
 racters are legible only in a certain light, by a 
 gloss and relief which distinguish the ink, or 
 rather black paint, from the tinder. Cut, crushed, 
 crumbled on the edge, and caked by the sap re- 
 maining in the leaf, they require in the operator 
 a kind of medical sagacity to meet their variety; 
 of wounds; for, in gluing rashly the injiyei 
 parts, he might reach the heart of a volume,, 
 while working at the outside. 
 
 The writing is not " transversa charta," but 
 divided into narrow columns, about forty in 
 number, which run parallel to the ends of the 
 volume. No writing appears on their backs. 
 The opisthographic manuscripts required, I ap- 
 prehend, a double leaf so glued that the fibres 
 crossed; but all these papyri are single. The 
 outside and edges of the volumes being generally 
 damaged, the beginning is lost, and the sense if. 
 interrupted at the end of each column; but the 
 final title, being inmost, is always safe.* 
 
 ♦ A treatise on botany was the only work that had pre- 
 served its initial title *«»«; ; but this, when half unrolled, 
 was peevishly abandoned, because Galiani had blabbed the 
 secret of its subject. 
 
 i 
 
 # 
 
294 
 
 PORTICI. 
 
 These manuscripts are written incorrectly in 
 squat capitals, with an admixture of u) and c, 
 which nearly limits their date to the empire. Mr. 
 Hayter had then found only two Latin works. 
 Latin would hardly predominate in the libraries 
 of a Greek town, which disapj)eared at a time 
 when Greek was not only the common language 
 of Campania, but the language of fashion at 
 Rome itself, and affected by all the literary pa- 
 tricians who settled here. 
 
 Most of the Pictures have been cut out from 
 the walls of private houses in towns of secondary 
 rank; they have been exposed to the heat of 
 burning cinders, and impaired by the modern var- 
 nish used for their protection ; yet against these 
 unfortunate pictures critics bring all the rules of 
 the art ; they subject them to a second ordeal ; 
 they examine colours which had been flying off 
 like brick-dust, as sharply as they examine the 
 best-preserved Titian ; they compare these sha- 
 dows of a shade with statues found in the same 
 town, compare pannels painted by provincial 
 artists, with bronzes which may have been cast 
 at Rome or Athens, and thus rank the ancients 
 as much below us in painting, as they excelled 
 us in sculpture.* 
 
 * This would be well if painting consisted only in co- 
 louring ; but of that essential part of a picture, composition, 
 it is as easy to judge by such remains as these, as by the 
 best-preserved pictures. — C. 
 
 PORTICI. 
 
 295 
 
 Is it not rather surprising that rooms so mean 
 in their dimensions should have contained works 
 of such elegance? that friezes scarcely a foot 
 high should embrace such a world of fancy?* 
 Every extravagance that Vitruvius condemns in 
 the grotesque enters here. The human and the 
 brute Ibrnis are blended fantastically ; the de- 
 corations remind us of the ancient elephants 
 dancing on the tight rope; the landscapes are 
 but the caperings of a sportive genius, and the 
 architecture runs as mad as the Chinese. How 
 unfair then the conclusions which critics have 
 drawn from such vagaries ! Because some of 
 these landscapes infringe the rules of perspective, 
 they boldly infer that perspective was unknown 
 to the ancients. Because the figures stand de- 
 tached, sometimes without shadows, on the brown 
 or black ground of a frieze, they infer that the 
 ancients knew nothing of grouping. Pray, is 
 there no grouping in the Minotaur, the Telephus, 
 
 * These little compositions might perhaps be classed 
 into the alK'gorical,the dramatic, the Dionysiac, the Ana- 
 creontic, the burlesque, &c. Some have subtilized too 
 much on such trifles: in the cicada and parrot they see 
 Kero driving his tutor Seneca. Such figures, however, are 
 found in other antiques. On a gem of the Florentine 
 Museum a fox drives two cocks yoked to his car. In one 
 mosaic at Paris I saw a cock driving two swans, in another 
 a hare driving two geese. All these seem mere capriccios, 
 which baffle investigation and deserve none. 
 
 I 
 
 !l 
 
 ¥ 
 
296 
 
 PORTICl. 
 
 the sitting Orestes, the Bacchus and Ariadne? 
 The ancients, we grant, were not fond of numer- 
 ous or intricate composition, they seldom admitted 
 more persons into a picture than they did on the 
 stage, and those figures they confessedly kept out 
 of each other's shadows : they did not study con- 
 trasts, nor pui-sue the diagonal line, nor observe 
 the pyramid, nor balance their groups, like a 
 ballet-master. But this rose from^ no poverty of 
 invention : the motive was that love of simplicity 
 which distinguishes all their works from ours, 
 and the result was the first merit of all compo- 
 sition, unity of subject and unity of interest : a 
 merit which saves the eye from the fatigue felt 
 in galleries and from the stupefaction occasioned 
 by crowds. 
 
 However faulty in the drawing, the chief histo- 
 rical pieces are painted in a larger and freer style 
 than had appeared in modern Europe before 
 Michael Angelo. The diffusion of such a style 
 through the provinces proves that painting had 
 then undergone its last great revolution, and that 
 pictures admired in the chief seats of art must 
 have corresponded in excellence with the Laocoon 
 and the Apollo. But who can now decide be- 
 tween the painting and the sculpture of the 
 ancients so well as the ancients themselves ? 
 They have left sufficient proofs of taste equal to 
 our own, and Parrhasius divided their admiration 
 with Phidias, Apelles with Lysippus. 
 
 PORTICI. 
 
 297 
 
 This museum exceeds all others in ancient 
 bronze. Bronze, though dearer, more difficult 
 to be wrought, more tempting to be destroyed, 
 and less beautiful than marble, forms most of the 
 statuary. The largest statues had been originally 
 composed of pieces connected by dove-tail joints ; 
 and these promiscuous fragments have been re- 
 compiled into new figures, so that six horses now 
 form one. Those fragments which had escaped 
 fusion were rent, inflated, or bruised by the burn- 
 ing lava. In addition to these misfortunes, they 
 were made up unhappily ; for the eye of an artist 
 can sometimes detect two styles of art evidently 
 different, the large and the exquisite, soldered 
 together on the same statue. The figures most 
 admired are the drunken faun, an idea perhaps 
 taken from the Per iboetes— the sleeping faun— 
 the sitting Mercury — the CanepJiora adjusting 
 her 'peplos*~-^i\ Augustus and a Claudius, both 
 of heroic size. 
 
 * Her peplos, being thrown over a Doric tunic, leaves 
 half the side naked, and is so slit that, when unbuttoned at 
 the shoulder, it would part, and the zone being unclasped, 
 would expose her whole side. This circumstance, in which 
 the Cauephora's very fingers directed me, will illustrate 
 the following passage : 
 
 \t)H row aurrii ^ivkev, Z ^pvffr,Xards 
 Tlyiv^av Txcrav, uktvyiv r'oi ivuvvfjiov. 
 
 Thus in Sophocles' time, as in ours, the zone was buckled 
 
298 
 
 PORTICr. 
 
 Bronze was presened here in all the various 
 shapes of kitchen utensils, cutting instruments, 
 armour, implements of worship, phalli, and arti- 
 cles of dress.* All the finest tables, tripods, can- 
 dlesticks, lamps, vases, paterce, &c., were then 
 absent; but their forms are so convenient for 
 modern life, that you see them evervwhere re- 
 produced and multiplied in fashionable furniture. 
 While the silversmith brings these classical models 
 into his trade, the poor antiquarj tortures mytho- 
 logy to explain every emblem, animal, mask, or 
 shell, and adorns their lids or handles : he trives 
 
 under the bosom ; but Homer's old-fashioned n^-mnhs tied 
 It over their hips : 
 
 Amazons are the only female figures that I have seen 
 bound, or rather belted iu this primitive way. Some of the 
 Amazons, on i\iG sarcophagi,soi\he Capitol, have both cinc- 
 tures at once. This I also remarked on the Gabin. Diana, 
 and on some pretended Venuses. 1 have touched on 
 these points because Winkelmann appears to have mistaken 
 them. 
 
 * Juvenal's '^ urceoli, pelves, sartago, patellae," are all 
 struck out of a bronze statue. Even in early Greece bronze 
 was applied to the" same variety of uses. All Homer's cut- 
 lery IS made oil^s' x»>-^^) his ;^aX«s^f is a jack-of-all 
 trades, and the metal itself is thus generalized by him: 
 
 Similar articles belong to this Greek repository at Portici. 
 
 CASERTA. 
 
 299 
 
 meaning to the delirious dreams of the grotesque, 
 and attempts to classify the results of chance. 
 
 Vesuvius is now an exhausted subject. Its fire 
 and smoke, its glory and terrors, are vanished for 
 the present. Ladies, as I read in the Hermit's 
 Album, go down to the bottom of the crater. 
 Naturalists, on comparing its latter eruptions, 
 have pronounced the volcano to be now in its old 
 age, and another Torre del Greco is rising con- 
 fidently on the lava of the last. 
 
 Non adeo Vesuvinus apex et flammea diri 
 Montis hyems tiepidas exhausit civibus urbes. 
 
 CASERTA. 
 
 Capuae pereuntis imago 
 
 Jam tum ante oculos erat.— Sil. Ital. 
 
 The situation of this palace is often condemned 
 as flat ; but is that a disadvantage ? A convent, 
 a Gothic^castle, a villa, a hunting lodge may, like 
 ordinary men, seek distinction from eminence of 
 station ; but this august pile, like a true hero, 
 involves all its dignity in itself. It depends on 
 no accessories, nor tricks of the picturesque : it 
 challenges inspection near or remote : it demands 
 an immense plain, and solitude. 
 
 
300 
 
 CASERTA. 
 
 The late kin^ sought grandeur here from every 
 dimension. The plan which he prescribed to the 
 architect must have astonished the world. A 
 common elevation, on such a length of front, 
 Avould present only the idea of barracks. The 
 elevation rose proportioned to the plan, and the 
 result is a palace. 
 
 " But the elevation also is too flat," say the 
 critics ; " it wants contrast, life, movement, relief: 
 it should start out into pavilions ; it should rise 
 into towers, and break up the immensity of front." 
 Yet this very immensity was the effect sought ; 
 an effect more sublime than all the diversities of 
 aspect, and all the play of chiaroscuro. The very 
 flatness which they blame promotes this effect ; 
 it amplifies every dimension, it unfolds the general 
 design, at one view, in all its symmetry and ex- 
 pansion. Sweep away, then, those unfinished 
 lodgments which tend to screen the principal 
 front. What need of such outworks, when one 
 quarter of the palace is found sufficient for the 
 whole royal family, in all its divisions of house- 
 holds ? The eye too is hurt by those vile mezza- 
 nini which intnide between the principal zones of 
 windows. If the colossal elevation called for too 
 many stories, or for windows too large for the 
 strict rule of beauty, the architect should have re- 
 turned upon the monarch's plan, and have re- 
 duced its extent, as being too ambitious for human 
 
 ••I 
 
 
 CASERTA. 
 
 301 
 
 art, which can produce excellence only within 
 certain limits. 
 
 The middle arch opens upon a long, obscure 
 portico, which pierces the whole depth of the 
 palace, and acts like the tube of a telescope on the 
 distant cascade. In the middle of this portico the 
 four courts form a cross. Here of course are the 
 great vestibule and staircase, the central objects 
 which re-unite all the branches of the stupendous 
 whole. On these two objects the finest breccia 
 and hrocatelli of the Sicilies are lavished : but, at 
 present, they glitter, like jewels on a dunghill, 
 amidst unplastered walls, loose stones, smoky 
 lamps, and filth. Perhaps they are too magni- 
 ficent. In the natural progression of ornament, 
 a staircase and vestibule should lead to objects 
 still richer than themselves ; but what architec- 
 ture can be made richer than these ? 
 
 The chapel is worthy of the palace. Its side- 
 galleries, an accommodation rarely in Italy, are 
 adorned with ancient columns disposed in pairs : 
 its altar is to be faced with lapis lazzuli. 
 
 The theatre is perhaps too splendid for its own 
 exhibitions. Its form is the usual horse-shoe, en- 
 circled with grand alabaster columns. But co- 
 lumns of the Greek orders are generally too grand 
 for separating such pigeon-holes as playhouse 
 boxes : their shafts incommode the cooped spec- 
 tator, and their capitals obstruct his view. Would 
 
 if 
 
 i^ 
 
i 
 
 302 
 
 CASERTA. 
 
 not the Gothic enter more intimately into the mi- 
 nute divisions of a modern theatre ? The Gothic 
 excels in little details, it loves httle compartments, 
 its long slender shafts are finely formed to part 
 off the boxes, its flat arches to surmount them, its 
 fan-tracery to face them, and on the grander 
 parts, such as the stage-front, or the state-boxes, 
 an artist might pile all the pinnacles and enrich- 
 ments of an old cathedral-throne. A theatre, 
 however, is the only structure to which I have' 
 never seen the Gothic applied. 
 
 I felt a vastness, a vacancy in the shell of this 
 unfinished palace, and wished for more scidpture 
 to furnish the walls. On the staircase, indeed, 
 are some allegorical figures which finelv associate 
 with its architecture ; but the other architectural 
 statues exist only on boards, and these are perched 
 on the acroters. In the rooms I saw nothing ex- 
 quisite. Bacciano's relievos I remarked merely 
 as the work of a shepherd. The squat Farnese 
 treading on the belly of Flanders, struck me as a 
 sacrilege committed on the temple of Peace • for 
 a column found in that ruin, and sister tJ the 
 great column at Rome, has been mangled down 
 into that execrable group. Their majesties being 
 then at Caserta, prevented us from seeino- the 
 royal apartments. ^ 
 
 From Caserta it is but half an hour's ride to 
 the remains of ancient Capua. Some tombs on 
 
 CASERTA. 
 
 303 
 
 the road, though ruined and encumbered with 
 bushes, display a variety of sepulchral forms, un- 
 known during the Roman republic. Most of the 
 Campanian tombs anterior to Casar had been de- 
 molished by his soldiers, while searching for 
 painted vases; for Capua, though late in learning 
 the ceramic art, was more productive than the 
 rest of Campania. 
 
 Vases have been lately discovered here in great 
 variety, and antiquaries find out purposes for 
 them all; either in the form, or the size, or the 
 painting, or their own imagination. They class 
 them into the votive, the sacrificial, the cinerary.* 
 
 * The terms cineraria, cineres, have led antiquaries to 
 dispute on the ancient mode of separating all the ashes of a 
 dead man from those of his funeral pile. Some would wrap 
 the corpse m a sheet of amianthus ; others place it in a stone 
 coffer ; others set a guard to watch its decomposition :-mv 
 notion IS this. While the body at the top sank gradually 
 as the pile consumed, the flesh would melt away, or moulder 
 into the ashes of the wood; but the bones, being free from 
 pressure, would, even after calcination, retain both their 
 shape and a whiteness sufficient to distinguish them from 
 the remains of the pyre. Now I conclude that nothing but 
 the bones was gathered, and for these reasons :- 
 
 It was impossible to separate the ashes of the body from 
 those of the wood-when pulverized in the urn, the bones 
 themselves would become a^hes, cineres: this term, dueres 
 owes Its present acceptation to the poets : but poets apply' 
 It also to buried corpses, where it is evidently improper : the 
 ceremony of collecting the remains of the dead was called 
 omiefftum-they were collected in the laps of the relations 
 
Il 
 
 304 
 
 CASERTA. 
 
 Some they assign to the lararium or to the bath : 
 others to the prize of jrames, or to the tesserce of 
 judf^es. Yet how many vases resist all classifica- 
 tion ! how many contradict any general positions ! 
 Antiquaries cannot yet agree on any common 
 name for those vases, which have been successively 
 called Etruscan, Campanian, Sicilian, Athenian. 
 One proposes the epithet Italo-Greek : another, 
 Greco-Italic ; another, Ceramographic ; another, 
 painted Campanian, Etruscan, &c. They seem 
 
 a receptacle much fitter for bones than for jishes : hence 
 amonj; other solids, some charcoal has entered by mistake 
 into several urns — Tihidlus. in a circumstantial descrip'ion 
 of the ceremony, exchides all remains except the bones : 
 Pars quae sola mei superabit corporis, ossa, 
 IncinctsB nigra Candida veste legant. 
 Tlie phials found '.vith those urns have been called Lacrv- 
 matories, from another misapplication of poetical langua^-e. 
 Chifflet, I believe, was the first who invented this name, on 
 supposing them a receptacle for tears ; but most of those 
 which I have seen were too narrow in the mouth for a 
 mourner's eyes. Instead of tears, as is vulgarly thought, 
 or of perfumes and ointments, as Schoefflerand later critics 
 supposed, those phials, in my opinion, contained rather 
 the purgamenta which came off' from the bones when bathed 
 in wine, milk, and balsams: for cleansiugs thus retaining 
 some part of the dead, could never be thrown away hot 
 mixed with the purified relics, and were therefore deposited 
 separately. The residue of ashes foimd in some of those 
 lacrymatories tends to confirm this opinion, nor can any 
 other hypothesis account so well for that residue. 
 
 
 CASERTA. 
 
 305 
 
 to dislike so general a denomination as Greek ■ 
 yet this appears to me the fittest of all. Etrnria 
 and Campania were only colonies of the plastic 
 art, but the mother-country was Greece. The 
 tern, Greek would exclude only the vases strictly 
 l!-truscan, few of which were painted, very few in- 
 deed painted historically. Tmcanica were little 
 clay figures, not vases. The pottery of Et,-uria 
 was but black earthen-ware. Arretium wrought 
 o.dy for the kitchen. It was Greece, or Magna 
 
 T'aV '^' ^''"''' '''''' "f ^^'-"v, that fur- 
 nished the temple and the tomb. 
 
 The amphitheatre of old Capua recalls to us the 
 subhme image of Spartacus. It resembles the 
 Cohseum m its form and in its fate. Both were 
 raised on magnificent designs negiigently exe- 
 cuted. Both have surtered from barbarian;, and 
 Irom modern builders ; but the solitude of the 
 Campanian ruin has exposed it to greater dilapi- 
 dations than the Roman has yet unden^one 
 1 art of Its materials have emigrated to modern 
 Capua : a part is buried in its own arena. The 
 first order of columns is half interred : the second 
 has none entire; nor can you trace any of those 
 holes which received the masts. The awnin-s 
 used in the Roman theatres were invented here 
 for Capua ; but porticos still continued necevsarv 
 as a shelter from rain. 
 
 Nam ventiis i^opulo vela ucgari; sulut. 
 

 306 
 
 POMPEII. 
 
 Quicquid sub terra est in apriciim proferet getas. — Hor. 
 
 " How shameful," said a friend to me, " thus to 
 abandon so easy a conquest, and how absurd to 
 remove any antiquities from the spot ! Why not 
 cover the houses, and replace their contents? 
 Every object, thus restored to its original place, 
 would regain its original interest, and suggest its 
 original purpose. Nay, here they would be safer 
 from the volcano than at Portici."* — " But would 
 they be safer from men ?" — " Then put people in 
 the houses and secure them." — " But whom could 
 you now assimilate to the place ? and who would 
 prefer such a medley of ancient and modern to the 
 present monumental solitude of Pompeii?" 
 
 The Barracks. Here one step brought us into 
 a state of existence two thousand years earlier than 
 our own. I saw nothing admirable, but much that 
 was curious : — ancient galleries and rooms — 
 tessellated pavements and arabesque walls — 
 ill-spelt names, and ill-shaped horses scratched 
 on the stucco — columns repaired and modernized 
 by the ancients themselves, who have buried their 
 
 * The antiquities are now at Naples, properly arranged 
 and classed. — C. 
 
 
 POMPEII. 
 
 307 
 
 original flutings under a painted coat of plaster- 
 But were these really barracks ? Was a court 
 connected with two theatres, a construction of 
 bnck and wood, a slight decorated Doric, a low 
 situation close to a hill, p,.„per for a place of 
 arms? Some have supposed it ^gymnasium, 
 trom the boxing figures scratched on the walls 
 and the unmilitary size of the armour found 
 there. But then, where were the baths, the ho- 
 norary statues, and inscriptions, inseparable from 
 gymnasia ? and why should slaves be found 
 chauied in one room, and an oil-mill standino- i„ 
 another.^ Who would expect, in a gymnasfum 
 or m barracks, all the precious effects which thev 
 were carrying hence on horses ? On comparing- 
 this court with those of the villa, I would rather 
 assign It to the governor's prcetorium, which was 
 held a necessary constituent of every ancient town. 
 Theatres. One of these is called an Odeon. 
 perhaps from its vicinity to the greater ; but no 
 vestige remains of that tent-like cupola which 
 crowned the ancient Odeons : its water-courses 
 would even indicate that a part of this was open 
 to the rain. Had it been really an Odeon, appro- 
 priated to music, we might expect to find here 
 some of that harmoiiical construction which Vi- 
 truvius admired in the provincial theatres par 
 t.cularly in these Greek towns. That ra^e for 
 plays, which distinguishes the present race, has 
 
 X 2 
 
I 
 
 308 
 
 POMPEII. 
 
 always prevailed in this district. Here are two 
 ancient theatres,* at Herculaneum one, a fourth 
 at Misenum, a fifth at Atella ; besides two at 
 Naples mentioned by Statins, others yet undis- 
 covered, and the three great amphitheatres of 
 Capua, Cuma?, and Pnteoli. 
 
 Iseon. This was well designed for the seclu- 
 sion and progressive mysteries of the Isiac rite. 
 One narrow door gave access to the Peribolos or 
 court, which presented to the novice some altars 
 sub dio — a cistern for ablution — a small fane or 
 aedicida — and last, the sacred temple. In the 
 temple itself was a gradation of sanctity — a vesti- 
 bule — an open altar — an adytum — secret stairs — 
 and a sunken cell. The court is surrounded with 
 a portico and painted chambers, one of which, on 
 the authority of a single fish-bone, has been 
 called the relectory ; a place very necessary for 
 the Egyptian rite, which became notorious for 
 the smoke of its supjiers. The other rooms may. 
 perhaps, have served as the " Isiacae sacraria 
 lenje," the scene of those gallantries for which 
 the bald priests of Isis pandered as they begged. 
 Such a ministry must have rendered the worship 
 of the goddess highly popular in this voluptuous 
 climate, though it once brought her consecrated 
 pimps to the gallows. 
 
 * A large Amphitheatre has been discovered since For- 
 syth wrote. — C. 
 
 POMPEII. 
 
 309 
 
 Streets. The impression of wheels worn deep 
 into the hard basalt pavement of this town evinces 
 an extreme antiquity. So narrow is the street 
 excavated that you cross it on three stepping 
 stones which were placed between the foot-pave- 
 ments. Indeed the streets were anciently very 
 narrow all over Italy. To remove this inconve- 
 nience, Nero set fire to the oldest (quarters of 
 Rome, which, though difficult, were still more 
 pervious than the original city.* 
 
 The Houses generally form a small court, into 
 which all the rooms open. In some I found a 
 peristyle and the marks of a basin, but no chim- 
 neys, no windows,t no middle doors between the 
 contiguous rooms. The chambers were too nar- 
 
 * For this reason, I presume, the lienors, tlioiigh some- 
 times twenty-four in number, preceded the magistrate always 
 in a single file ; ft)r the same reason no senator, except the 
 blind Metellus, was indulged with a carriage in the city, 
 nor even litters allowed there before Cicero's time. 
 
 f Every chamber received its light from the door. Hence 
 the wall fronting the door was the lightest ; and this appears 
 the reason why Homer calls that wall the \vu<rtu. •jrafK^avouvroL. 
 
 There is no impropriety, I hope, in applying Homer's de- 
 scriptions to Pompeii. Tlie domestic simplicity of Homer's 
 age subsisted in some parts of Greece down to the Persian 
 invasion. During that period this part of Italy was colo- 
 nized by Greeks. Colonies generally simplify the accora- 
 modations of their mother-country, and their long struggle 
 for subsistence debars them from the innovations of more 
 polished life. Hence Pompeii may have retained the modes 
 
 I 
 
 
 I 
 

 310 
 
 POMPEII. 
 
 row for hospitable men ; and probably, from the 
 want of convenience at home, the citizens asso- 
 ciated, as their descendants do, in the streets, 
 temples, or porticos. Without the town the houses 
 seem to have been larirer. One, now infected 
 with a mofeto, has three stories, and a room about 
 twenty feet lonjr, which our g-uide modernized 
 into a (jalleria. 
 
 The Shops, like the present shops of this coun- 
 try, are open from wall to wall. A low parapet 
 forms the window, and leaves a narrow sill for 
 the door. One of their counters is covered with 
 
 which it derived from Greece, after Greece itself had relin- 
 quished thtm. 
 
 Pompeii had heen lon^ Greek before it became Roman, 
 and bears more marks of its mother than of its mistress.— The 
 figures painted on its buiMings are all dressed in the Greek 
 pal/ium, without any appearance of the toga. The order of 
 their peristyles is the Greek Doric, so different from the 
 Doric of ancient Rome — The terraces which covered them, 
 and which are still common in this country, were of Greek 
 origin : "Subdialia Graeci invenere.''— Above the court called 
 the barracks, was one of those temples surrounded with in- 
 sulated columns, which Sophocles denominates a^^/x/ova,- 
 vflwj ; a plan peculiar to Greece, and not to be found in any 
 Roman antiquity. — The smooth threshing-floors enclosed 
 here in the open fields correspond with Homer's Vvr^oxaXu 
 k'kuY,, and cattle work on those floors in the very manner 
 which he describes. 
 
 [Mr. Forsyth seems to have overlooked Virgil's directions 
 for making threshing-floors, such precisely as are now used 
 in Italy.— C] 
 
 -ta^ 
 
 i*tM 
 
 
 POMPEII. 
 
 311 
 
 marble, in which seem holes intended for vases. 
 On another house is a phallus, which has excited 
 much remark. Some think it the sign of a bro- 
 thel ; others, of an amulet manufactory. But 
 was it a sign at all ? It stands in a niche which, 
 like the ancient thalamos, forms part of the wall. 
 It may, therefore, have been an object of worship, 
 a Hermes, a Priapus, a Fascinus, or some trades- 
 man's hascanion. Yet, as Isis was the favourite 
 divinity of Pompeii, I should rather suppose that 
 the landlord of this house was one of her free- 
 masons, and the phallus a badge of his initiation, 
 allusive to her Ithyphallic rite. 
 
 The Town Gate is little and low, like every 
 thing here. Without the town stands the tomb 
 of the Priestess Mammia, or rather its cubic base, 
 near which are two semicircular seats, some yards 
 in diameter. The inscription on one of these 
 denotes a place of sepulture; but for whatever 
 they were raised, they stood here for public re- 
 sort, and may be considered as hemicydions, 
 where the ancients held their cofiversazioni. The 
 hemicyclion appears to have been a seat very 
 different from the augur's chair, or that of the 
 Poseidippus now so called. Cicero's admitted 
 several persons into its curve, like the sigma at 
 banquets, or these seats of Pompeii. 
 
 The villa is a detached tenement, affording 
 several details of ancient economy. It consists of 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
li 
 
 >' 
 
 
 312 
 
 POMPEII. 
 
 two courts, the larger surrounded with a covered 
 galler> , the smaller with rooms of different forms, 
 which our guide distinguished into the eating- 
 parlour, the bed-chamber, the water-closet, the 
 wardrobe, &c. The wine-cellars are placed, as 
 Columella directs, at a distance from the bath and 
 the bakehouse. They contain a row of long, 
 narrow, earthen clwtce standing, exactly as they 
 were formed, incHned against the wall.* 
 
 The hath of this villa was well built for diffu- 
 sing heat and saving fuel. It is lined with broad 
 tiles, forming those astuaria through which the 
 vapour of the hypocaust spread round the room ;t 
 while the bath-boiler, the kitchen-stove, and the 
 
 * This is the very position described In the Odyssey 
 
 'Ey l\ -r'lSot oivoto -raXaiv y)luvoroto 
 
 ^uns Tori Toly^ov a^r^oris—' 
 
 In Pomj-eii I observed earthen-ware adapted to all the 
 uses that Pliny enumerates. In these cellars are '* doliis 
 ad Vina excogitatis"-at the little theatre, " ad aquas tu- 
 bulis"-at the bath, «ad balineas mammatis"-and at the 
 Iseon, « ad tecta coctilibus laterculis, frontatisuue," on the 
 corners of the little fane. 
 
 f Not only the ca/daria, but also the winter saloons of 
 the great were warmed in this dangerous manner, which 
 may account for the frequency of those fires that were so de- 
 structive to ancient Rome. In houses where no hypocau.tum, 
 hke this of Pompeii, was kept, brasiers full of charcoal 
 were placed in the middle of the sitting-room on tripods j a 
 
 
 POMPEII. 
 
 313 
 
 oven, met in the same corner, and were heated by 
 the same fire. A contrivance equally frugal made 
 the same lamp light both the bath and the dress- 
 ing-room, by placing it in a glazed aperture be- 
 tween them. This solitary pane has been called 
 in to settle the disputed antiquity of glass win- 
 dows. But can it prove the point .? was its place 
 a window or a lantern ? 
 
 The French resumed with ardour the excava- 
 tions which had been suspended in this wonderful 
 mine of antiquity. The paintings which they 
 restored to light still remain on the walls ; but 
 they suffer from every visit, for the guide must 
 wash off something of their existence, before he 
 can bring them fully into your view. An Ulysses, 
 a Daedalus, and a Roman charity, are equal to 
 any in the historical class at Portici. 
 
 mode still prevalent in this country and in modern Greece. 
 It could be only round such tripods that the Greeks per- 
 formed their Amphidromia, and the Romans their similar 
 ceremony : <^ Idem ter igni circumjatus." 
 
 I 
 
 Uz 
 
314 
 
 EXCURSION TO P^STUM. 
 
 Lon^arum haec meta viarum. — Viug. 
 
 From Pompeii we rode through a rich and de- 
 lightful plain, yet here we met beggars prostrated 
 on the road, and kissing the dust for a sin"*le 
 grain. We passed through a long street of 
 houses called La Cava, where eveiy portico was 
 a shop. The pedlars of this place have given 
 name to the " Farse Cavaiole," a low species of 
 drama exhibiting the tricks of some little Auto- 
 lycus. The place itself took its name from a cave 
 which runs under the neighbouring abbey della 
 Trinitd, the last great foundation of the Lom- 
 bards, and still the richest repositoiy of their 
 antiquities. We then entered a valley between 
 two convergent Apennines, and passed through a 
 curious succession of landscapes, or rather ele- 
 ments of landscapes, full of that savage pic- 
 turesque, the study of which drew Salvator Rosa 
 to reside here. In proportion as the valley con- 
 tracted, its sides became more precipitate, and 
 their angles more frequent, more acute, and more 
 exact to each other. 
 
 Salerno rises from a fine curve of the shore 
 up the base of magnificent mountains, where 
 some picturesque hermitages are stuck on inac- 
 
 EXCURSION TO P^STUM. 
 
 315 
 
 cessible projections. Though placed between the 
 beauties of sea and land, of cultivated and rude 
 nature, the city is so unhealthy that its richer 
 inhabitants remove to Vietri during the hot 
 months. In proof of its bad air, I remarked here 
 a multitude of apothecaries, who are said to ad- 
 here very generally to their old Saracenic phar- 
 macy. In the streets was a bustle like trade, 
 but not a vessel of any kind in the harbour. A 
 few monuments of Roman, Lombard, and Nor- 
 man date are preserved at the cathedral, which is 
 a pile so antique and so modern, so repaired and 
 rhapsodic, that it exhibits patches of every style, 
 and is of no style itself. 
 
 We left Salerno before day-break ; but in less 
 than an hour our carriage broke down in the dark. 
 We went to the nearest osteria, and knocked for 
 assistance ; but nobody would rise. Our impa- 
 tient driver at last cut down the sign-post to re- 
 pair his unfortunate calash ; and then we went 
 on securely enough until we reached the cross- 
 roads, which no traveller should attempt so soon 
 after rain as we did. Those roads were in some 
 parts impassable ; opposite to the Royal palace 
 of Persano we were forced into fields of corn, 
 and a few miles farther we stuck up to the axle 
 in a morass. 
 
 Here we left the carriage, and with difficulty 
 reached a lonely cottage-inn where thieves and 
 
 \i 
 
tmt- 
 
 316 
 
 EXCURSION TO P^STUM. 
 
 I 
 
 thief-catchers often meet to ne^ociate. Some of 
 the latter, beinj^ fortimately there, lent us their 
 mules and escorted us to PaBstum. On arriving 
 at the Sele, we found more mules vvaitinn: for 
 the ferrv-boat. These when embarked irrew so 
 furious, that some of the passengers caught hold 
 of ropes and stood ready to plunge into the river. 
 The rage of those wicked brutes seemed conta- 
 gious, as if excited by the gad-fly, which ever 
 since Virgil's time has infested these banks. 
 
 On entering the walls of P^stum I felt all the 
 religion of the place. I trod as on sacred ground. 
 I stood amazed at the long obscurity of its mighty 
 ruins. Thev can be descried with a i^lass from 
 Salerno, the high road of Calabria commands a 
 distant view, the city of Capaccio looks down 
 upon them, and a few wretches have always lived 
 on the spot ; yet they remain unnoticed by the 
 best Neapolitan antiquaries. Pelegrino, Capac- 
 cio, and Sanfelice, wrote volumes on the beaten 
 tracks of topography, but they never travelled. 
 
 I will not disturb the dreams of Paoli, who can 
 see nothing here but the work of Tuscans and 
 the Tuscan order; nor would I, with other anti- 
 quaries, remount to the Sybarites, and ascribe 
 these monuments, monuments the most simple, 
 sage, austere, energetic, to a race the most oppo- 
 site in character. Because the Paestan Doric 
 differs in all its proportions from that of the 
 
 •*4 
 
 EXCURSION TO PiESTUM. 
 
 317 
 
 Parthenon, I would not therefore conclude that 
 the Paestan temples are older than the Athenian. 
 The proportions of an order are but a matter of 
 convention. They often vary in the same age, 
 in the same country, nay in the same edifice ; 
 and surely a Phidias working in the metropolis 
 of Grecian art, with its two best architects and 
 the Pentelic quarry at his command, might well 
 produce more elegance than contemporary or 
 even later artists, who were confined to the ruder 
 materials and tastes of a remote colonv. 
 
 The three structures are nil peripteral ; their 
 peristyles are entire ; the columns are not five 
 diameters in height : their intercolumniations are 
 closer than the pycnostyle itself: their shafts, in- 
 stead of swelling into tun-bellied curves, are 
 frusta of acute cones and fluted in the constant 
 style of the Greek doric. All the mouldino-s are 
 angular except the ovolo of the capitals, which is 
 flatter than even the ovolo of the Athenian co- 
 lumns, and the abacus q])o\q it is more prominent, 
 more imposing. In opposition to the Latin 
 Doric, the members which support are here 
 larger than those supported ; the architrave 
 higher than the frieze, and the frieze than the 
 cornice.* Yet these very peculiarities create an 
 
 * Here the height of the architrave is equal to its width ; 
 which, though double the established proportion, agrees 
 with Vitruvius. 
 
 f 
 t 
 
il 
 
 31S 
 
 EXCURSION TO P^STUM. 
 
 exaggeration of mass which awes every eye, and 
 a stability which, from time unknown, has sus- 
 tained in the air these ponderous entablatures. 
 The walls are fallen, and the columns stand ; the 
 solid has failed, and the open resists. 
 
 These anomalies and others found in this 
 Paestan order have been considered by some as 
 the traces of architecture originating in the cot- 
 tage timbers. But here are both mutules and 
 triglyphs in front, where neither joist nor rafter 
 could show its extremity : here, instead of the 
 astragal-hoop, there are grooves which tend to 
 weaken rather than to bind.* 
 
 * In tracinpr the origin of architecture, Vitruvius was 
 obliged to draw his analogies from old Greek temples like 
 these : for in the ruins of Rome the idea of the cottage is 
 generally confounded with that of the cavern, the column 
 is intermixed with the arch, and the primitive orders are 
 lost in a profusion of ornament. At Nismes, the modillons 
 of the Maison Corrte are inverted, and the tliick ends 
 turned outwards. 
 
 Vitruvius, however, has not convinced me that the ar- 
 chitectural orders were, in their origin, only an imitation of 
 the primordial cottage ; nor Viel de St. Manx, that they 
 were symbols of the months, days, and planets ; nor would 
 I allegorize, with others, every column into a God. I ad- 
 mire the Vitruvian hypothesis as the basis of a fine system, 
 as a criterion of beauty, as a guard against inconsistencies 
 in the art j but these orders I would assign to a different 
 origin, and derive them from the natural necessities of a 
 hot climate. 
 
 In such a climate they certainly took rise, and such 
 
 EXCURSION TO P^ESTUM. 
 
 319 
 
 The smallest of the three has six columns in 
 front and thirteen in length. This is not the 
 number which Vitruvius prescribes for the Hex- 
 astylos; but this proportion obtained in Greece : 
 it is found in the temple of Theseus and in the 
 Suniad ruin. Vitruvius's rules were not always 
 followed at Rome, and here his first principles 
 are reversed. According to him, the interco- 
 lumniations should be in direct proportion to the 
 relative thickness of the columns. Now these, 
 in proportion to their height, are the thickest 
 columns that I have seen, and yet their relative 
 distance is the least. Thus their serried files 
 crowd advantageously on the eye, enlarge our 
 idea of the space, and give an air of grandeur to 
 very moderate dimension. 
 
 climates alone can preserve so much ornament for ages 
 entire. The Corinthian can be traced in the Egyptian 
 ruins of Koun Ombos and of Esne, which are older than 
 the Greek story of the basket and tile. In such climates a 
 place of assembly required nothing but shade and ventila- 
 tion ; in other words, nothing but a roof and just as much 
 vertical building as could support it— hence the groves of 
 pillars which we find in Egypt ; but the angles of pillars 
 were found to obstruct the circulation of a crowd— hence 
 columns ; and, as plinths and tores would impede the pas- 
 sage of feet— hence baseless columns, like these of Peestum. 
 And why were the most ancient monuments in the North 
 of an opposite architecture ? Wliy were their walls solid 
 and plain, their interior dark and close, the chimney much 
 larger than the doors and windows, but from a similar 
 cause, the natural necessities of a cold climate ? 
 
 i 
 

 320 
 
 EXCURSION TO PtESTUM. 
 
 The middle structure called (I believe merely 
 from the name of the city) the temple of Neptune, 
 is more entire, more various, more majestic. It 
 consists of two peristyles separated by a wall : 
 the outer has fourteen columns in a file; the 
 inner has two stories of smaller columns and only 
 an architrave between them. Thoui^h this cor- 
 responds with Vitruvius and with the Parthenon, 
 yet surely two stories of columns, where no frieze 
 nor listel denotes an intermediate flooring, seem 
 unnecessary and mean. The whole is evidently 
 an Hypcethros ; for the number of front columns 
 forms no specific difference. Vitruvius, though 
 his definition of the HypaBthros requires ten, ad- 
 mits also eight into the same class. In fact, the 
 Hypa?thros implies an open court. If that court 
 was narrow, the front had six columns, as here ; 
 if wider, eight, as in the Parthenon, or ten, as 
 Vitruvius prescribes; if still wider, the pediment 
 would disappear, and the temple expand into an 
 Iseon. 
 
 The r/i/rrf structure is still more singular. It 
 has nine columns in front, and a range in the 
 middle parallel to the sides. A front where the 
 number of columns is odd, and a plan thus bi- 
 sected, appear so inconsistent with the design of 
 a temple, that a few antiquaries will allow it that 
 name. One calls it an atrium, another a bast- 
 lica; but the trace of walls, and the narrowness 
 
 EXCURSION TO PiESTUM. 
 
 321 
 
 of the cell convinced me that it could be neither. 
 I exhausted conjecture, and at last returned un- 
 satisfied to the idea of a temple ; an open temple 
 which had no front doors to fix the distribution 
 of columns, a temple perhaps parted between two 
 divinities, like that of Venus and Rome. 
 
 The stone of these edifices was probably formed 
 at Paestum itself, by the brackish water of the 
 Salso acting on vegetable earth, roots, and plants; 
 for you can distinguish their petrified tubes in 
 every column.* None of the ruins are sunk, nor 
 does the general surface of Pajstum rise into the 
 heaps of a demolished town. 
 
 These wonderful objects, though sur\eyed in 
 the midst of rain, amply compensated our little 
 misadventures. Taking into view their imme- 
 morial antiquity, their astonishing presenation, 
 their grandeur or rather grandiosity, their bold 
 columnar elevation, at once massive and open, 
 their severe simplicity of design, that simplicity' 
 in which art generally begins, and to which, after 
 a thousand revolutions of ornament, it again re- 
 turns; taking, I say, all into one view, I do not 
 hesitate to call these the most impressive monu- 
 ments that I ever beheld on earth. 
 . The city walls are built of huge polyhedric 
 
 * Pliny remarks the same quality in the neij^^hbourini^ 
 Sele. - In flumine Silaro ultra Surrentum nun virgulta 
 modo immersa, verum et folia lapidescunt." 
 
M 
 
 322 
 
 JOURNEY TO ANCONA. 
 
 stones, which afford some idea of what has been 
 lately thought the Cyclopean construction. Their 
 materials, however, are a grey stone ; without any 
 mixture of the marble, granite, and lava which 
 are held essential to that construction. We saw 
 parts of an aqueduct, and something like a small 
 amphitheatre, which was partly excavated from 
 the ground, as in Greece ; but, though we went 
 in spring, we found no descendants of the cele- 
 brated rG«es, 
 
 Biferiqiie rosaria PjBsti. 
 
 JOURNEY TO ANCONA. 
 
 Mons inter geminas medius sc porrigit nndas 
 Inl'erni, sii peri que maris, coUesqiie coercent ; 
 Hinc Tyrrhena vado fraugentes aeqiiora Pisae, 
 Illiuc Dalmaticis obnoxia fluctibus Ancon. — Luc. 
 
 From Rome we travelled for two posts through 
 desolation and wild grass, and then entered on the 
 Flaminian pavement, in a forest which has been 
 lately thinned both of trees and robbers. 
 
 Civ IT A Castellan A stands on a peninsula faced 
 with precipices and moated with torrents. This 
 situation, after a long and voluminous contest, 
 both in prose and verse, must at last be assigned 
 to Falerium ; for Veil, which had been fixed here 
 by Mazzocchio and others, is ascertained, by an 
 inscription discovered since I left Italy, to have 
 
 JOURNEY TO ANCONA. 
 
 323 
 
 stood on the Cassian way about two miles from 
 Isola Farnese. 
 
 On arriving at Terni we rode up to the cas- 
 cade, leaving below us on the left a green valley, 
 a river, a bridge, a villa, a castellated town, and 
 regular lines of culture : all which, contrasting 
 with the wild nature on the mountains, formed a 
 little cabinet-picture concealed amoni^ the laro-e 
 landscapes of Umbria. At last came the roar of 
 the Velino upon the cliffs— but this cataract, 
 whether viewed at the tremendous chasm above it, 
 at the verge of precipitation, or midway down at 
 the belvedere in front — the evening sun painting 
 an iris on the spray— the obscurity of the gulf 
 below— the vista of the rich vale of Nera— all 
 must have been so often described, that I leave 
 them in silent admiration. 
 
 Spoi.eti retains some grand memorials of its 
 Lombard Dukes. The cathedral was built of 
 marble in their reigns, and built in that peculiar 
 style which I have already remarked as Lom- 
 bard. The tremendous aqueduct was the work 
 of a Goth. Spoleti comes finely into a land- 
 scape, and its environs are strewed with white 
 patrician hermitages; but the interior of the 
 town is filthy and mean. 
 
 We now entered on the plain of Mevania which 
 used to supply the Roman triumphs with snow- 
 white bulls. I saw large herds of oxen stately 
 
 y2 
 
324 
 
 JOURNEY TO ANCONA. 
 
 r 
 
 I [ 
 
 \k 
 
 Ill I. 
 
 ,1 
 '11 
 
 enough for the altar, but none so poetically white, 
 nor any much lighter in colour than the Tuscan. 
 Their horns, too, rose in cur\es of enormous 
 length; while those of the ancient victims are 
 generally represented in relievos as short and 
 even stunted. 
 
 The Flaminian way brought us close to the 
 httle temple and the fountain of Clitumnus. 
 From what I could learn of the fountain, its 
 virtue of bleaching cattle is just as fabulous as 
 the miracle which Claudian ascribes to it. The 
 temple can hardly be that structure which the 
 younger Pliny describes as ancient even in his 
 time ; for instead of columns bescratched with 
 the nonsense of an albums here are columns 
 coupled in the middle of the front to correspond 
 with those on the antes, a thing not found in any 
 classical antiquity; here are spiral columns, 
 which, so far from being characters of early art, 
 are corruptions of its decline. 
 
 CoLFiORiTO is a mountain so bare and so 
 washed, that its few inhabitants have no soil to 
 subsist on. What a large proportion of the Papal 
 state seems to lie under some physical curse ! 
 These poor mountaineers, perched on the roof of 
 Italy, though free from mephitism and the plagues 
 of the plain, are unmercifully pelted and starved 
 by the elements. Their brethren on the ground- 
 floor are better sheltered and fed, but they live in 
 
 JOURNEY TO ANCONA. 
 
 325 
 
 a tainted atmosphere. At Tolentino the Apen- 
 nines begin to degenerate into green cultivated 
 hills, as the motto mentions, which form on this 
 side a declivity as gentle as the opposite ascent 
 was abrupt. Indeed all chains of mountains are 
 most precipitous on the south and west. 
 
 Macerata contains a immhcr of pala^zi, and 
 therefore a swarm of provincial nobility. The 
 peasants observe an established uniform in dress, 
 of which orange appears the prevailing colour. 
 So constant are the women of this class to local 
 costume, that the female head becomes a kind of 
 geographical index. At Macerata they adhere to 
 the ancient mode of plaiting and coiling the hair 
 which they transfix with long silver wires tipt at 
 both ends with large knobs.* At Recanati, 
 they hang golden bells to their ear-rings, three 
 or five to each chime, jingling like the crotalia of 
 the Roman matrons. At Loretto, they adjust the 
 handkerchief to their heads in the stvle of their 
 Madonna. All the young men bind their hair 
 in coloured nets, an ancient aft'ectation of female 
 attire, as appears from Juvenal's censure of the 
 thing. No where could I see that gracefulness 
 or even that simphcity so much admired in the 
 
 * " Figat acus tortas sustineatque comas." — Mart. 
 
 This was tlie acus crinalis, and its knobs usually bore 
 a figure of Venus, Cupid, &c. The knobs which I re- 
 marked here were also carved or stamped. . 
 
 I 
 
326 
 
 JOURNEY TO ANCONA. 
 
 rural costume. In this country whenever the 
 peasant is fine, he is frightful. 
 
 LoRETTO. On entering the church at five in 
 the morning, I was surprised to find crowds so 
 early in the Santa Casa, and masses at every 
 altar. This holy house and its saint struck me 
 as examples of that contrast which the church of 
 Rome affects, in consecrating ugliness. The one 
 is a mean brick-looking hovel, incased in a shell 
 of sculptured marble : the other, a black, smoked, 
 wooden figure glittering in jewels and brocade. 
 Seldom is the gift of miracles ascribed to an 
 object of beauty. A statue must either have or 
 affect the Gothic antique before the godly will 
 rub their foreheads on its toes. When this Virgin 
 returned from France (for she has been a tra- 
 veller as well as her house) a new deposite was 
 opened to replace the treasures which had va- 
 nished. The Pope presented two golden crowns ; 
 and a priest sits fronting the door to receive and 
 register donations. But most of the pilgrims 
 whom I found there appeared as poor as they 
 were pious. They knelt round the furrow which 
 devotion has worn on the pavement, as they ap- 
 proached the Virgin, 
 
 JSot with fond shekels of the tested gold, 
 Or stones whose rates are either rich or poor 
 As fancy vahies them ; but with true prayers, 
 Prayers that were up at heaven, and entered there 
 Ere sunrise. < 
 
 JOURNEY TO ANCONA. 
 
 327 
 
 Ancona seems to have accommodation for any 
 increase of commerce. The port is large, safe, 
 well-divided, beautiful. The Lazaretto is such 
 as the Adriatic requires; a strong, capacious 
 pentagon rising magnificently in the sea. The 
 ancient part of the mole is crowned by Trajan's 
 arch, and the modern by a Pope's. But what 
 business has a priest with triumphal arches? and 
 what business has any arch on a mole ? Arches 
 like these suppose a triumph, a procession, a 
 road, the entry into a city. The mole of Trajan 
 called for a different monument. Here an histo- 
 rical column, like his own, might have risen into 
 a Pharos, at once to record his naval merits, to 
 illuminate his harbour, and realize the compli- 
 ment which the senate inscribed on this arch, by 
 making " the access to Italy safer for sailors." 
 
 It would be ungallant to pass through Ancona 
 without paying homage to the multitude of fine 
 women whom you meet there. Wherever there 
 is wealth or even comfort in Italy, the sex runs 
 naturally into beauty ; and where should beauty 
 be found if not here — 
 ■ Ante Domum Veneris quam Dorica sustinet Ancon r' 
 
 
1 
 
 /• 
 
 'i 
 
 
 i i 
 
 328 
 
 JOURNEY TO VENICE. 
 
 Hoc tibi, quicquid i.I est, longinquis mittit ab oris 
 Galha Romanae nomine dicta togae. Mart. 
 
 From Ancona we travelled alon^ the shore, fa- 
 tigued by a deep clogging sand, and a calin flat 
 sea without a vessel on its surface. Sinigaglia, 
 though already too large for its inhabitants, was 
 branching out into new streets, to meet the in- 
 creasing resort of its great fair. 
 
 We crossed the celebrated Metaurus and 
 stopped at Fano. Here is an arch composed of 
 discordant architecture, and ascribed both to 
 Augustus and to Constantine. But had the for- 
 mer any share in the work ? Dion mentions but 
 two arches erected to Augustus on the Flami- 
 nian way, and the coins couple those arches with 
 the two bridges of Rimini and Ponte Molle, 
 which terminated that way. On the frieze of 
 this arch there is certainly an inscription to Au- 
 gustus Capsar ; but on a listel below it is another 
 inscription to a Corrector of the Flaminian way, 
 which contradicts Tacitus and throws a doubt 
 on the whole. 
 
 Rimini. The arch of Augustus, being a vial 
 one, was necessarily much wider than the trium- 
 phal arches which succeeded. It now appears 
 but a large gaping gateway, flanked by two Co- 
 
 journey TO VENICE. 
 
 329 
 
 
 rinthian columns, and crowned, like those of 
 Drusus and Gallienus, with a pitiful pediment 
 which does not cover half the entablature : but 
 we cannot judge of the original effect of a work, 
 which barbarians both mutilated and built upon. 
 His bridge here was more fortunate. Protected 
 from men by its own utility, it had only to resist 
 the fury of floods, which have left it far more 
 entire than the arch. This work does honour 
 to the age of Vitruvius, and has stood a longer 
 and severer trial than any bridge in Europe. 
 
 On the Emilian way almost every post town is 
 an elegant city; and the plain itself is rich and 
 regular as a garden; but on approaching the 
 rivers you meet the desolation peculiar to an 
 Apennine stream, 
 
 — cihe si coufonde 
 
 Ne' giri, che mutar sempre le piacque , 
 Divora i liti, e d' infeconde areue 
 Seraina i prati, e le campagne araene. 
 
 Among these rivers was the Rubicon, a cele- 
 brated name, now lost in uncertainty among four 
 different streams, the Fiumesino, the Pisatello, 
 the Borco, the Rugone. How strange that a river, 
 which is now unknown, and was often a mere 
 brook, should have been ever so sacred a bound- 
 ary ! Some suppose that to pass it unordered in 
 arms was held absolute treason ; but this opinion 
 can plead, I believe, no better authority than the 
 
330 
 
 JOURNEY TO VENICE. 
 
 inscription found on a column between Rimini 
 and Ravenna: a monument of which the orifi- 
 nai IS lost, the readings have been disputed, and 
 the diction itself appears apocryphal. No histo- 
 rian attaches any sacredness to the Rubicon; 
 nothing forbade Caesar to pass it except an occa- 
 sional order from the senate. Marc Antony 
 crossed the river in the opposite direction, and 
 also in defiance of the senate ; but this trespass, 
 like Caesar's, was only a personal affair, and so 
 far from stated treason, that a specific decree was 
 thought necessary to declare him eventually a 
 traitor, if he did not return. 
 
 Bologna. On arriving here your attention is 
 drawn first to the arcades, which are li^ht and 
 lofty in the principal streets; but every arch 
 stands on single columns, which I cannot think 
 either beautiful in itself, or fit for the basement 
 of a high, heavy house-front. I am surprised 
 that continued porticos like these, which Nero's 
 excellent taste had designed for his new edition 
 of Rome, are not general in the south of Italy, a 
 country so subject to violent heat and rain. 
 
 Bologna excelled only in painting. In no age 
 has its architecture been pure. Dante's Gari- 
 senda (for whatever the Divine Poet once names 
 becomes Dante's) is a coarse brick tower which, 
 if really built with its present inclination, was 
 but deformed for the sake of difficulty. Its 
 
 JOURNEY TO VENICE. 
 
 331 
 
 neighbour the Asinelli is taller, but not much 
 better. San Francesco is a fine old church, but 
 not the true Gothic. San Petronio is a mixture 
 of the modern and the Lombard. The Madonna 
 di San Luca is rich, is magnificent ; but not so 
 simply noble as a Greek cross crowned by a 
 cupola might be : its porticato astonishes only by 
 its length. The Cathedral, San Paolo, the In- 
 stitute, the palazzo Caprara, Ranuzzi, &c., con- 
 tain some Greek architecture, and some parts 
 are good. 
 
 In sculpture I saw nothing so grand as John 
 Boulogn's fountain in the piazza del Gigante, 
 where a number of bronze figures are assembled 
 round Neptune. The Neptune is admired for 
 the style, anatomy, and technical details. His 
 air and expression are surely noble, powerful, 
 commanding, perhaps too commanding for his 
 situation. Neptune has not the same local effect 
 in an inland town as at Naples, where the water 
 which spouts from every prong of his trident 
 becomes an immediate tribute to his sea. 
 
 I remarked in several palaces a columnar per- 
 spective painted on the bottom of their courts. 
 Such decorations I would allow only where illu- 
 sion is allowed, as in theatres, gardens, paste- 
 board triumphs, public illuminations ; but, even 
 at the hazard of contradicting Vitruvius, I would 
 exclude them from solid and serious architecture. 
 
332 
 
 JOURNEY TO VENICE. 
 
 In a palace we refer every part to the geometri- 
 cal plan : but those baseless fabrics are reducible 
 to no plan at all ; they are poor because they are 
 false : they lose, as you approach, all their own 
 magnificence, and they degrade that of the edi- 
 fice which suffers them. 
 
 This city was, at least, the second field of 
 painting in Italy; but the late revolution has 
 shut up or desecrated half the churches, and has 
 robbed the rest of all their principal oil-paintings. 
 Even their frescos yield to those of the Zampieri- 
 palace, which proved a field of competition to the 
 great Lombard masters. Each of the Caracci 
 has his ceiling; Guercino chose for his the sub- 
 ject of Hercules and Antaus, as a trial of his 
 magic skill in chiaroscuro and foreshortening: 
 but why was Domenichino absent in a palace 
 which bears his name ? Here are Guido's two 
 apostles, a picture considered as the finest left in 
 Italy. I can conceive no excellence bevond the 
 figure of Peter. Indeed, so excellent is art here, 
 that it disappears, and gives up the work to sen- 
 timent. I might heap technical praises on this 
 divine picture ; but I could not convey my own 
 impressions. 
 
 The Institute is lodged in a magnificent pa- 
 lace, and amply supplied with objects or tools of 
 study, in every science and art ; for this esta- 
 bhshment includes both the academy of sciences 
 
 JOURNEY TO VENICE. 
 
 333 
 
 and the Clementine Academy. The first was 
 founded by a boy but upheld by great men : the 
 second attempted, but in vain, to replace the 
 Lombard School of painting, or rather La Car- 
 raccesca. The university is the oldest in Europe, 
 at least the first where academical degrees were 
 invented and conferred ; but, like other old esta- 
 bhshments, it is now fallen into decrepitude. 
 Yet with all this learning in its bosom, Bologna 
 has suffered its dialect, that dialect which Dante 
 admired as the purest of Italy, to degenerate into 
 a coarse, thick, truncated jargon, full of apocope, 
 and unintelligible to strangers. 
 
 The rest of this journey was aquatic. The 
 lakes, the marshes, and the canals ; the wood 
 and water of the Polisinos ; the humid, fat soil, 
 the thick, ill-ventilated air; the maceration of 
 hemp, the frequency of floods, and their slow 
 reflux; all these causes acting under a hot sun 
 have infected the Ferrarese territory with me- 
 phitism and thinned its population. Water is 
 the grand enemy of these tracts. By turning 
 the Reno from its direct tendencv to the Po, 
 away through the Ferrarese, the Popes have not 
 only desolated the plain, but also produced a 
 confusion in private property, and public disputes 
 between Bologna and Ferrara, which called in 
 the mediation of Cassini's geometry. Tlie pas- 
 sage of water has been so constant a source of 
 quarrel between states and between individuals, 
 
 l_- 
 
334 
 
 JOURNEY TO VENICE. 
 
 that the word " rivus" became the root of riva- 
 Hty or contention of any kind. 
 
 Ferrara was built for more than 100,000 in- 
 habitants, and now it is reduced to one-fourth of 
 that number. Some of the streets are covered 
 with o-rass and dunjrhills, the ditches are man- 
 tled with irreen corruption, the very churches, 
 which often flourish amid desolation, are falling 
 into decay. Yet melancholy as this city looks 
 now, every lover of Italian poetry must view with 
 affection the retreat of an Ariosto, a Tasso, a 
 Guarini. Such is the ascendant of wealth over 
 genius, that one or two princes could create an 
 Athens in the centre of this Bceotia. The little 
 courts of Ferrara and Urbino seemed to emulate 
 those of Alexandria and Pergamos, contending 
 for pre-eminence only in literature and elegance. 
 Ariosto's tomb was lately removed, with his chair 
 and standish, from the Benedictine convent to 
 the Studii. The apotheosis, I understand, was 
 magnificent ; yet a friend to what is ancient will 
 hardly approve this manner of translating poets. 
 
 The old Ducal palace stands, moated and 
 flanked with towers, in the heart of the subjugated 
 town, like a tyrant intrenched among slaves, and 
 recalls to a stranger that gloomy period described 
 by Dante, 
 
 Che le citta d' Italia tiitte piene 
 Son di tiranni ; e un Metel diventa 
 Ogni villan che partfggiando viene. 
 
 JOURNEY TO VENICE. 
 
 335 
 
 After a long struggle for liberty, which the 
 league of Lombardy only exposed to a new 
 danger, the Lombard states broke out into thirty 
 separate republics ; and each, ridden and spurred 
 on by its own little demagogue, singled out its 
 enemy. Ferrara matched itself against Ravenna, 
 as Piacenza against Parma, or Pavia against 
 Milan. Though confined within narrow territo- 
 ries, living in the sight of each other's turrets, 
 and separated by the domains of barons who held 
 both at defiance, those ambitious apes of Athens 
 and Lacedtemon found means to flourish in the 
 midst of continual hostility, and filled the annals 
 of two centuries with their impertinent battles. 
 
 We embarked on the Po at Ponte di Lago 
 scuRO, and sailed down to Fornaci, whence 
 different canals brought us successively into the 
 Adige, the Brenta, and the Adriatic. Along this 
 tract are little conical huts, thatched with reeds, 
 where the Guardia di Po are stationed to watch 
 both the floods and the farmers. The farmers 
 will sometimes steal across in the dark to sluice 
 off the threatening inundation on their opposite 
 neighbours ; and the Po itself has been ever 
 noted for this reciprocation of mischief. 
 
 Succubuit si qua tellus, cumulumque furentem 
 Undarum non passa ruit; turn flumine toto 
 Transit, et ignotos aperit sibi gurgite campos, 
 Illos terra fugit dominos : his rura colouis 
 Accedunt, donante Pado. 
 
 1 'm 
 
 V 
 
336 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 Questi palazzi e queste logge, or colte 
 D' ostri, tli marmi, e di fii^ine elette, 
 Fur poche e basse case insieme accolte, 
 Deserti lidi, e povere isolette. Deli.a Casa. 
 
 I FOUND Venice just what I had imagined it to 
 be from books and prints. A singular thing 
 may be fully delineated. It is the sublime or 
 the beautiful, it is the scenery of Naples or the 
 Belvedere Apollo that baffles description. 
 
 Strangers, accustomed to expatiate on terra 
 firma, soon feel the moated imprisonment of a 
 town, where their walks are incessantly crossed 
 by a canal, and their thread of talk or thinking 
 is cut at the steep steps of a bridge. I admit its 
 aquatic advantages, and the cheap convenience 
 of its gondolas; yet with eight theatres and a 
 proportionate quantity of private amusement, 
 with large libraries and well-stocked markets, 
 with every thing that study or pleasure could 
 desire, Venice is the last residence that I should 
 choose in Italv. 
 
 St. Mark's is much altered since the late events. 
 I saw none of those singularities, those official 
 costumes, that mummery, that masking which 
 used to enliven this scene. Men of all ranks 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 337 
 
 associate very promiscuously under the arcades, 
 free from the old republican distinctions, and 
 rattling on every subject except their own trans- 
 formations. For six days in the week St. Mark's 
 place is a military parade j on Saturday it is con- 
 verted into a rag fair, and covered with " cushions, 
 leaden spoons, irons of a doit, doublets that hang- 
 men would bury with those that wore them." 
 
 St. Mark^s Church is a very singular pile. 
 Though most of its materials came from Greece, 
 their combination is neither Greek nor Gothic, 
 nor basilical, nor Saracenic ; but a fortuitous jum- 
 ble of all. A front divided by a gallery, and a 
 roof hooded with mosquisli cupolas give it a 
 strange unchristian look. No where have I seen 
 so many columns crowded into so small a space. 
 Near three hundred are stuck on the pillars of 
 the front, and three hundred more on the balus- 
 trade above. A like profusion prevails in the 
 interior, which is dark, heavy, barbarous, nay, 
 poor, in spite of all the porphyry and oriental 
 marbles, and glaring mosaics that would enrich 
 the w^alls, the vaults and pavements. In fact, such 
 a variety of colours would impair the eflect of 
 the purest architecture. 
 
 The Procuratie Nuovc is a rich line of building 
 fronted w ith all the Greek orders ; but the Corin- 
 thian is too evidently an after-thought, an in- 
 truder forced upon the original design at the ex- 
 
 z 
 
 .t I 
 
338 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 pense of a frieze. This front might dispense with 
 the pigmy columns which are niclied in the lower 
 windows, and with the statues which recline on 
 their pediments. Tired of so much embellish- 
 ment, the eye wants to see something of the wall. 
 The opposite building is lighter, lower, less noble 
 indeed, and too o})en ; a mere lantern. These 
 piles are too dissimilar to have met in contact ; 
 but the church which parts them is a vile object, 
 and interrupts the communication of the arcades. 
 
 In the adjoining Piazzetta the contrast is still 
 more striking. The library and mint stand oi> 
 posite to the Ducal palace ; the beautiful to the 
 imposing, the regular to the odd. Happily for 
 Sansovino, the library was too short to admit a 
 third story, and the two orders which compose it 
 are as rich as beauty would allow them to be. 
 The mint has two fronts perfectly unlike ; where 
 it joins the library it accords with it too ; but to 
 the sea it presents bossages and rusticity up to 
 the summit. 
 
 The Ducal Palace is built in a style which may 
 be arabesque, if you will, but it reverses the 
 principles of all other architecture ; for here the 
 solid rests on the open, a wall of enormous mass 
 rests on a slender fret-work of shafts, arches, and 
 intersected circles. The very corners are cut to 
 admit a thin spiral column, a barbarism which I 
 saw imitated in several old palaces. A front thus 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 339 
 
 r; 
 
 bisected into thick and thin, such contrast of flat 
 and fretted, can please only in perspective. It is 
 not enough that the structure be really durable, 
 it should also appear so. 
 
 Venice maybe proud of her churches ; of those, 
 at least, which Palladio has built. His Redentore 
 is admirable in plan and elevation. The interior 
 elevation is perhaps perfect in its proportions, 
 simple, grand, harmonious. One unbroken en- 
 tablature, surmounting one unvaried Corinthian, 
 reigns round the church. Its cornice, indeed, is 
 one of the improprieties which are established in 
 the interior of all churches, and the angles flat- 
 tened at the cross we must impute to the cupola. 
 
 San Giorgio, where the last conclave was held, 
 is not so pure in design, yet worthy of Palladio. 
 Both without and within are two different orders 
 rising from the same pavement todiff'erent heights. 
 The inner entablature starts out over each capital. 
 The transepts seem too long for the nave, and the 
 cupola too small. On the walls is a fine assem- 
 blage of marbles. The chief cloister, though sup- 
 ported by coupled columns, is nobly elevated : the 
 windows grand : their pediments, as usual in Pal- 
 ladio's works, are alternately angular and curved. 
 
 San Francesco della Vigna is another church 
 of Palladio's, but much inferior to these. Its front, 
 like San Giorgio's, has two wings, each covered 
 with half a pediment. The pediment in the 
 
 z2 
 
340 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 341 
 
 middle is entire, and contains an eag-le cooped in 
 a circle. But why did not the sacred bird till the 
 whole ///7nprtm/m with his expanded wings? So 
 scenerally did the Greeks assimilate the one figure 
 to the other, that they bestowed the same name 
 on both. 
 
 Giosuati. The portal of this church emulates 
 the Pantheon ; but the reverend brandy merchants 
 who raised it impaired its simphcity by two rows 
 of equal statues. I was better pleased with the 
 gradation Avithin, where the statues form one 
 range, relievos another, and imitations of relief 
 reiiiii round the vault. 
 
 The Jesuit church, like most of that order, 
 blends richness of materials with poverty of design. 
 Over the high altar is an enormous block of white 
 marble hewn into a ciborium, and set on twisted 
 columns of verde antico — apparent weight resting 
 on apparent weakness ! the more precious mate- 
 rials supporting the less ! The mosaic-carpet 
 looks well at this altar ; but a similar inlay covers 
 the church columns where nothing should appear 
 pieced. 
 
 Santa Maria della Salute is much admired. 
 It is magnificent, to be sure, and lofty and rich; 
 but it runs into too many angles and projections, 
 too many " coignes of vantage," both without 
 and within. It spires into a pyramid from the 
 very basement up to the cupolas ; but those cu- 
 
 polas screen each other, and are shored up with 
 vile inverted consoles. 
 
 St, Moise, the Scahi, St<t. Maria Zobenigo, &c., 
 are most cruelly dissected and tortured with deco- 
 ration. All the belfries are built on the model of 
 St. Mark's : each of their fronts is flanked with 
 two broad yjilasters running, hke Gothic buttresses, 
 up to the parapet. 
 
 The Pa/ace5 stand on grand Etruscan substruc- 
 tions, which, from the necessity of the element, 
 must be simple and uniform. Above the water- 
 floor they are as various as their architects. Some 
 display the light elegance of Sansovino, others the 
 exuberant ornament of Longhena, and a few the 
 correct beauty of Palladio. They in general aff'ect 
 too many orders in front : each order has, absurdly 
 enough, its full entablature : the lower cornices 
 are as prominent as the upper, and appear in 
 profile so many separate roofs. In fact, the Gre- 
 cian orders, being foreign to the manners and 
 wants of a city built upon water, will never enter 
 into its accommodations but at the expense of 
 half their beauty and all their consistency. 
 
 Most palaces have two gates, some three, in the 
 middle of their fronts. On each side are two 
 ranges of equal windows in the basement alone. 
 Over the gates is a stately and decorated super- 
 structure of balconies, arcades, and gigantic win- 
 dows, contrived for Venetian pageantry ; and set 
 
 ! 
 
f 
 
 342 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 in studied opposition to the general style of the 
 front, which this wide, vertical breach divides into 
 two. The windows are generally arched. In 
 modern palaces their arch is circular, in some of 
 the ancient it forms arabesque curves of contrary 
 flexion which finely contrast with the flat mass of 
 wall. In a Cornaro and a Grimani palace, both 
 on the grand canal, I remarked the Gothic church 
 window, and that not in its most elegant intersec- 
 tions. The chimneys figure on those palaces, 
 more conspicuously than so sordid an object 
 should do, in imitation of obelisks, bells, and 
 candelabra reversed. 
 
 Many of those palaces are still rich in paint- 
 ings. The Ducal palace has lately lost a few ; 
 but the greater allegorical pictures remain. Those 
 of Paul Veronese are celebrated as compositions 
 of the highest poetry. The subjects are surely 
 poetical; but the works themselves are full of such 
 heads and such gestures as are common at Venice, 
 of such satins and velvets as were peculiarly 
 studied in that portrait and pageant-painting 
 school. Tintoret's Paradise is a multitudinous 
 confusion of hurried figures, which none but that 
 furious " fulmine di pennello" could assemble. 
 Palma's Last Judgment is another immense com- 
 position, but more intelligibly detailed. These 
 artists seem fond of introducins: their friends into 
 such pictures. In onp part of this work you see 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 343 
 
 I 
 
 Palma's mistress in heaven, in another the fickle 
 lover sends her to hell. The paintings of the 
 great council-chamber form a continued epic on 
 the triumph which the republic claimed over 
 Frederic Barbarossa. In one picture the suppliant 
 Pope is discovered by the Doge, in another the 
 Venetians defeat the imperial galleys, in a third 
 young Otho, their prisoner, bears to his father the 
 demands of the conqueror, in a fourth the em- 
 peror is prostrate at St. Mark's. Most of this is, 
 perhaps, a romance ; but a romance more par- 
 donable in a Venetian painting, than in grave 
 histories which are said to admit it on no good 
 authority. 
 
 In other palaces I saw some admired pictures, 
 but none that left any impression on me. This 
 prolific school, with all its colouring and fidelity 
 to nature, seems deplorably vacant of interest, 
 mind, drama, and historical truth. The only 
 Venetian artist that could ever impress my soul 
 or awake its affections is Canova. His first at- 
 tempt at history remains here in one of the Pisani 
 palaces. The subject is Daedalus fixing wings on 
 his son, a Daedalus so full of the father and the 
 workman, that Canova has seldom surpassed the 
 expression at Rome. Genius is like the spiral, 
 more rapid in its progress, than when it draws 
 near the unattainable centre of perfection. Rey- 
 nolds looking back at his guinea-portraits, and 
 
344 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 Bernini at his busts of Cardinal Scipio Borghese, 
 were mortified to find those not so inferior as they 
 expected to their latter works. — In a Mangilli 
 palace, Canova's Psyche stands alone, and intent 
 on her butterfly she discovers no want ; yet at 
 Rome he has twined the enamoured 2:od so ex- 
 quisitely round her, as to appear essential to his 
 lovely partner. How few are so happy in ekini^ 
 their works ! how seldom can you add to a finished 
 tiling ! 
 
 A Grimani palace contains the only statue of 
 Marcus Agrippa existing- in the world. How 
 strange that the heads of this most magnificent 
 patron of ancient art should be rare ! Even this 
 has been questioned as a portrait of Agrippa ; but 
 the face struck me as sufficiently like the three 
 busts, and stamped with that honest frown which 
 Pliny remarks in the original. The size of this 
 statue is between the heroic and colossal; and 
 nothing appears on the nuked figure but a sword 
 suspended from the shoulder by a balteus of twisted 
 cords. In the same palace is an admirable bust 
 of Caracalla, afigure more common than the other 
 imperial tyrants ; perhaps because the very pre- 
 tensions of his successors obliged them to spare 
 his effigy. 
 
 Most of those palaces were then deserted — their 
 masters had retired from a city which they could 
 govern no longer, to their estates on the continent; 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 345 
 
 and there reducing their establishments, left the 
 tradesmen in town to deplore the void. But what 
 void could a stranger, unacquainted, as I was, with 
 the former luxuries of Venice, discover in the 
 pleasures and crowds that circulate all night round 
 St. Mark's ? In such a society no concern should 
 be more important than the theatre : yet the great 
 Venetians seem to frequent theatres only for 
 fashion or gallantry. To accommodate these 
 children of midnight, the curtain never rises till 
 ten o'clock ; but a woman of quaUty must not 
 appear so early, except at the first representation 
 of an opera or a ballet. Then, indeed, she must 
 be present at the very overture, and show her 
 book of the performance, which a law of high life 
 forbids them afterwards to open. Such are fine 
 ladies in every country. At once free and punc- 
 tilious, they affect a careless irregularity wherever 
 there is no positive rule of fashion to bind them, 
 while they are silently exact to the little ridiculous 
 superstitions of the ton. 
 
 Venice has long been the great book-shop of 
 the south : she still prints for Italy in general and 
 for modern Greece, and exports largely to Ger- 
 many and the north. The Venetians are also 
 daily publishing pamphlets which can only cir- 
 culate at home, being satires levelled at domestic 
 absurdities and written in the vernacular dialect. 
 This dialect is spoken by all ranks of Venetians, 
 
 J, 
 
i 
 
 346 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 whose smart and hasty inflections of voice struck 
 my ear as resembling the Welsh tone. 
 
 My stay at Venice was short. We make the 
 tour of Italy, as we make the circuit of a gallery. 
 We set out determined to let nothing escape us 
 unexamined, and thus we waste our attention, 
 while it is fresh, on the first objects, which are not 
 generally the best. On advancing we are dazzled 
 with excellence, and fatigued with admiration. 
 We can take, however, but a certain dose of this 
 pleasure at a time, and at length when the eye is 
 saturated with picture, we begin to long for the 
 conclusion, and we run through the last rooms 
 with a rapid glance. Such a feehng as this will 
 account for the hurried manner in which I passed 
 through the few final towns of my journey, and 
 this feeling was enforced by the dread of an im- 
 pending war, the love of home and the impatience 
 of my companion. 
 
 Whoever goes abroad merely for observation 
 should avoid his own countrymen. If you travel 
 in a party, your curiosity must adopt their paces : 
 you must sometimes post through towns rich in 
 art or antiquity, and stop where the only attraction 
 is good cheer. While you linger with fond delay 
 among the select beauties of a gallery, your friends 
 are advancing into other rooms, and the keeper 
 complains when you separate ; you thus lose the 
 freedom of inspection, your ears ring with im- 
 
 JOURNEY TO TURIN. 
 
 347 
 
 patience, and often with absurdity. If you travel 
 with one who is more ignorant of the language 
 than yourself, you must stand interpreter in all his 
 bickerinnrs with the natives; and will seldom con- 
 tent him, for a man is usually harsher, when his 
 spleen is to pass through the mouth of another, 
 than when he speaks for himself. 
 
 JOURNEY TO TURIN. 
 
 We embarked at the Rialto in a decked barge 
 which collected a number of passengers from the 
 gondolas. On starting from the quay, we were 
 importuned by a charity box which rattled in vain 
 for the poor souls in purgatory, and drew nothing 
 from us but smiles. A lottery-bag circulated next, 
 and with more success ; the prizes being cakes, 
 fowls, and rosolio. We passed 
 
 with imagined speed 
 
 Unto the Traject, to the common feiiy 
 Which trades to Venice. 
 
 We skimmed so rapidly past the x)roud villas 
 of the Brenta, that we could only admire what 
 Dante admired, the grand embankments which 
 the Paduans raised there " per difender lor ville 
 
 e lor castelli." 
 
 Padua has contracted, from its long, low por* 
 
348 
 
 JOURNEY TO TURIN. 
 
 ticos, and its gloomy churches, a grave old vacancy 
 of aspect. I saw nothing curious at the cathedral 
 except a miraculous Madonna, painted by Giotto 
 in the style of the Greek image-makers, and 
 sparingly shown to us under a gauze veil. 
 
 The Santo is a mere heap of architecture. Cu- 
 polas rise on its roof, not in the subordination of 
 a pyramid, but in the crowded confusion of a 
 mosque. The demon of ornament has played 
 strange tricks within. St. Anthony's own chapel 
 is another Santa Casa, rough all over with marble 
 relievi, and always crowded with the devout ; for 
 Anthony, though a foreigner, is more popular at 
 Padua than its native saints. I have seldom seen 
 tombs so immoderately fine as here, or so rich in 
 pentameter praise. Bembo's monument is sin- 
 gular for simplicity : perhaps his epitaph is too 
 simple for such a Ciceronian. 
 
 St. Justina's Ionic aisles stand in that middle 
 sphere between the elegant and the sublime which 
 I would call the noble. This church, like a true 
 Benedictine, is rich in the spiritual and the tem- 
 poral, in sculpture and painting, in the bones of 
 three thousand saints, and the disputed bodies of 
 two apostles. Paul Veronese's martyrdom of St. 
 Justina still remains here. Periodi's dead Christ 
 is a grand composition in statuary, without one 
 particle of the sublime. This magnificent pile 
 remains unfinished for a very sufficient reason, 
 
 • 
 
 JOURNEY TO TURIN. 
 
 349 
 
 not the want of money, but the possession of it. 
 Some pious simpleton, as they represented to me, 
 ambitious to figure on so grand an edifice, left 
 a larffe sum which the monks were to enjoy until 
 they completed the front. 
 
 At the hospital is a tablet of Canova's in honour 
 of a citizen, which obliged him to introduce the 
 tower-crowned colony. Padua is therefore desig- 
 nated by an ancient medal slung from her arm, 
 and a small episodic relievo of Antenor marking 
 out his future creation, and the Genius of the 
 place with uplifted hands thanking the Gods for 
 his arrival. Thus does Canova draw beauty even 
 from expedients, and throw mind into every trifle. 
 
 In the Bo, you see the genius of Palladio (for 
 at least the design was his) confined to limits 
 which admit only elegance ; and what portico is 
 more truly elegant than that of the court, what 
 colonnade more happily adjusted to the space 
 o-iven, what decoration more in harmony with its 
 subject? I mean Palladio's own decorations: for 
 the barbarous crust of scutcheons on the walls is 
 an insult offered by collegians to his shade. 
 
 This " Antenorea Atene " can no longer boast 
 a tumultuous throng of students ; but it can boast 
 professors highly eminent in science. The ma- 
 chine of education goes on finishing scholars, and 
 is well supplied with chairs, libraries, museums, 
 and all the implements of learning. The botanical 
 
350 
 
 JOURNEY TO TURIN. 
 
 i^arden is lich and beautiful. The observatory is 
 stocked with English instruments ; even the time- 
 piece is Grant's. Yet five centuries ago, when 
 England had no such machinery to boast besides 
 Wallingtord's, Padua drew the admiration of 
 Europe to Dondi's great astronomical clock, a 
 work which gave name and nobility to its maker 
 and all his descendants. 
 
 The Paduans, from a certain patriotic vanity, 
 have been the dupes of some gross impostures ; 
 as the Gothic tomb of their Antenor, and the 
 monkish coffin of their Livy. A similar propensity 
 has led the present Marquis Dondi-Orologio 
 to maintain, like a true Paduan, that Livy's Pa- 
 tavinity was a defect, not of style, but of loyalty 
 to Csesar. 
 
 The plain of Padua and the Euganean hills, 
 though lying in the most beaten tread of invasion, 
 and often the theatre of wars, have always re- 
 turned to their ancient fertility, and to the same- 
 modes of culture as Martial found on them.* Half 
 the scene was interminable like the sea, and, 
 though covered with corn, it appeared in the dis- 
 tance to be one wood. How beautiful are vines 
 when married as here, and trained round the 
 field from tree to tree in double and intersecting 
 festoons ! How greatly they exceed, as a picture, 
 
 * Euganeas Helicaonis oras 
 
 Pictaque pampiueis videris arva jugis. 
 
 JOURNEY TO TURIN. 
 
 351 
 
 the common vineyard, which looks at a distance 
 hke a field of turnips ! 
 
 ViCENZA is full of Palladio. His palaces here, 
 even those which remain unfinished, display a 
 taste chastened by the study of ancient art. Their 
 beauty originates in the design, and is never su- 
 perinduced by ornament. Their elevations en- 
 chant you, not by the length and altitude, nor by 
 the materials and sculpture, but the consum- 
 mate felicity of their proportions, by the harmo- 
 nious distribution of solid and void, by that happy 
 something between flat and prominent, which 
 charms both in front and profile ; by that maestria 
 which calls in columns, not to encumber but to 
 support, and reproduces ancient beauty in com- 
 binations unknown to the ancients themselves. 
 
 Even when obli2:ed to contend with the cioarsest 
 Gothic at La Ragione, how skilfully has Palladio 
 screened the external barbarisms of that reversed 
 hulk, by a Greek elevation as pure as the original 
 would admit ! His Vicentine villas have been 
 often imitated in England, and are models more 
 adapted to resist both our climate and our reason- 
 ing taste than the airy extravagant structures of 
 the south. 
 
 In the Teatro Olimpico, we see the genius of 
 this great practical antiquary restoring what, in 
 his time, was lost to the world, the interior of an 
 ancient theatre. On such a theatre alone are the 
 
 II 
 
352 
 
 JOURNEY TO TURIN. 
 
 Greek orders truly at home. But why is this 
 matchless model intrusted to wood and stucco ? 
 I would have it imperishable : I would convert 
 all the columns of the precinction, all the deco- 
 rations of the scene, into the finest marble. The 
 wooden streets of Scammozzi should be swept 
 away, and the whole cased in a shell which, simi- 
 lar in plan to the interior, should promise all the 
 beauty within. 
 
 Verona. The amphitheatre here is entire only 
 within, and that from the modern restoration. 
 Its original elevation is demolished ; the present 
 is but the inner wall of the porticos, which is 
 faced with bossages, and bears no ornament, no 
 inscription, no peculiarity that can lead us to its 
 author or its date. The bull's-head is a symbol 
 common to amphitheatres : I have seen it at 
 Nismes, and, I think, at Aries also. On entering- 
 this Arena, I felt all the grandeur, and fitness, 
 and show, and capacity of the elliptical form, 
 where the ciinei are divided vertically by cardines, 
 and the upper range separated from the lower by 
 one narrow ambulatory. 
 
 The arch of Gavi bears nothing: of Vitruvius 
 but his family name, and something like his scroll 
 on the frieze. Gallienus's arch is but a double 
 gate, raised in the little, demi-gothic style of en- 
 richment. The tombs of the Scaliger princes are 
 models of the most elegant Gothic, light, open. 
 
 JOURNEY TO TURIN. 
 
 353 
 
 spiry, full of statues caged in their fretted niches; 
 yet, slender as they seem, these tombs have stood 
 entire for five hundred years in a public street, 
 the frequent theatre of sedition, 
 
 "Which made Verona's ancient citizens 
 Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments, 
 To wield old partisans in hands as old. 
 
 Sanmicheli has rivalled Palladio in some palaces 
 of Verona. He has cauo-ht the true character of 
 a fortified gate, and given to the Porta Stupa an 
 air of a'loomy streno-tli and severitv. The Pelle- 
 grini chapel, his master-piece, approaches the op- 
 posite extreme. Would Palladio have suffered 
 such a profusion of sculpture and wreathed co- 
 lumns ? In their davs the u^enius of architectiu^e 
 had deserted Rome and retired to Lombardy, 
 which, from Vignola downwards, produced the 
 succession of masters. 
 
 Mantua. An evident depopulation, a general 
 stillness, sallow faces, and some grass-grown 
 streets o-ave to this ancient citv a sad resemblance 
 to Ferrara. The promenade of the Mincio has 
 been just converted into classical ground, and a 
 column erected by General Miollis to Virgil " on 
 the green field" where the poet himself had de- 
 signed a temple. 
 
 The cathedral was then imder repair. Giulio 
 Romano, aspiring to build in the same great style 
 as he painted, raised this edifice on six rows of 
 
 2 A 
 
354 
 
 JOURNEY TO TURIN. 
 
 insulated columns ; but the o:nindeur of the de- 
 sis^n is defeated by the extreme diminution of 
 the aisles. On escaping: from the discipline of 
 Raphael's school, where he had done nothinii; 
 oriijinal, and finding; no superior excellence to 
 check him at Mantua, Giulio dashed here into all 
 the irreg^ularities of genius, and ran after the 
 Tuscan g:races, the mig:hty, the sinc^ular, the aus- 
 tere, the em])hatic. In the palace of the T he 
 assembled all those graces on the Fall of the 
 Giants ; he left on the very architecture a conge- 
 nial stamp. On returning from this palace across 
 the lake, the state of the water, the length of the 
 narrow wooden bridge, the crowds skipping over 
 it from their Sunday sports, all recalled to me the 
 humorous elfusion of Catullus, which was ad- 
 dressed, I do believe, to this very spot.* 
 
 Cremona was never a seat of art ; the admired 
 Perruginos are gone, and no object remains to 
 divert you from the dull, vacant regularity of its 
 streets, except the great Porrazzo. The tremen- 
 dous height of this tower brought Fundolo's 
 dvin"* words to my mind. When exhorted at the 
 block to confess and repent, "I repent of nothing," 
 said the tvrant of Cremona, " but this— that when 
 I had the Emperor and the Pope together at the 
 
 * O Colonia, quae cupisponte hulere ligneo, 
 Et salire paratuni habes, sed vereris inepta 
 Cnira ponticuU asculis stantis, irredivivus 
 Ne supinus eat, cavaque in palude recumbat ! 
 
 JOURNEY TO TURIN. 
 
 355 
 
 top of my great tower, I did not hurl them both 
 over the parapet." 
 
 LoDi is not the only mart of Parmesan cheese. 
 I saw large warehouses in the surroundino- villaires 
 where it is sold wholesale. The meadows are 
 brought frequently under corn, to correct a coarse 
 sour rankness which the grass would contract 
 from constant irrigation. This rich and immea- 
 surable ])lain still improves in beauty as you ap- 
 proach Milan. A great number of derivations 
 from the Lanibro and Adda cross the road, and a 
 canal borders it for many miles, presenting at one 
 view a long file of equidistant bridges. Perhaps 
 the water is too abundant and too slow, is made 
 to act too much on the soil, and on too viscid a 
 soil for the salubrity (jf the country. 
 
 Milan. I saw but very few of the palaces, 
 and no gallery that could detain a spectator who, 
 being rather in haste, was impatient of any thing 
 beneath excellence. More incomes seem to be 
 spent here on the table and eqiupage than on 
 works of art. No corso in I taly is now so brilliant 
 as the terrace which overlooks the Lazaretto. 
 
 The cathedral of Milan has been wonderfully 
 contrived to bury millions of money in ornaments 
 which are never to be seen. Whole quarries of 
 marble have been manufactured here into statues, 
 relievos, niches, and notches ; and high sculpture 
 has been squandered on objects which vanish in- 
 
 2 A 2 
 
 
 * 
 
356 
 
 JOURNEY TO TURIN. 
 
 dividually in the mass. Were two or three thousand 
 of those statues removed, the rest would regain 
 their due importance, and the fabric itself become 
 more intellin'ible. Those fiiz:ures stand in rows 
 which cross and confound the vertical direction of 
 the architecture : for here the eye naturally runs 
 up the channelled pillars, the lofty windows and 
 lonp; muUions, the lateral spires, the tall thin but- 
 tresses, and never can keep in the horizontal line 
 of the Greek entablature. Their rage for sculp- 
 ture has encircled the very tops of the pillars with 
 statues, which tend to conceal the «Toining-s, just 
 where they spring so finely into the vault, which 
 interrupt the immeasurable plumb-line, and which 
 lessen the apparent height and the exility admired 
 in a Gothic pillar. 
 
 No construction of the kind is so bold, so 
 various, so singular, as the roof and the cupola. 
 The cut and insertion of every block prove that 
 the art of vaulting ascribed to De Lorme was 
 known before him at Milan, in all its varieties. The 
 design is extravagant, yet consistently extravagant. 
 It w^as left for the reformers to front a Gothic 
 church with ciuadrangular doors and windows. 
 
 The furniture of the choir conceals that very 
 part of the church which includes most picture 
 and movement ; I mean the circling end of the 
 aisles and the chapels behind. Pull down the 
 stalls, galleries, and barricades ; pull down the 
 canopies, the lamps, and red hats, sweep away 
 
 " J 
 
 JOURNEY TO TURIN. 
 
 357 
 
 the balustrade of St. Charles's tomb, and let the 
 hiirh altar alone stand in the sacred cross. Insu- 
 late this altar between four Gothic pillars spring- 
 ing aloft into four Gothic arches, and crowned by 
 a pyramid of Gothic fret-work. Then would the 
 architecture and the decoration be one ; then the 
 whole would unfold an incalculable varietv of 
 forms. While the aisles turned beautifully round 
 the choir, the eluding flight of their curve would 
 promise more than is concealed, and bring into 
 architecture an effect which enchants us in paint- 
 ins:.* Ill the pile itself there resides a solemnity 
 which collects the soul and inspires devotion. 
 How awful its distant obscurities ! how expanding 
 the vacuum of its high-imbowed roof 1 how reve- 
 rend the shadowings of its painted light ! how 
 affecting the family groups kneeling at wide in- 
 tervals in the vacant nave ! what a picture this 
 for Peter Neefs and his associates ! 
 
 Sati Vittore is an old basilica magnificently re- 
 built. Its high altar, and those of St. Alexander 
 and the Madonna di San Celso are rich in pietre 
 dure. This last church boasts some admirable 
 statues : its front, indeed, is injured by them. 
 
 San Lorenzo has found men, as ridiculous as 
 itself, to admire a mixt and intricate octagon, with 
 arches over arches, a Doric with gridirons in the 
 
 * Ambire euim se extremitas ipsa et sic desinere ut pro- 
 mittatalia post se, ostendatqiic etiam c|uaB occultet! — Plin. 
 HisL 
 
ill 
 
 358 
 
 JOURNEY TO TURIN. 
 
 metopes, an attic with an entablature not its own. 
 Near this church stands a majestic colonnade : 
 the remains, it would appear, of Maximian's 
 baths, and the latest remains that I have seen of 
 the ancient Corinthian. 
 
 Sard' Amhrogio is renowned in the annals of 
 Lombardy as the seat of coronations and of civil 
 conflicts. Its brazen serpent being of antiquity 
 unknown, has ^[\en birth to volumes of contro- 
 versy.* The sculptures of this basilica are an- 
 cient and rude, like the pile itself. The apostles 
 carved round the marble pulpit are all matter-of- 
 fact men, each intent on his own dish, and up to 
 the knuckles in his own mess. How different the 
 decorums of modern art in treating- a Last Sup- 
 per ! and how dangerous those very decorums to 
 the artist. 
 
 * The Milanese historians maintain that this was the 
 very serpent of Moses ; not its emblem, as Muraton thinks : 
 but their sole authority is a bishop, who travelled in the 
 blackest age of legend, and as the prelate contradicts Scrip- 
 ture itself, we may fairly question whether he really brought 
 the thing from Constantinople. We know that ihe Lom- 
 bards, after they had embraced Christianity in Italy, still 
 adhered to some of their German superstitions, particularly 
 to the worship of serpents. DukeRomoaldo was a ca;holic 
 when he adored the golden viper, which his wife broke and 
 converted into a chalice cover. Now may not this brazen 
 serpe;it have originally been one of the Lombard idols 
 which, either to gain or to gratify proselytes, was admitted 
 by priests into this chu;ch. where it p^rew through obhvion 
 into a catholic relic, and then passed for tlie gift of a Greek 
 emperor ? 
 
 JOURNEY TO TURIN. 
 
 359 
 
 Dominican Convent. Here is the great supper 
 itself! Though incorporated with a wall, this 
 superb picture has passed through a chapter of 
 accidents. Da Vinci, the dupe of his own inven- 
 tions, contrived for this work a new kind of 
 ground, or imprimatur a, containing oils which 
 were foreign to fresco. In half a century half the 
 picture was effaced. Of all the heads remaining, 
 only three, it is thought, are original, and the 
 colouring even of these is due to the pencil of re- 
 storers. When faded, it fell into neglect, and be- 
 came the sport of various barbarians. It was 
 once whitewashed by the monks themselves. It 
 was shot at wantonly by the Sciavonians, v/ho 
 were lately quartered here : it was blistered, they 
 say, by the corrosive fumes of the cavalry-horses 
 which were stabled in tlie refectory. At last it 
 was rescued from perdition, and has lately ac- 
 quired immortality from Morghen's unparalleled 
 engraving. But Morghen tbuiid this picture so 
 altered by restorers, that he was reduced to seek 
 the original in its copies, two of which were 
 painted in Da Vinci's time u])on more fortunate 
 walls. Like Eu})hranor in painting the twelve 
 divinities, Leonardo began with the apostles, and 
 exhausting his powers on them, he preserved no 
 pre-eminence Ibr the Master. — Having lavished 
 his last touch of excellence on the celestial beauty 
 of John, he left in despair the head of Christ un- 
 finished. Why had he not recourse, like his 
 
360 
 
 JOURNEY TO TURIN. 
 
 copyist, to that portrait which, they pretend, was 
 sent by Christ himself as a present to kinj^ Ab- 
 garus ? The Judas is generally supposed to be a 
 likeness of the Prior ; but the painter, it seems, 
 did not execute his threat. 
 
 On leavini^- Milan I crossed several of those 
 naviglt or canals which serve, not only for carriage 
 and irrigation, but also for manure, by depositing a 
 mud called here^orc di terra ; a solution perhaps 
 similar to that which Lucan ascribes to the great 
 river of this country.* In passing the blue Ticinus 
 on a pontoon, I was surprised that Sihus Italicus, 
 an author whom I had found through all Italy 
 most accurate in topography, should give the epi- 
 thet of V ado so to so deep a river. 
 
 We then approached the rice-grounds which 
 were once diifused over all Piedmont, until their 
 noxious efiTects made it necessary to confine them 
 within a safe distance from highways and habita- 
 tions. We passed a succession of fortified towns : 
 for so gradual were the encroachments of the 
 House of Savoy on the great artichoke, that No- 
 varra, Vercelli, Santia, Chivaso, became each in 
 turn the frontier of its pieced dominions. 
 
 I arrived at Turin on the ^oth of May, 1803. 
 The next day I was arrested as a British subject, 
 and I am now passing the tenth year of my 
 CAPTIVITY. — Valenciennes, 1 June, 1812. 
 
 * Quoque magis nullum tellus se solvit in amnem 
 Ericlanus. 
 
 
 361 
 
 LEGHORN. 
 
 Hic usura vorax, avidumque in tempore foenus, 
 Et coucubsa tides, et multis utile bellum.— Lucan. 
 
 The Eastern riviera being then infested by the 
 Great Devil and his banditti, I embarked, 18th of 
 January, 1802, in an English brig, for Leghorn, 
 in company with a German, who had been strut- 
 ting at Genoa in the borrowed plumes of an 
 Englishman. Had the coxcomb seen through 
 the'' surfaces of things, he would not have re- 
 nounced his own nation ; for though the Italians 
 may gull English travellers with affected prefer- 
 ence,'the Germans stand first in their real esteem, 
 and certainly the Germans whom I met in Italy 
 were of all foreigners the most accomplished for 
 travel, and the most intent on its instruction. 
 
 Leghorn is interesting only to commercial men. 
 I found the English merchants here exulting in 
 the late peace, and the Americans deploring that 
 event ; nor can I tell which of these emotions 
 
 plea*^ed me most. 
 
 A sea-port is rarely the seat of virtue. Here 
 theft is publicly regulated at the custom-house, 
 and acts as a duty on entry. The quantity of 
 goods stolen bears an understood proportion to 
 The quantity landed, nor do the merchants com- 
 plain till it exceeds that rate. Play is prohibited 
 on purpose to be taxed. While the police lay 
 card-playing under severe restrictions, a Jew pays 
 
 i 
 
 1 jii 
 
Ill 
 
 <l 
 
 362 
 
 LEGHORN. 
 
 to that branch of government 800 crowns a month 
 for the monopoly of the g-aming'-houses, and lets 
 out at a rack-rent this violation of the law to other 
 farmers of iniquity. Usury is not, like theft, 
 checked by any regulation. A Pisun of my ac- 
 quaintance, haviui^ occasion to borrow here 1000 
 sequins, ag-reed to the usual rate of 4 per cent, 
 a month; the money-lender counted down the 
 whole sum, and then demanded back 480 sequins 
 for the first year's interest. In vain did the bor- 
 rower remonstrate against pleaded custom. He 
 took the 520 sequins, and two years after he paid 
 1480 for the whole. 
 
 At the Rooms I saw Prince Pignatelli Bel- 
 montc, the Neapolitan renegarle, and there I 
 learnt the story of his wife. 
 
 This beautiful woman had been lono- the sport 
 of persecution. Her very birth was involved in 
 mystery. Her infancy she passed in the house of 
 a German countess then residing at Nai)les ; but 
 what relation she bore to this capricious woman, 
 who was for ever either beating or caressing her, 
 remains a secret to all. In the same house", and 
 in a quality equally doubtful, was a young man 
 whom I saw at Rome, where he subsisted by his 
 pencil. The poor cliild, finding this inmate in 
 higher favour than herself with the lady, applied 
 to him for protection from her cruelty, and, at his 
 request, she was sent to a convent for her educa- 
 tion. At this convent Belmonte first saw her, and 
 
 II 
 
 LEGHORN. 
 
 363 
 
 was captivated. Though insensible to a man so 
 destitute of merit, she admitted his addresses as 
 the means of escape from persecution ; and now, 
 when the secret of her birth was required, the 
 countess and the painter acknowledged her for 
 
 their child. 
 
 They were married at Naples ; but their union 
 was soon interrupted by the events which expelled 
 Belmonte from his country. The young princess, 
 perfectly unconcerned for such a husband's fate, 
 withdrew to Rome, where she found an asylum in 
 the Borghese i'amily, and there she resided during 
 the late revolution. In the confusion of truth and 
 falsehood which then prevailed, the Romans cir- 
 culated the report of Belmonte's death. This the 
 princess greedily believed, went instantly into 
 weeds, and could hardly act all the decencies of a 
 widow ; for her atfections were then engaged by 
 the superior merit of a young nobleman who could 
 now address her as a lover. They exchanged 
 vows, and for the first time in her life this amiable 
 woman expected to be happy. But her dream of 
 felicity was short ; no sooner did they prepare for 
 their nuptials than Belmonte re-appeared. It 
 was an apparition fatal to both. The princess 
 survived it but a few days. Her lover, less fortu- 
 nate than she, fell into a melancholy madness, 
 and now wanders about, holding visionary con- 
 verse with his dead mistress. 
 
 On Monte Nero is a most magnificent church, 
 
 HI 
 
364 
 
 LEGHORN. 
 
 raised by the piety of sailors to an old picture of 
 the Virgin, which had flown from Judea through 
 the air, and perched on this hill for their especial 
 protection. To this miraculous daub they ascribe 
 all their escapes ; and as proofs of its saving 
 power, they have covered the walls with cable- 
 ends and crutches, the barrels of guns which had 
 innocently burst, the chains of delivered slaves, 
 and a thousand ex-voto pictures borderins: on cari- 
 cature. No Italian ship sails past the hill without 
 saluting our Lady of Monte Nero. A thousand 
 sterns in the Mediterranean bear her name and 
 effigy. Under her invocation I had embarked in 
 two different feluccas; but, finding me out to be 
 a heretic, she would never let me finish my voyage.* 
 
 * III some points the present mariners of Italy resemble 
 their ancestors. Both are attached to their favourite shrines. 
 " Servati ex midis ubi figere dona solebant.''— Virg. 
 Every vessel has its saint, who j^enerally gives his name 
 to it, and is always adored as its protector: 
 
 "Est mihi, sitque precor, fiavaj tutela Minervae 
 " Navis,et a picta casside nomen habet." — Ovid. 
 Here the saint is Minerva ; but both the name and the 
 parasemou of the ship is the Hehnet. 
 
 When disappointed by their tutelar saint, the present 
 Itahans heap curses and sometimes even blows on his image: 
 
 " Injustos rabidis pulsare querelis 
 
 Coelicolas solamen erat/' — Stat. 
 They believe the Corpo Santo, which shines in the Medi- 
 terranean when a storm subsides, to be an apparition of 
 Saints Nicholas and Peter. — These are evidently the suc- 
 cessors of Castor and Pollux, whom the ancients worshipped 
 in the same electric meteor, mistaken by them for stars. 
 
 36b 
 
 MANNERS OF FLORENCE. 
 
 Poi Firenze rinuova genti e modi. — Dante. 
 
 Such is the influence of power over national taste, 
 that the French have produced a very general 
 change in the exterior manners of the Tuscans, 
 though they remain the object of their secret 
 abhorrence. This change appears in a thousand 
 trifles which are important only in the aggregate, 
 and the tendency of all is to break down the 
 barriers of that dignity, true or false, which once 
 distinguished the politer part of this people. 
 
 Leopold himself, who was no friend to pomp, 
 had begun the work of innovation. He had dis- 
 pensed^'with the bag and sword at his court ; but 
 this late revolution has admitted boots into the 
 evening circles. From the streets it has banished 
 those gaudy herds of running footmen which de- 
 graded humanity. The present lovers of the 
 Tevel have laughed into disuse the Eccellentis- 
 simos, and Illustrissimos, and Padrone Colendis- 
 simos, which were lavished in the direction of 
 every letter. They have even attacked the cere- 
 monious lei ; and, on the slightest intimacy, they 
 drop into the flimiliar tu. They have now re- 
 duced into a slight bow the compliment of viva, 
 so troublesome to sneezers. They have cropped 
 
Ill, 
 .1' 
 
 366 
 
 MANNERS OF FLORENCE, 
 
 the hiir of the powdered fop, have hedg-ed his 
 cheeks with the whiskers of a sapeiir, and stuck 
 a cij^ar into his mouth. They have restored 
 
 AUe sfacciate donne Fiorentine 
 L'andar mostrando colle poppe il petto. 
 
 The shock has been felt in Hterature, and has 
 dehiijed the lans^uas^e with French and revohi- 
 tionary terms.* Indeed the Florentines had 
 already begun to relax from that jealousy which 
 excluded all other idioms from mixing with their 
 own dear " favella." Piij-notti and other fashion- 
 able authors have adopted many terms that are 
 not academic, while Cesarotti bent all his powers 
 to pull down the Cruscan boulter, which Otto- 
 nelli, or rather perhaps Tassoni, had attempted 
 to overturn soon after its first erection. 
 
 Such innovations have been condemned as sa- 
 crilege by the old purists ; for those gentlemen 
 of the Conciossiacosachc consider style as the sole 
 merit of a man or a book, and the Florentine as 
 the sole idiom in which style can possess any 
 merit; yet take up the " Prose Fiorentine" and 
 read, if you have patience sufficient, their Salviati, 
 Davanzati, Varchi, Cavalcanti, Ammanati, Gia- 
 comini ; then say, if in any language, ancient or 
 
 * Dal tuo gentile innovator sedotti. 
 La sonora dolcissima favella 
 D'Arno adornando di color' non suoi, 
 Parian stranieri uel natio linguaggio. — Bondi. 
 
 
 MANNERS OF FLORENCE. 
 
 367 
 
 modern, you have encountered a style more ver- 
 bose, more affected, more sonorously inane, than 
 what those fathers and authorities of the dialect 
 have made classical and Cruscan. 
 
 These chanires, and many others, mav be ulti- 
 mately ascribed to the French. Here, indeed, 
 every change is im])uted to their influence ; every 
 event in a private family is referred to their inva- 
 sion, as having happened " avanti i Francesi," or 
 " nel tempo de' Francesi," (u* " dopo i Francesi." 
 
 Though the modes of society have lately 
 chauired, the ii-eneral character of the Florentines 
 remains the same. In tracing some lines of that 
 character, I must, in gratitude, begin with their 
 civility ; which springs, I do believe, from a sin- 
 cere desire of obliging, though it is often loaded 
 with such protestations as would mislead plain 
 men into disappointment. But they are more 
 than civil, they are naturally humane ; this I 
 should infer, not from the readiness of their tears 
 alone, but from appearances far less doubtful. 
 Their private charities, their alacrity at the call 
 of the Misericordia bell, their willing attendance 
 on the sick, the very multitude of their beggars, 
 though it indicate vice in the government, evinces 
 the general humanity of the people ; a virtue 
 peculiar to the oldest institutions of this country. 
 
 A society of twenty gentlemen, called the Buon- 
 uomini di San Martino, has been, for four 
 
 i! 
 
 *i 
 
a*^ 
 
 \i 
 
 36S 
 
 MANNERS OF FLORENCE. 
 
 hundred years, collecting and distributinc^ alms 
 amonn; the poor who are ashamed to heg. The 
 rank of those philanthropists and their objects of 
 relief induce the rich to contribute, and some- 
 times to bequeath very considerable supplies. All 
 bequests are turned directly into cash, nothing- is 
 funded, nothini^ belongs to the Society, except 
 the oratory where they meet. The receipts of 
 every vear are distributed within the year, to 
 hundreds who are starving under a genteel ap- 
 pearance : decayed gentlemen whose rank deters 
 others from offering relief; ladies who live in 
 garrets, and, ashamed of their poverty, steal down 
 to mass before day-light; industrious women 
 whom the failure of the silk manufacture has 
 left w itbout any resource ; — such are the objects 
 whom these Buonuomini go weekly privately to 
 visit and relieve. They were a kind of benevo- 
 volent spies upon the domestic miseries of Flo- 
 rence, and used to search for the retreats of 
 sufferino- dehcacv. I am sorrv to learn that their 
 zeal is lately relaxed ; instead of courting the 
 unfortunate, they now wait at their oratory for 
 application, and thus effectually exclude many 
 victims of sensibility. 
 
 The Miscricordia is an institution diffused over 
 Tuscanv. At Florence it consists in 400 men 
 chosen promiscuously from every rank, and classed 
 into Fratelli, Giornanti, and Stracciafolgi. These 
 
 MANNERS OF FLORENCE. 
 
 369 
 
 philanthropists volunteer their services to the sick, 
 the hurt, and the dead. On the toll of a bell, 
 they repair to their chapel, where they conceal 
 themselves in long black vestments, which mask 
 the whole head, and then set out with a covered 
 litter to convey the patients to the hospital of 
 Santa Maria Nuova. There you will find the 
 first noblemen in Florence with their aprons and 
 ladles, following the soup, which is wheeled along 
 the wards, and dealing it out to the sick as a 
 check on the administration of the hospital. In 
 the same lugubrious garb they convey, in the 
 evening, the corpses of the day to St. Catharine's 
 church, where all the dead are collected for the 
 midnight cart, and sent to the common burying- 
 ground at Trespiano.* This benevolent society 
 has never paused for the last 500 years, nor de- 
 sisted from its fatal duties during several plagues. 
 Leopold was a member, and occasionally assisted 
 in bearing on his shoulders 
 
 Con soUecito amor gli egii e feriti. 
 
 The virtues, however, of the Florentines are 
 all of the timid, passive, Christian kind. Though 
 
 * Constautine's litter-men, or perhaps the Decani of 
 Rome, may have sug<]jested the idea of the Misericordia ; 
 hut they served only tor the dead, and they were paid hy 
 the state. The carman of Florence represents the ancient 
 Vespillo. 
 
 2b 
 
 I 
 
 I J 
 
370 
 
 MANNERS OF FLORENCE. 
 
 ready to relieve and to toil for a friend, they will 
 not face danger, nor the displeasure of the great, 
 to defend him. Their sturdiness of spirit is va- 
 nished with the republic. Prone to revolution in 
 that lusty ];eriod of independence and hardihood, 
 they have exchanged the more turbulent virtues 
 for meekness, long-suftering, obedience, and every 
 quality that can adorn a slave. 
 
 Florence, ever since Cosimo III. brought devo- 
 tion into vogue here, has been one of the godliest 
 cities in Europe, and is, perhaps, the only capital 
 that displays more religion than the provincial 
 towns. At Pisa I saw no great signs of faith, 
 and so sensible was the present Pope of the 
 Pisans' inditference on that point, that he sent 
 iron crosses to be fixed on their houses, and 
 offered one year and forty days' remission of sin 
 for everv kiss that should be ":i\ en them ; vet not 
 a passenger could be bribed by this liberal indul- 
 gence. At Florence, on the contrary, some fa- 
 vourite altars are worn smooth by the lips of the 
 devout. On every house are crosses painted to 
 protect it, as the snakes of old,* from dirt and the 
 devil. It vvas here that I first saw soldiers dis- 
 ciplined into prayer by the beat of drum. Here 
 the church, which was kept in check by Leopold, 
 
 Vtto qiiisqiiam faxit oletum. 
 
 Pinge duos angues : Pueri, sacer est locus ; extra 
 Meiete. — Peusius. 
 
 MANNERS OF FLORENCE. 
 
 371 
 
 and threatened with dissolution by the French, 
 begins to rear her in(piisitorial head, and to 
 demand from Spanish piety all the outworks that 
 she has lost. The confessionals of Florence, 
 though indulgent enough to vice, will never remit 
 the three extreme points of religion, abstinence 
 twice a-week, mass every Sunday, and commu- 
 nion at Easter. " Che tu possa qui cader morto !" 
 cried a pious wife in a rage to her husband, 
 " intendo per altro prima confessato e commu- 
 nicato." 
 
 A people so superstitious must naturally be fond 
 of miracles ; and the clergy, to support the credit 
 of the miracles on which all Christians build their 
 faith, think it still expedient to bring fresh ones 
 into view, and keep up a running stock in the 
 church. 
 
 The tide of devotion lately set strong towards 
 a bake-house, where an old Madonna had restored 
 sight to a blind beggar \ but as the via del ciUegio 
 and the neighbouring streets were obstructed with 
 kneeling multitudes, the archbishop has now re- 
 moved the picture to the Duomo, and has thus 
 drawn the godly to his own shop. 
 
 Another miracle has brought the Conservatorio 
 di Ripoli into vogue. Mademoiselle Salicetti, 
 daughter of the French commissary, was lately 
 praying before an image of the Announcing Angel, 
 when, in the heat of devotion, she saw it open its 
 
 2 b2 
 
 4 
 
372 
 
 MANNERS OF FLORENCE. 
 
 half-shut eyes, and move them benignantly.* 
 Miracolo! cried the child. Her school-fellows 
 spread the alarm. The whole convent flocked to 
 the angel, and the best believers were favoured 
 with a renewal of the miracle. Their confessor 
 saw it, the archbishop saw it, the king of Sardinia 
 saw it, the mm who conducted us through the 
 house saw it distinctly. I will answer for her 
 sincerity, and that of the slipper-kissing king ; 
 the other gentlemen must answer for themselves. 
 The image, which is an alto-rilievo, fairly painted 
 
 * This miracle had been often performed by church 
 images, and may be traced, like many others, to ancient 
 mythology. Strabo mentions a statue of Minerva Ilias 
 which did precisely the same thing. The withered elm in 
 the Piazza del Duomo, which was instantly restored to ve- 
 getation l<y St. Zenobio's body resting on its trunk, is but 
 an imitation of the withered oak at Capreae, wliicli burst 
 into leaf the moment that Augustus set foot on that island. 
 This elm puzzles me more than any of thtiir miracles. The 
 event happened at a time when Florence was more populous 
 than at present, and the most enlightened city in Europe- 
 it happened in the most public place in the whole town — on 
 an object familiar to every inhabitant — and in the presence 
 of many thousands, who were then attending the solemn 
 removal of the saint from San Lorenzo to the cathedral. 
 The event is recorded by contemporary historians, and is 
 inscribed on a marble column now standing where the tree 
 stood — a column erected in the face of those very persons 
 who saw the miracle performed, and who certainly, if the 
 inscription were false, would not have suffered so impudent 
 a forgery to insult them. 
 
 MANNERS OF FLORENCE. 
 
 373 
 
 and varnished, I will acquit of all deception. 
 The deception lay only in the fancy of secluded 
 women, whose thoughts ran perpetually on mi- 
 racles, who went resolved to see a miracle, and 
 would not be disappointed.* In our country, 
 enthusiasm is a more thinking malady : it laughs 
 at intelligible visions like these, and breaks its 
 own head on the metaphysics of religion. 
 
 After this miracle came a ghost from purgatory, 
 and haunted the wood of Villamagna near Flo- 
 rence, to tell the secrets of its prison-house, and 
 beg a recpiiem of eight })ater-nosters a-day. It 
 appeared and spoke only to a little shepherdess ; 
 but people of all ranks, priests and physicians, 
 flocked from the city, suggested to her cpiestions, 
 and received with reverential awe the answers 
 which she reported from the spirit. A crucifix 
 
 * In defence of these ladies I shall mention an illusion 
 of optics or of fanc)- in a gentleman who is much freer 
 from prejudice than they. About tluet' years ago the Ca- 
 valiere Nerli of Siena, afttr reading till a late iioar, rang 
 for his valet, and prepared for bed. The servant undressed 
 him and retired, leaving his master to extinguish the light. 
 "When Nerli turned round for that purpose, he sav/ the 
 lamp in the hanil of a smiling old man, who bowed most 
 politely, and vani»lied in a moment. Precisely on the same 
 night of the next year, the Cavaliere was no sooner in bed 
 than the same old man re-appeaiod, drew his curtains, 
 smiled in his face, made his bow, and vanished as before. 
 Nerli, being a man of known veracity,, drew more attention 
 to his ghost than ghost seers usually command. 
 
 4 
 
374 
 
 MANNERS OF FLORENCE. 
 
 was raised in the haunted spot. Myriads of sera- 
 phim (" un nu^olo di bambini," said the child) 
 fluttered round it, and the multitude fell down in 
 devotion, 
 
 Cantando miserere a verso a verso. 
 
 These parleys lasted during the hottest months 
 of ISOO. Paoletti, a writer celebrated in agricul- 
 ture, records the whole transaction as rector of 
 Villamagna. The archbishop examined the shep- 
 herdess, gave his sanction to her tale, and sent her 
 round to the convents to satisfy the pious curiosity 
 of the nuns. I must not, however, omit that the 
 master of this little visionary had a large stock of 
 wine, which the excessive heat was then spoiling. 
 Providentially for its sale, the ghost continued its 
 visits till all was drunk up by the thirsty multi- 
 tude. It then thanked them for the holy charity 
 of their pniyers, and announced its departure to 
 paradise. Indeed the scandalous chronicle men- 
 tioned a few barrels which were also turning sour 
 in the rector's own cellar. * 
 
 Though glutted with pageantry and pantomime 
 by a church so active as this, such a rage have 
 the Florentines for spectacle, that in a city con- 
 
 * There are two motives for hurrying the consumption 
 of Tuscan wines. From a defect of fermentation, the com- 
 mon wines do not keep l)eyond eighteen months ; and they 
 run rapidly to waste through the porous wood of the small 
 flattened barrels which contain them. 
 
 MANNERS OF FLORENCE. 
 
 375 
 
 taining only 84,000 inhabitants there are six 
 theatres, and all these overflow in carnival. After 
 a suspension of some years the carnival has again 
 revived that variety of amusements peculiar to a 
 town which has been long the seat of ingenious 
 idleness. 
 
 The last ball in carnival is called Romper la 
 Pentola, or the breaking of the pipkin, which is 
 still literally observed in some families. The 
 object of this play is to break a pipkin suspended 
 from the ceiling of the room, arid filled with con- 
 fectionery and fruits. Each of the company in 
 his turn is blindfolded, and after he has been 
 sufficiently hustled and badgered by the rest, he 
 is then left free to cross the room and brandish a 
 stick at the pipkin.* If he break it, an animating 
 scramble ensues between the sexes ; but some- 
 times, instead of sweetmeats, the poor wight finds 
 a pitcher of water prepared for the blow, and is 
 soaked in the contents. 
 
 Here are other amusements intended for the 
 mind. La Sihilla was an exercise introduced into 
 the academy of Apatisti, and now is merely a play 
 for boys. One represents the Sibyl, and being 
 seated in solemn state, waits for the question 
 which another proposes with att'ected reverence. 
 
 * This is the subject of a group in the Boboli garden ; 
 but the artist Cappezzuoli was obliged to alter the arrange- 
 ment of the play. 
 
 Ill 
 
UL I LUi 
 
 376 
 
 MANNERS OF FLORENCE. 
 
 To this question he g-ives an oracular response as 
 remote from the subject as he can possibly deviL-e, 
 and thus calls up the ing-enuity of his play-mates 
 to reconcile the cross-purposes; a distortion of 
 thought in which Italians excel. 
 
 The Pcrche appears a more rational mode of 
 trifling, and, when properly conducted, may tend 
 to sharpen the sagacity of young minds. Every 
 person engaged writes on a separate paper a 
 'perche or cpiestion, which will be pointed or silly 
 as the quaerist himself happens to be. Each of 
 these questions g^oes round the circle, receives 
 written solutions from all; and they grow into a 
 general subscription of wit or nonsense. At last, 
 the president collects all the motley leaves, and 
 reading them aloud to receive the comments of 
 the company, come successively across the self- 
 love of every subscriber. 
 
 S. D. S., or Si desidera sap ere, is an attempt 
 not only to solve the perche, but even to divine it. 
 Having formed in your mind a question, you give 
 only the initials of the words which compose it, 
 and some are so ready at the sport, that on seeing- 
 those letters they hazard an immediate answer, 
 which, ofcourse, willbe direct or vague, accord- 
 ing as they catch, or only guess at your meaning. 
 A young nobleman here astonishes many by his 
 prompt solutions, which are given in verse. 
 The Florentines have been ever remarked for 
 
 MANNERS OF FLORENCE. 
 
 377 
 
 their curiosity. This formerly led them to mobs, 
 bloodshed, and insurrection ; and now it degene- 
 rates into the silly gape of a village. I have seen 
 a dead dog, while dragged to the river, collect a 
 funeral convoy of fifty persons. If you look up 
 at any monument of art, the neighbours will often 
 leave their work, to join in the gaze and enjoy 
 your admiration. 
 
 A stranger, entering Florence on a holyday, 
 w^ould greatly overrate the wealth of its inhabit- 
 ants. All ranks live in a state of ambitious po- 
 verty, of splendour abroad and penury at home ; 
 or, as the French termed them on their disap- 
 pointment — " habit de velours et ventre de son." 
 
 A Florentine of the frugal class will suffer no 
 luxury in his possession to remain idle. When 
 he does not use it himself, he contrives to let his 
 carriage for the dav ; if he cannot attend the 
 theatre, he lets his box for the evening ; and 
 would let his wife for the niii'lit, but Sijynora 
 secures that perquisite for herself.* 
 
 * Not always, if we may believe a poet now living iu the 
 first fashion. 
 
 II nostro (lisonor corapra il Biitanno ; 
 
 Mentre dorme il marito consapevole : 
 Sorge ei dal letto, a questi insulti avvezzo, 
 
 E turpi amori iiionorato meiulica ; 
 Delia vergogna sua divide il prezzo, 
 
 E con bad comprati i torti veudica. — Fantoni. 
 
 'f 
 
378 
 
 MANNERS OF FLORENCE. 
 
 They carry the same economy in parade to their 
 estabHshment of servants, whom they atFect to 
 call the famifflia, as the Romans did their slaves. 
 Indeed the old contention for numbers, the 
 " qusestio quot pascit serxos," still prevails amon^ 
 rich Italians. Here the footmen, if numerous, are 
 generally selected amonc^ mechanics; and, when 
 their appearance is not required in livery, they are 
 kept working for the family as upholsterers, tailors, 
 and shoemakers; for so easily satisfied is the love 
 of cleanliness, that one man's broom is sufficient 
 for a whole palace. Men servants are preferred 
 by all ranks to women. Even in families where 
 the daughters are youns^, a man is often the sole 
 domestic. The maid servants are generally shut 
 up, the mistress allows no female to stroll but her- 
 self. The wet-nurse, indeed, attends her abroad, 
 as an object of parade, drest in flaminir silks and 
 bound with a mystic sash, which denotes the sex 
 of the child, according as it falls on the right side 
 or the left. In every great house there are two 
 confidential servants ; the widow, who is employed 
 in all commissions of delicacy, and consulted on 
 every point where propriety is doubtful ; and the 
 secretary, who is the more necessary here, as few 
 noblemen are capable of writing a letter. 
 
 How degenerate the patricians of the present 
 day from their accomplished ancestors ! For more 
 than three ages did the Tuscan nobility surpass 
 
 
 MANNERS OF FLORENCE. 
 
 379 
 
 all Europe in literature and science, as poets, as 
 physicians, as professors. They were the ex- 
 clusive historians of their own country, and very 
 generally employed as the ambassadors of foreign 
 courts. Dante, Petrarch, Cimabue, Michelangelo, 
 Galilei, Macchiavel, the six greatest Tuscans 
 that pL'rhaps ever existed, were all noble. After 
 this the class of goldsmiths produced the most 
 celebrated names. 
 
 An Englishman, arriving here fresh from the 
 delicacies and decorum which he left at home, 
 will be apt to stare on his first introduction to the 
 ladies. In England, tlie reserves of education, 
 and perhaps a certain cleanliness of thinking tend 
 to throw an elegant drapery over the female mind; 
 but here it appears in all tlie nakedness of honest 
 nature. Indeed the female character is, in every 
 countr}^, half the work of the men, and where 
 gentlemen require no delicacy in the sex, ladies 
 of course affect none. 
 
 The fair Florentines still persist in habits which 
 have been long banished from English society; 
 you will see very elegant women take snuff, spit 
 on the floor, blow their resounding noses in 
 
 r 
 
 snotted handkerchiefs, clap gentlemen on the 
 thigh, keep conversation continually fluttering on 
 the brink of obscenity, and often pass the line. 
 Such are the manners that instantly succeed to 
 the pruderies of a convent education ; marriage 
 
 i|l 
 
 n^ 
 
 Ml 
 
Hi' 
 
 380 
 
 MANNERS OF FLORENCE. 
 
 developes the whole woman at once, and makes 
 immediate amends for the imprisonment of the 
 girl. A black g-own j^oes every where. 
 
 Here the beauty of the sex seems more con- 
 nected with sentiment than in our colder climate. 
 You meet beauty blended with intelli^rence, with 
 benijrnity, with pride, with laniruishinfr, with de- 
 hance, with devotion ; but seldom with modesty. 
 The fine spiry form of sharp-edited sensibilitv, or 
 the voluptuous swell of fuller constitutions, the 
 humid gloss of the large Greek eye, or the milder 
 radiance of the celestial blue ;— all are variously 
 rakish in their expression. 
 
 Cecisbeism, though perhaps as general, is not 
 so formally legalized here as at Naples, where 
 the right of keeping a gallant is often secured by 
 the marriage-contract ; yet here no lady can appear 
 in fashionable company or before God, without 
 such an attendant. She leaves her husband and 
 children at home, while her professed adulterer 
 conducts her to church, as if purposely to boast 
 before heaven the violation of its own laws. This 
 connexion is generally ludicrous, where it is not 
 wicked. The cecisbeo seems vain of the servilities 
 which his mistress studies to impose on him. I 
 once saw a lady bid her Signor Cavaliere stir up 
 her fire, " Attizzate il mio fuoco." At the word 
 of command he put his hand under her petticoat, 
 removed the chafing-dish, stirred the coals with 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 381 
 
 a small silver shovel which he kept in his pocket, 
 replaced the pan, and readjusted her dress. 
 
 Let no man tell me that Italian manners should 
 not be tried by English laws. Virtue is of no 
 country. Infidelity is every where vice ; nor will 
 its frequency excuse individuals, for individuals 
 have made it universal. Yet female virtue has 
 certainly fewer defences here than in England ; 
 and as virtue is ever proportionate to resistance, 
 an Italian beauty with an Italian temperament, 
 remaining faithful to an Italian husband, in the 
 midst of Italian manners, is more virtuous than 
 an English wife can possibly be. 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 ordinein 
 
 Rectum evaj;anti frena licentias 
 lijjecit, amovituue culpa s, 
 
 Et veteres revocavit artes. — Horace, 
 
 The Tuscan history may be reduced to three 
 periods, — the republic, the reigns of the Medici, 
 and Leopold's alone. Of these three, perhaps 
 the last fills the most important space in the eye 
 of the nation, for his father and his son were 
 blanks on each side of him. The reign of Leopold 
 was philosophy working for the people ; not the 
 
 BBHliiiiiBilki 
 
 r 
 
f 
 
 382 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 complicate philosophy of economists and consti- 
 tution-makers, but rather good-sense actini^ with 
 good intentions in dispelling prejudices, correctino- 
 abuses, and in improving the moral and physical 
 condition of men. 
 
 Before the rights of men agitated Europe, 
 Leopold had come to a government full of dis- 
 tinctions and exclusions. He immediately opened 
 all the offices of state to all ranks, he brought all 
 men under the same law and tribunals, he sup- 
 pressed unnecessary courts, he simplified the 
 course of justice, he instituted for Tuscany a penal 
 code of small volume, a code which abolished 
 torture, mutilation of body, the pain of death and 
 the sequestration of land, yet from steady enforce- 
 ment rendered crimes rare and murder unknown. 
 He made commerce free in all its relations, in 
 the free introduction, passage, circulation and 
 sale of goods, of grain, wine and oil, free from 
 the checks which markets, corporations and public 
 brokers had formerly laid on weighing and mea- 
 suring. The lands he freed from their ancient 
 restrictions to particular corn and oil mills. He 
 abolished all monopolies and coazioni of hay and 
 straw. He transferred the load of taxation from 
 grain and raw commodities to the materials of 
 luxury. He suppressed the farming of bread, 
 candles, fish, &c. He opened the rivers, freed 
 the chase from restraint, the customs he removed 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 383 
 
 to the frontiers ; he threw several vexatious taxes 
 into one ; he fixed the sum which was wanted by 
 the state, and left the people to raise it in tlieir 
 own way ; yet such were his economy and order, 
 that while he resigned many sources of revenue, 
 he discharged the public debt of the nation, and 
 reduced the annual rate of interest to 3 per cent. 
 His establishments in the fine arts, though less 
 splendid than those of the Medici, were perhaj)s 
 more directly useful ; not galleries, but schools of 
 painting. The Medici revived and protected 
 literature. Leopold created for science the first 
 cabinet in Europe. The Medici were fond of 
 raising statues to themselves; Leopold refused 
 one which was offered by his grateful people. 
 The Medici turned all the treasures of their little 
 state into such a mausoleum for their ambitious 
 dust as beggars every monarch's in Europe, a 
 mausoleum lined with the rarest marble and in- 
 crusted with precious stones ; Leopold designed 
 for his family the same common grave that re- 
 ceives the meanest of his subjects. Those up- 
 starts, rising from the counting-house to the 
 throne, arrogated all the attributes of majesty; 
 Leopold, the son, the brother, and the heir of 
 emperors, freed his subjects from the debasement 
 of kneeling.* 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 II 
 
 * An inscription on the citadel of Siena, which Leopold 
 
II 
 
 4'|i| 
 
 2S4 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 Thong:h born to a military government and snr- 
 rounded from his infancy with troops, Leopold 
 soon felt the vice and folly of soldiers in a little 
 state. On arriving here, he reduced the army, 
 laid up the navy, and exempted its knights from 
 their impotent caravans. The soldiers and the 
 noble life-guards he replaced by citizens, and 
 these he embodied into four companies, not for 
 his own protection, but for the police of the 
 countr}\ Thus Leopold really did what princes 
 encircled with guards only pretend to do,— he 
 trusted his all to the affection of his people. 
 
 He was the friend of religion rather than of the 
 church. lie banished the inquisition from Tus- 
 cany; reduced the multitude of idle festivals; 
 thinned the population of the convents, by check- 
 ing that temerity and that violence which used 
 to stock them with youth ; he suppressed those 
 which had lost their monks; he subjected the 
 church-lands to the general taxation, and kept 
 the clergy on good behaviour by a wholesome 
 <iegree of alarm. Indeed the parochial clero-v, 
 
 dismantled and turned into a public walk, contrasts hira 
 finely with the usurper Cosimo. 
 
 Arcem 
 
 A Cosmo Mediceo 
 
 . Ad imperii securitatem fundatam 
 
 Petrus Leopoldus Aust. 
 
 Spectata Senensium fide 
 
 Ad (ielicias vertit. 
 
 < 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 385 
 
 whom Leopold respected as useful men, had some 
 reason to complain; for, by commuting their 
 tithes, he eventually wronged them ; as the rate 
 fixed, though fair and ample at the time, fell 
 afterwards in value, from that depreciation of 
 money which followed his own improvements. 
 
 All Leopold's reforms were gradual, connected, 
 and led to each other. Nothing was demolished 
 at once, nor did any nuisance cease until better 
 resources were opened to the persons who had 
 lived by it. By keeping in his own hands the 
 power of reforming, he saved it from mischief. 
 A free nation will receive no benefits but in its 
 own way, and here some despotism was necessary 
 to overcome abuses which had enriched the most 
 powerful. Our British constitution could never 
 effect all the benevolent purposes of Leopold. In 
 the purest House of Commons there would be 
 country gentlemen enough to maintain the game- 
 laws which he annulled. Expel those sportsmen, 
 and merchants or farmers would succeed, who 
 flourish by such monopolies as Leopold sup- 
 pressed. In removing these evils I will not say 
 that the motives of this prince were invariably 
 pure. The rougher passions of our nature are 
 ever the more vigilant ; and, perhaps, a certain 
 dislike of the privileged orders, who had teased 
 him, may have given a stimulus to reform, when 
 his benevolence relaxed. 
 
 2c 
 
I' 
 
 386 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 He often travelled, not for pleasure or display, 
 but to know his people and their wants. He 
 heard every person ; * he saw every thin^r ; he 
 registered every notice. The information thus ob- 
 tained he reduced into a system, which protected 
 him from imposition, and from dependence on 
 his ministers. Thus his knowledge of details 
 surprised thousands who addressed him on their 
 own concerns, and silenced many petitioners. 
 Perhaps this activity was too meddlin*^, too 
 jealous, too constantly at work, for a prince ; 
 perhaps he g:ovenied his states too much, and 
 trusted the interests of his people too little to 
 themselves ; perhaps he left too often the main- 
 spring of the political machine, to watch the 
 action of the minutest wheels. t 
 
 Leopold was certainly the best prince of his 
 
 * Concealed in his old pastrano, he once fell into con- 
 versation with a poor woman near Pisa, and drew her in- 
 sensibly on to talk of himself. " II gran Duca (said he) 
 e buonissimo di cuore, ma qualche volta fa berlicche ber- 
 locche." — " Che, diavolo, vuole dire berlicche berlocche ?'* 
 — " Ora dice di si, ora di no." The Prince, as I heard the 
 story, was so well pleased with this censure of himself, that 
 he gave the woman one crown for her berlicche and another 
 for her berlocche. 
 
 f Leopold was taught to make keys by Father Pozzi, a 
 Servite, who was at once a monk, a blacksmith, and a 
 fencing master ; and the dread of those keys, which gave 
 him secret access into every office, kept all his placemen 
 on the alert. 
 
 LEOPOLD, 
 
 387 
 
 time. Frederic sank into a conqueror before 
 him, or, at best, a philosopher who could act the 
 tyrant. Whatever the Prussians obtained from 
 Frederic passed for favours : Leopold opened to 
 his Tuscans their rights. The one was ambitious 
 to multii)ly his subjects ; the other to make his 
 happy. Frederic's soul and resources lay in his 
 army; Leopold had the courage to disband his. 
 Frederic, as a warrior, took commanding ground, 
 and situation gave importance to his words, as it. 
 does to a robber's on the scaffold ; Leopold, by 
 mixing familiarly with citizens, soon lost the gloss 
 and glitter of a monarch, but he created ''that 
 nobler and more durable affection which follows 
 talent and power when beneficently employed. 
 
 In short, Leopold was a patriot on the throne. 
 Of all practicable govermiients this is surely the 
 most convenient ; yet depending on the duration 
 of one man's virtues and powers, it leaves us still 
 to desire another form of polity, not so simple, 
 perhaps, nor so cheaply administered, but more 
 safe for the governed, more able to perpetuate 
 itself, and more indifferent to the character of 
 them who conduct it. 
 
 For want of that perpetuating power, which 
 can reside only in the people, half of Leopold's 
 improvements ceased with his reign. His suc- 
 cessors have abolished, by their « veneratissimo 
 motuproprio," some of those republican forms 
 
 2 c 2 
 
388 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 which the Augustan pohcy of Cosimo I. retained 
 to amuse a nation which he had robbed of its in- 
 dependence. The senate remains only to figure 
 in processions ; for the authority, which it lately 
 caught from the suspension of all other autho- 
 rities, was accidental and short. The " Commu- 
 nity of Florence," instituted by Leopold for the 
 police of the city, having something popular in 
 its constitution, was the organ lately employed 
 by the French for revolution and robbery. 
 
 Leopold's penal code, called the " criminal 
 reform," is still in force ; but it wants his pre- 
 venting vigilance. Capital punishment is now 
 restored, yet crimes have increased since his reign 
 from 50 to 120 trials a month.* His civil code 
 
 * One inexplicable p^ani^ of ruffians had lont; been felt, 
 but could not be followed, on the road between Florence 
 and Bologna. Travellers daily disappeared, and coidd 
 never be traced by their spoils. Two Pisans of my ac- 
 quaintance, (Mr. Dodsworth and Signora Patriarchi,) 
 passing through Pietra Mala, put up at a solitary inn 
 on the Apennines, and asked for beds. The la,ndlady 
 told them that she must send two miles off to borrow 
 sheets of the curate. A desolate house and a wretched 
 supper, set in opposition with diamond rings on the coarse 
 fingers of their hostess, alarmed her guests, who had 
 heard of the invisible murders committed on this road. 
 They communicated their suspicion to the Vetturino, and 
 having concerted their plan, they desired him, in the land- 
 lady's hearing, to call them up at five in the morning, and 
 retired to bed. There they kept a fearful watch until all 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 389 
 
 was left unfinished, and the courts are still per- 
 plexed between the " Gius commune," or Roman 
 law, and the " Gius municipale," which is a 
 chaos of jarring systems formed by the conten- 
 tious republics of Tuscany. 
 
 Agriculture is still left free to produce ; but it 
 suffers now from the burdens laid on its produc- 
 tions. For every bullock that enters Florence a 
 duty of 10 crowns is paid, and for every hog 10 
 lire, nor can these be killed without a permit from 
 the excise. 
 
 were asleep ; when, stealing from their beds, they set off 
 before midnight, and thus escaped alive from those dreadful 
 confines. 
 
 Not long afterward, a member of the gang being taken, 
 made a discovery of the rest. All the banditti were sur- 
 prised while feasting at the parsonage, and their horrible 
 mystery was at length revealed. It was the law of their 
 society to murder all the passengers they stopped, to kill 
 and bury the horses, burn the carriages and baggage, re- 
 serving only the money, jewels, and watches. Biondi, the 
 curate, was their captain ; the mistress of the inn was their 
 accomplice, and, in the manner just mentioned, she sent 
 him notice of every traveller that lodged at her house. 
 
390 
 
 SIENA. 
 
 THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Ilor fu j^iammai 
 
 Gente si vana come la Sanese ?— Dante. 
 
 The Senese seem vain of their descent from a 
 Roman colony, as figures of the she-wolf attest 
 in every corner of the city. We know but little 
 of those colonists, except the wanton rebellion 
 which Tacitus records. Their descendants were 
 lost in obscurity till the eleventh century, yet 
 early in the twelfth they betrayed an hereditary 
 love of revolution, and shook off the yoke of the 
 too-celebrated Matilda. 
 
 When the Humbled were expelled from Lom- 
 hardy, Siena offered an asylum to those factious 
 and degraded monks, who resembled her own no- 
 bility both in character and in fate. To these 
 exiles she owed the first establishment of her 
 woollen manufacture, which soon paved the way 
 for the silk. 
 
 Too dignified to be useful, the nobility of Siena 
 left those arts to the people. The people became 
 mdustrious, rich, refractory. Impatient of taking 
 the law from others, they insisted on sharing in 
 
 THE PEOPLE. 
 
 391 
 
 
 the legislature, and prevailed even beyond their 
 wishes; for their former lords, seeing the senate 
 debased by weavers and wool-combers, abandoned 
 their public functions, and sulkily retired to their 
 castles in the country. 
 
 The plebeians, flushed with their new robes and 
 authorities, impertinently intruded into the quar- 
 rels of the empire. Their vanity, however, was 
 fatal to their peace. Proud of supporting a towns- 
 man on the papal throne, they let Alexander III. 
 embroil them with the Ghibellines, and were 
 crushed in the public conflict. Frederic Barba- 
 rossa punished their presumption by divesting 
 them of all their franchises, which, on their ab- 
 ject submission, he afterwards sold back in retail. 
 
 The nobility either remained insignificant and 
 idle on their estates, or they embarked in the cru- 
 sades. Some, indeed, desperately revolted to the 
 Florentines, excited them to war against their 
 own country, and were finally defeated at Monta- 
 , perti. Victory inspired the citizens of Siena with 
 an arrogance and tone which imposed on the 
 starving nobles. This neglected class, feeling all 
 the impotence of denuded rank, came humbly 
 back to the city, where most of them renounced 
 the names and arms of their family. The few 
 who retained them were confined, like Jews in 
 .the Ghetto, to a certain street, which is still 
 called Casato or surname. The rest styled them- 
 
 ,j 
 
392 
 
 SIENA. 
 
 selves Peter the draper, or Paul the hosier, or 
 Ansano the mereer; and built, by their trades, 
 those palaces which their paltry feuds could 
 scarcely furnish. 
 
 On rising into merchants, some of those patri- 
 cians branched off into foreign countries. The 
 Buonsignori established in France " the bank of 
 the great table," which flourished for a century 
 and was then pillaged by Philip the Fair. The 
 Chigi opened a bank of equal celebrity at Rome, 
 where the vain Agostino made as stupid a sacri-' 
 fice to his sovereign as that of Gresham. Not 
 satisfied with the magnificence usual on such oc- 
 casions, when he invited Leo X. to a banquet at 
 the Farnesina, he served the whole papal court 
 with a succession of silver plate, and ordered the 
 removes, as they went from table, to be tossed into 
 the river.* By what contagion is it that mer- 
 chants, so prudent while at home, lose their senses 
 when they approach sovereigns ? 
 
 The artisans of Siena caught the court-disease. 
 
 * The Senese had been long notorious for such i>rofiision. 
 The present motto is taken from a passage which alludes to 
 a set oi^ young prodigals in Siena, called " La Brigata Gode- 
 reccia." These were men who could club a purse of 200,000 
 ducats, and spend it in a few months. Their pheasants 
 were roasted with burning cloves, and their horses were shod 
 with silver, to ape, I presume, the nuptial extravagance of 
 the great Marquis of Tuscany. The scene of their de- 
 bauchery is now a chapel. 
 
 THE PEOPLE. 
 
 393 
 
 Whoever could buy an estate, bought also nobility, 
 and changed their party. A government thus 
 fluctuating between two orders fell into a new 
 series of revolutions. Its executive power was in- 
 vested first in three consuls, next in a commission 
 of fifteen, then in the nine, then in the thirteen, 
 then in the twelve, all variously composed of pa- 
 tricians and plebeians. Such changes exposed 
 the state to a succession of tyrants, to Nicolo 
 captain of the people, to the Duke of Milan, to 
 Petrucci, to the Spaniards, and, after one bloody 
 struggle, to the Medici. 
 
 From that time Siena dates her decay. From 
 85,000 inhabitants, the population is declined to 
 15,000 ; and of 39 gates, which were then neces- 
 sary to a city so singular in its outline, only eight 
 are now open. Those plebeians are extinct who 
 fought for the independence of their country, 
 who extended its limits, and introduced the arts, 
 made it a state of Italy, and a school of painting. 
 That commerce, which once excited the jeabusy 
 of Florence, now exports nothing that bears the 
 name of Siena, except its hats. Cavalieri have 
 succeeded to merchants, and the republic is no 
 more. Ever since Cosimo I. fixed a citadel on 
 her enslaved back, Siena has sunk into one flat 
 sabbath of most dutiful rest, from which nothinir 
 could rouse her but earthquakes and the French. 
 She then raised her sluggish head, not to act, but 
 to suffer. 
 
394 
 
 SIENA. 
 
 Passive and indifferent to every party, this 
 people lately let the French, the Neapolitans, and 
 the Cisalpines enter and drive each other out of 
 their city. They even opened their gates to the 
 Aretine mob, whose ringleader insulted them 
 with the royal solecism, " Noi, Cosimo Stefanini, 
 entro nelle vostre mura." They tamely looked 
 on, and allowed those vagabonds, who sometimes 
 plundered and sometimes begged in the streets, 
 to murder with hammers, and burn in the grand 
 piazza fourteen Jews, their rivals in pedlarship.* 
 The shock is now past, and Siena is as dull as 
 before. A gregarious nobility, no longer its mas- 
 ters, nor indeed their own, shed their natural 
 torpor and insipidity over a city which they are 
 too poor to invigorate. They want industry, if 
 not talent, for those studies which distinijuished 
 their ancestors. Siena, though never eminent for 
 men of genius, used formerly to swarm with pa- 
 trician authors, particularly in the law. The 
 single family of Socinus produced seven : the 
 
 * On the return of the French, Siena narrowly escaped 
 destruction. General MioUis arrived with his army about 
 noon at the Florentine gate, which the Neapolitans had just 
 barricaded to cover their retreat through the city. Hearing 
 the great hell of the palace toll Ave Maria, he called to his 
 
 artillery— " Abattez lesmurs, voilaie tocsin (^ui sonne." 
 
 *• Pardonnez-moi," said an officer, pulling out his watch, 
 , *'c'est midi." This fortunate explanation saved the town. 
 
 THE PEOPLE. 
 
 395 
 
 Piccoluomini three or four, all much esteemed 
 . at home. 
 
 The lower order is a far more lively and active 
 race. Vain, flighty, fanciful, they want the judg- 
 ment and penetration of their Florentine neigh- 
 bours ; who, nationally severe, call a nail without 
 a head " chiodo Sanese." The accomplished 
 Signora Rinieri told me, that her father, while 
 governor of Siena, was once stopped in his car- 
 riage by a crowd at Florence, where the mob, re- 
 cognizing him, called out " Lasciate passare il 
 Governatore de' matti." A native of Siena is 
 presently known at Florence ; for his very walk, 
 being formed to a hilly town, detects him on the 
 plain. 
 
 Most of the middling class, and even some of 
 the nobility, are polished, intelligent, and natu- 
 rally courteous. They never trespass on good- 
 breeding but when tempted by the demon of 
 curiosity, who has here a great ascendancy. So 
 numerous are the conversazioni, that none can be 
 full. Each goddess remains at home, waitinc: for 
 the homage of her votaries in her own temple. 
 There she jealously insists on their attendance 
 every evening, and is implacable when they desert 
 to a rival power. Those gentlemen, who are not 
 enlisted in any conversazione, repair to the rooms 
 or to the Casino. 
 
 The rooms are the most splendid in Tuscany ; 
 
356 
 
 SIENA. 
 
 and on gala occasions, such as the Assumption, 
 they appear one o^allery of beauties. The Casino 
 had been originally a church, was then erected 
 into a commercial tribunal, and is now transformed 
 into a lounge for the nobility. Hence marble 
 saints on the walls. Mercury and wool-sacks on the 
 porch, and all the implements of gambling within. 
 In all societies, except the Casino, the two 
 cetos mix pretty freely together. Marriage and 
 cecisbeism are the only points on which the bar- 
 rier that parts them is still sacred and erect. A 
 woman of quality may intrigue with her own 
 footman or confessor ; but her husband and her 
 cecisbeo must be noble. Yet to these last she 
 allots but the drudgery of her caprices, while the 
 " ganso fino" or the " patito" sips the delight.* 
 
 * There is one lady here rather singular on this point, a 
 lady who was once a common beggar, and still retains the 
 nickname La Toppona. Her elevation she owes to a rich 
 old citizen of seventy, who meeting her in tatters on the 
 road, was struck by her resemblance to a favourite Madonna, 
 and married her, no doubt from devotion to the blessed 
 Virgin. On his death, her beauty and fortune attracted a 
 crowd of adorers, less spiritual than he was ; but, gratefully 
 attached to old age, she preferred a gentleman of 75 for 
 her husband, and a nobleman of 80 for her cecislieo. Her 
 conduct had been always singularfi/ correct till the French 
 entered Siena, when, in the general surrender of any chastity 
 that remained, poor Toppona could saint it no longer. 
 
 In the Senese, I saw high passions with generosity, and 
 high spirit with frankness. Their manners were still free. 
 
 THE PEOPLE. 
 
 397 
 
 Tliese ladies, who have certainly more than 
 their proportion of charms, seem to inherit from 
 their lively grandmothers a peculiar roguishness 
 of look, which struck me here in Meccarino's old 
 pictures. The Senese, however, will tell you that 
 their beauty is declined since the year 1739, when 
 the Spanish troops quartered in this city impaired 
 the race. That contamination could be only par- 
 tial and temporary ; but the general incontinency 
 of the present day is thinning the first ranks of 
 society. Within the last twenty years, twenty 
 noble families are extinct. Others hang only by 
 a single thread, and that a rotten one. All 
 younger brothers are condemned to celibacy by 
 custom as sacred as a vow. The union of two 
 persons equal in birth and fortune was lately 
 opposed by their parents on the sole pretence 
 that they loved each other too fondly, and that 
 an affection so ardent as theirs would make them 
 ridiculous, if constant, or miserable if not. Thus 
 marriage has become a rare event amono- the 
 Senese nobility, who once celebrated eighty 
 matches within the same month. 
 
 their language full of cant, their religion at variance with 
 their oaths, their streets and their children ridiculous with 
 pious names. 
 
 The style of swearing is highly poetical : Trono di 
 Dio ! 11 fulmine de Dio ti schiacci I and resembles that of 
 their Lombard. '• Se vi perdono," cries a young lady to her 
 lover in the Donne Curiose, " prego il ciel che mi fulmini, 
 che m'inceuerisca." 
 
398 
 
 SIENA. 
 
 Every country adopts a different system of de- 
 corum. An Italian can see no remarkable de- 
 cency in the chamber pots, the dozens, and the 
 devils, which Englishmen introduce after dinner 
 as apparatus for g-etting drunk; nor can an 
 Englishman discover any thing very dignified in 
 a woman of tlie first quality ratfling her clothes 
 or tnnkets, and sending her Cavaliere Servante 
 to hawk her sixpenny tickets round the public 
 theatre. Yet even in this noble class some -en- 
 tlemen may be found. Such characters as Pier 
 Antonio Gori, II Connnendatore Berlinghieri, and 
 the amiable Pompeio Spannochi would rescue 
 any order from contempt. 
 
 The fair Senese either set modestv at defiance, 
 or they carry their scruples to excess. The mar- 
 ried ladies will descant with rapture on objects 
 that would strike their cloistered friends with 
 horror. At the Bianchi palace is a marble o-od 
 who presented his naked posteriors towards J 
 neighbouring convent, and so scandalized the 
 poor nuns, that they lately petitioned the arch- 
 bishop to protect their distressed delicacy. His 
 Eminence advised them never to look that way 
 But no; the mere possibility of peeping made the 
 statue a stumbling-block to their chaste ideas, 
 and their clamours continued till the fio-ure was 
 veiled. * 
 
 velari pictura jubetur 
 Quaecunque alterius sexus iraitata figuram. 
 
 399 
 
 ROME. 
 
 EASTER. 
 
 PONTIFICI MAXIMO 
 CONSERVATORI C^UEMONIARUM 
 
 PUBLICARUM. Inscription. 
 
 Nothing tires me so soon as pomp, except the 
 description of it. I never could read, and cer- 
 tainly I will never write, a description of the 
 Easter ceremonies at St. Peter's, ceremonies 
 which, varying every five minutes, form the busi- 
 ness of a week. I will not, indeed, join with 
 travellers in laughing at things so important to 
 millions. I have seen, I have even felt their 
 effects. Some passages of the rite are supremely 
 grand, some sounds would reach the soul of an 
 infidel. How awful the pause in Friday's pas- 
 sion at the words " Consummatum est!" how 
 pathetic the close of the Misereres ! But the 
 whole is too long : variety is tormented into little- 
 ness, and sometimes into trick. 
 
 Thursday is full of movement and drama : it 
 includes the solemn translation of the host to the 
 sepulchre, the public benediction, the washing ot 
 feet, and the serving at table. These last func- 
 tions placed the pope in a curious point of view 
 
400 
 
 ROME. 
 
 between pomp and humility. While prelates 
 knelt down before his holiness to present the 
 water, his holiness stooped before the poor beads- 
 men to kiss their bare legs. How proud the 
 condescension which apes divinity ! 
 
 So well does the church understand the power 
 of contrast, that this principle seems to regulate 
 all the operations of the season. Contrast is 
 studied in these functions of Thursday, in the 
 scenic changes of Saturday, in the abrupt transi- 
 tion from the debaucheries encouraged in carnival 
 to the mortification of Lent*; and again in the 
 
 * It is absurd enough that spring should be the only 
 season shut against lovers both by the ancient and by the 
 modern religion of Rome. The former rarely allowed 
 marriage in March, and forbade it utterly during May, the 
 month to which the finest children are generally referred. 
 Having occasionally amused myself with tracing the an- 
 cient customs of Italy subsisting in the modern, and being 
 now on the church, I shall offer precedents for a few parti- 
 culars there. 
 
 At Easter, the Pope is attended with two immense fla- 
 belli or fans composed of the gaudiest feathers : 
 
 Et modo pavonis cauda fiabella superbi. prop. 
 
 Church doors are hung sometimes with flowers, and 
 sometimes with black and white woollen webs crossing in 
 alternate festoons : 
 
 Praeterea fuit in tectis de marmore templum 
 Velleribus niveis et festa fronde revinctum. vir. 
 
 Some church statues have an assortment of dresses which 
 are regularly changed.— Similar wardrobes were kept an. 
 
 EASTER. 
 
 401 
 
 reaction of the human mind ever elastic towards 
 pleasure, from the restraints which are multiplied 
 in Passion-week to the instant revelry of Easter. 
 
 On Easter Sunday came forth all the papal 
 vestments, which had been lately redeemed from 
 pawnbrokers at Leghorn. They are so richly 
 trimmed as to destroy the venerable. Cardinal 
 Antonio Doria acted as valet de chambre to the 
 Pope, and appeared but a novice in adjusting the 
 hallowed pallium. The whole court was diversi- 
 fied by rich or antique costumes. The senators' 
 robes of yellow silk — but I have renounced de- 
 scription. Mass is over, let us finish the show. 
 
 Behold fifty thousand persons not crowded, 
 but spread on the slopes of the magnificent 
 piazza ! how finely the colonnades embrace all 
 
 ciently for the gods at the Capitol or the imperial palace. 
 " J)ns peplos et indumenta pretiosa ; quibus usus velaminis 
 null us est, his aurura et argentum consecrant." 
 
 Lactantius. 
 Church pictures are often disfigured by gold or silver 
 crowns nailed over the saints' heads. This barbarism cor- 
 responds with the ix,rivi(rKGt of the ancients. " Et jam tunc 
 corona deorum honos erat.'' — Pliny Hist. 
 
 Some altars are hung round with gold or silver eyes 
 legs, fingers, hands, feet, &c.— Snnilar ex votos in bronze 
 are preserved among the Koman antiquities of museums. 
 
 Other altars are surrounded with pictures exhibiting the 
 donor's escape from disease : 
 
 Nam posse mederi 
 
 Picta docet templis raulta tabella tuis. Tib. 
 
 2d 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
402 
 
 ROME. 
 
 the pageaiitn- of this solemn moment ! The holy 
 father approaches the balcony — the multitude 
 Jineels down — the troops gape for the apostolical 
 blessing — the blessing is given — the cannons roar 
 — the wheels rattle, and the blessed disperse. 
 " Dio mio! " cried a pope when the work was 
 done, " (juanto e facile di coglionare la gente ! " 
 Pius VII. did not pull down the Holy Ghost 
 on his people with that elegant expansion of 
 arms, which his strutting predecessor affected ; 
 but the modest composure of his manner pleased 
 • us perhaps as well. In Chiaramonte you see 
 little of lord Peter. Gentle, pious, and unaf- 
 fected, he retains all the simplicity of his former 
 convent. Indeed the monastic habits, by exclud- 
 ing all others, keep hold of their man to the 
 Jast.* " Lasciatemi," said he to an attendant 
 who had intruded upon his privacy, " sono sem- 
 pre monaco. Posso fare tutto il mio bisogno, 
 anche vuotare il mio orinale." He is blamed as 
 a monarch for being too fond of study, too remiss 
 with his ministers, and too passive under foreign 
 dictation. 
 
 * Ganj;anelli himself, though born for the world, could 
 not entirely shake off" the friar. He had learnt in a frugal 
 convent to hoard any occasional dainties, and this habit 
 followed him to the throne. Having accepted a Cheshire 
 chee>e from an Euirlishman, his Holiness relished the pre- 
 sent so well, that he locked it up ni a private cupboard, and 
 ke^d the key in his own pocket. 
 
 EASTER. 
 
 403 
 
 To this vicious facility the people may impute 
 part of those miseries which no festivals can con- 
 ceal. Their interests are invariably sacrificed to 
 that class of men who surround the pontiff. Tax- 
 ation overlooks the cardinal's carriage, and falls 
 on the morsel of the indigent*. Thus unfair in 
 its principle, it becomes practically worse in the 
 fangs of the farmers-general. Government having 
 lately brought the moneta rossa and the fina to a 
 par, has added nothing to the value of the poor 
 man's coin ; but from them who possessed silver 
 it has taken just one-third of their efficient pro- 
 perty. Such oppression, by lessening both the 
 price of labour and the demand for it, has driven 
 even the industrious into the streets; while the 
 miseries which remain at home are unknown, or 
 found out too late. 
 
 One wretched couple were lately driven to des- 
 peration through absolute want. Their last crust 
 of bread they gave to their children, tlien put 
 them to bed, locked their door, and some days 
 after, their bodies were found in the Tiber. In 
 the mean time the poor infants at home became 
 clamorous on the return of hunger, and akirnied 
 
 * Every rubia of corn, weighing 480 pounds, is subject 
 to a duty of 20 pauls at the mill. The flour, thus already 
 taxed, is subject to an entry of 6 pauls at the gates of 
 Rome, and the carriage of the corn for the bolletta may be 
 estimated at a loss of 3 pauls more. 
 
 2 d2 
 
M 
 
 404 
 
 ROME. 
 
 the neighbours with their cries. The neighbours 
 applied to a priest, under whose sanction they 
 broke open the door and rescued the little 
 wretches from the worst of deaths. The priest 
 seized the occasion : he undertook the protection 
 of these orphans, and went about begging for 
 their future support, and painting their story in 
 all its horrors, wherever he knew there was 
 wealth or humanity ; but having at last collected 
 a large subscription, our reverend philanthropist 
 ran off with the bag. 
 
 CHARACTER. 
 
 Non his juventus orta parentibus 
 
 Infecit aequor sanguine Punico. Horace. 
 
 The national character is the most ruined thins: 
 in Rome. The very name of Roman becomes a 
 burden on the people who now bear it, by sug- 
 gesting comparisons which are perhaps unfair. 
 Men in the mass are what governments make 
 them, and who can now calculate the powers of 
 the present race if differently directed ? They in- 
 herit at least one characteristic of their republican 
 ancestors, that local pride which Rome has al- 
 ways excited in its natives*. 
 
 ♦ " Vile esse," says an historian of the worst times, 
 " quicquid extra pomoiriuni nacscitur aestimant." — Aumian. 
 Makc£l.lin. 
 
 CHARACTER. 
 
 405 
 
 The character of the common people is usually 
 locked up, yet subject to strange escapes. They 
 can make long sacrifices to a distant pleasure. 
 Thousands starve during the whole month of 
 September, to provide for one extravagant feast 
 in October, at Monte Testoccio. Though timidly 
 cautious in common transactions, they are despe- 
 rate at play. This passion, pervading every rank, 
 finds all the lotteries of Italy open at Rome. 
 Many call religion into the aid of gambling : 
 they resort to San Giovanni Decollato, a church 
 devoted to condemned criminals, and try to catch 
 in prayer certain divine intimations of the lucky 
 ticket. Their resentments can lie brooding for 
 years before they start out. In their quarrels I 
 never saw any approach to fair fighting. Boys 
 fly to stones, and men to the clasp knife ; but the 
 bloodiest ruffian abstains from fire-arms. To 
 shoot your enemy is held atrocious ; to plunge a 
 stiletto into his back a proof of spirit. 
 
 The Trasteverini, though sudden and quick in 
 quarrel with strangers, live quietly among them- 
 selves, or contrive to wrangle without bloodshed. 
 This race has been extolled as the true descend- 
 ants of the ancient Romans, and even as brave. 
 Their courage, however, is better known in the 
 streets than in the field. Insurrections and 
 mobs seem to be its only element. Aware of 
 this tumultuary, assassinating spirit, the late 
 
406 
 
 ROME. 
 
 I 
 
 pope sent his preachers about to disarm the 
 people before the French arrived here; and 
 Fenaglia, who was then a simple monk, mounted 
 a bench in the Piazza Navona, and soon covered 
 it with the stilettos which his overpowerino- elo- 
 quence forced from the mob. 
 
 In ascending to the other ranks, I can hardly 
 consider that urbanity which prevails here as any 
 great merit at Rome. The weak composition of 
 the Roman court, its dependance on so many 
 states, the resort of great and accomplished 
 strangers, the subsistence which the people de- 
 rive from their expenditure, make courtesy an 
 obligation on all. In no part of Italy are the 
 conversazioni more elegant, more various, or 
 more free from aristocratical stiffness. Whether 
 general gaiety, or literature, or the arts, ffaming-, 
 or music, or politics, or buffoonery be your 
 object, in one house or other you may be grati- 
 fied every evening. Whatever be your preten- 
 sions, here they will be fully allowed. Rome is 
 a market well stocked with the " commodity of 
 good names." Praise you may command even 
 to a surfeit, provided you repay it; for they 
 flatter only on the same fair terms as the people 
 louse each other in the street — scratch for scratch. 
 With all this civility, their humour is naturally 
 caustic ; but they lampoon as they stab, only in 
 the dark. The danger attending open attacks. 
 
 CHARACTER. 
 
 407 
 
 forces them to confine their satire within epi- 
 gram ; and tiius pasquinade is but the offspring 
 of hypocrisy, the only resource of wits who are 
 obliged to be grave on so many absurdities in 
 religion, and respectful to so many upstarts in 
 
 purple. 
 
 The Roman ladies are more indebted to nature 
 than to man. Their general style of beauty is 
 laro-e like the Juno ; and their forms, thouii^h lux- 
 uriant, are so perfect in proportion, that a critic 
 is driven to their feet before he can find a defect. 
 Animation of feature, dignity of gesture, a lan- 
 guage all music, quickness of remark, a fine 
 tinge of religion, every female attraction is theirs, 
 except perhaps the best. But alas ! can modesty 
 be expected in a state where celibacy sits en- 
 throned, and fills every post of authority or in- 
 struction? must not the interest, the animal 
 wants of the governors discourage fidelity in the 
 sex? must not a government of priests, from 
 necessity, form a nation of libertines ? 
 
 Women thus born for seduction, excel in all 
 the syren-accomplishments, music, dancing, and 
 sometimes poetry ; but they have lost those se- 
 verer graces and that literate character which 
 once astonished Europe. The time is past when 
 Italian ladies wore the doctoral cap, filled the 
 faculty-chairs, preached, dissected, spoke Latin, 
 wrote Greek, and plunged into the depths of 
 
 
408 
 
 ROME. 
 
 science. The time is past when the first women 
 in Italy seemed to live for the historian. What 
 a constellation of female excellence in the sins;\e 
 family of Gonzaga ! Isabella, Cecilia, Lucreda, 
 Eleonora, Julia, Louisa, all great as princesses, 
 yet amiable as women ! 
 
 No class in the papal state can be more im- 
 portant than the clergy. These, in general, are 
 learned, at least literary men ; pretty correct in 
 exteriors and guarded in their debauchery. From 
 the length and rigour of their education, most of 
 them smell of the college or the convent. Yet 
 sometimes you meet an abatino di cittk, a mor^ern 
 Ruccellai, who may fairly be set in opposition to 
 our own clerical bucks. 
 
 When dazzled with the splendour of the Ro- 
 man clergy, through all their gradation of 
 colour, grey, black, purple, scarlet, up to the 
 sovereign white; when we have admired their 
 palaces, their liveries, their carriages wheeled out 
 in rows to be admired ; let us then reverse the 
 medal, and view the exhaustion which this gross 
 plethory of clerical wealth leaves below it. "^Let 
 us survey all the forms of misery, the sickness, 
 the sores, the deformity, the hunger, which infest 
 the streets, where every beggar is distinguished 
 by his own attitude, tone and variety of the 
 pathetic, while all together present a strange 
 climax of wretchedness. 
 
 CHARACTER. 
 
 409 
 
 In the mornina: comes a Marchesa to vour 
 lodffinjrs, recounts the fortunes of her noble 
 house, its rank, its loyalty, its disasters, its fall, 
 and then " relieves your most illustrious Excel- 
 lency" from embarrassment by begging one or 
 two pauls. An old abate steals on your evening 
 walk, and twitching you with affected secresy, 
 whispers that he is starving. On the dirty pave- 
 ment you see Poveri Vergognosi kneeling silently 
 in masks. In the coffee-houses stand a more 
 unfortunate class, who watch the waiter's mo- 
 tions to dart on your change. In the courts of 
 palaces you meet wretches gnawing the raw 
 roots gleaned from the dunghill, and at night 
 you will sometimes find at your gate- way a 
 poor boy sleeping close to his dog for mutual 
 warmth. Such is the metropolis of Christ's 
 church visible on earth ! 
 
410 
 
 k 
 
 NAPLES. 
 
 SOCIETY. 
 
 Spectatum admissi, risum teneatis, amici ? Horace. 
 
 The Baciamo, or birth-day, calls to court all 
 the orders of the state, from the prince down to 
 the capo-Iazzarone, and assembles in the presence 
 a strang:e masquerade of civil, monkish and mili- 
 tary dresses. The senators' costume coupled the 
 lon^ robe with i^othic sword-belts and enormous 
 rapiers. Their very postilion was an hybrid firrure, 
 the upper half covered with a judge's wi«r, the 
 lower cased up in boots and buckskin. 
 
 Baciamano, properly so called, is a ceremony 
 which admits abridgment. I have seen the 
 princes, on approaching the king, just touch the 
 royal coat, kiss their own hands,* and then with 
 their fingers' ends distribute the emanations of 
 majesty to their neighbours, in the same easy 
 manner as gentlemen at church impart holy water 
 to the ladies. 
 
 There seemed to be a contention between the 
 
 * This fashion dates from the decline of the Roman em- 
 pire, and was called '• adorare purpuram." Here it descends 
 from the prince to the beggar : you may be thus adored for 
 a single grano . 
 
 SOCIETY. 
 
 411 
 
 i;i1 
 
 nobiUty and their footmen, who should carry the 
 greater load of gold lace. No where are the 
 liveries more magnificent; but here they generally 
 last the life of the master. They come forth only 
 on grand occasions, and many must return, along 
 with Signora's court jewels, to the pawn-broker, 
 who lets them out to their owners, for the day, at 
 an exorbitant rate. 
 
 Ferdinand's person, if assisted by more artificial 
 manners, would grace any throne. There is no 
 tyranny in his nature, but much in his govern- 
 ment. Indeed all government tends naturally to 
 tyranny, and goodnature in its chief often pro- 
 motes this tendency. This debonair and good- 
 humoured prince is not sufficiently robust to stop 
 others in the abuse of his own power. His 
 courage, like his cruelty, is but the spark of a 
 moment, and both are sparks struck by another. 
 When the poor Austrian's head was brought on 
 a pike, either to deceive or to frighten him, Fer- 
 dinand went to a balcony of the palace, poured 
 his indignation on the exasperated mob and 
 threatened them v^^ith imposing energy — and 
 afterwards slunk off to Sicily in the dark. 
 
 He does not want the administrative talent ; 
 for whatever has the honour to come under his 
 own eye is in excellent order. His monopolies of 
 butcher's meat and of thunny fish were but too 
 well conducted for the Sicilians. His dog-ken- 
 
 V 
 
II 
 
 412 
 
 NAPLES. 
 
 nels, his studs, and his farms are models in their 
 kinds. He is a consummate judge of black cattle, 
 and displays true genius for the dairy. The heir- 
 apparent is an adept in the same arts, and seems 
 to dispute with his royal father the praise which 
 Montesquieu bestows on Charlemagne for his 
 attention to the basse-cour. 
 
 But who takes care of the nation ?— the nation 
 is consigned to a foreigner, a man detached from 
 the nation, who is at once a financier, a state- 
 banker,* a general and an admiral. From this 
 personage, who has risen above the throne, it is 
 said, from a barber's shop, we descend to the 
 nobility. 
 
 Nobility is no where so pure as in a barbarous 
 state. When a nation becomes polished, its nobles 
 either corrupt their blood with plebeian mixture, 
 as in England ; or they disappear altogether, as' 
 in France. Now Naples, in spite of all her 
 fiddlers, is still in a state of barbarian twilight, 
 which resisted the late vivid flash of philosophy; 
 and the nobility of Naples remains incorrupt! 
 Though often cut by adultery with footmen, and 
 sometimes reduced to beg in the streets, still it is 
 pure both in heraldry and opinion ; for nothing 
 
 * A recent law declaring all payments null if they do not 
 pass through the state banks, virtually forces the whole 
 floating capital of Naples back into the hands of those old 
 bankrupts. 
 
 SOCIETY. 
 
 413 
 
 here degrades it but mis-alliance, commerce, or a 
 hemp-rope. 
 
 The Neapolitan noblemen have seldom been 
 fairly reported. In England, where rank is more 
 circumscribed, nobility generally commands for- 
 tune or pride enough to protect it from common 
 contempt. At Naples it is diffused so widely and 
 multiplies so fast, that you find titles at every 
 corner, Prencipi or de' Prencipi, without a virtue 
 or a ducat. Hence strangers, who find no access 
 to noblemen of retired merit, must form on those 
 of the coffee-houses their opinion of the whole 
 order, and level it with the lowest lazzaroni, till 
 the two extremes of society meet in ignorance and 
 vice. 
 
 In fact, these children of the sun are too ardent 
 to settle in mediocrity. Some noblemen rose 
 lately into statesmen and orators in the short- 
 lived republic; some fell gloriously ; others have 
 enriched literature or extended the bounds of 
 science ; a few speak with a purity foreign to this 
 court ; and not a few are models of urbanity. If 
 you pass, however, from these into the mob of 
 gentlemen, you will find men who glory in an 
 exemption from mental improvement, and affect 
 " all the honourable points of ignorance." In a 
 promiscuous company, the most noted sharper 
 or the lowest buffoon shall, three to one, be a 
 nobleman. 
 
414 
 
 NAPLES. 
 
 In the economy of the noblest houses there is 
 something farcical. In general their footmen, 
 having only six ducats a month to subsist on, 
 must, from sheer hunger, be thieves.* A certain 
 prince, who is probably not singular, allots to his 
 own dinner one ducat a day. For this sum his 
 people are bound to serve up a stated number of 
 dishes, but then he is obliged to watch while 
 eating ; for, if he once turn round, half the ser- 
 vice disappears. Yet such jugglers as these find 
 their match in his Highness, for, whenever he 
 means to smuggle the remains of liis meal, he 
 
 * I knew a Neapolitan Marchesa, who was so unfortunate 
 in her servants that, after having tired out all her friends on 
 earth, she at last applied to the Virgin of the Seven Sorrows, 
 and implored the saint to send her a good, honest fellow. 
 On her return from church, she found a new,' candidate 
 waiting for her livery. This, she thought, was surely the 
 Virgin's own man: "Pray, friend, (said she,) what wages 
 do you expect ? "— '- Eight ducats."—" I never give more 
 than SIX."—" Then, madam, you never had honest men. If 
 I engage for six, I must either starve or steal to the value 
 of two more; but give me eight, and your Excellency will 
 find my faithfulness worth the money." She agreed to his 
 terms, and for a few weeks the fellow's conduct did honour 
 to the Blessed Being who had recommended him. At last 
 his mistress, deeming it impious to doubt the honesty of a 
 man who was patronized by the lirst saint in heaven, sent 
 him out to pay a tradesman's account ; bu4 the sura being 
 considerable, the servant of the Seven Sorrows never came 
 back. 
 
 SOCIETY. 
 
 415 
 
 sends them all out on different errands at the 
 same moment, and then crams his pockets for 
 supper. Yet when this man gives an entertain- 
 ment, it is magnificence itself. On those rare 
 occasions, he acts like a prince, and his people 
 behave like gentlemen — for the day. He keeps 
 a chaplain in his palace ; but the poor priest 
 must pay him for his lodging there. He keeps a 
 numerous household ; but his officers must play 
 with him for their wages. In short, his whole 
 establishment is a compound of splendour and 
 meanness — a palace of marble thatched with straw. 
 In this upper class, the ladies, if not superior 
 in person, seem far more graceful than the men, 
 and excel in all the arts of the sex. Those of the 
 middle rank go abroad in black silk mantles 
 which are fastened behind round the waist, pass 
 over the head, and end in a deep, black veil ; the 
 very demureness of this costume is but a refine- 
 ment in coquetry. 
 
 I bruni veli, il vedovll trapunto, 
 L'inanellata chioma, e ad imo ad uno 
 Saperne i vezzi, i dolci sguardi, il riso, 
 Lo star in se raccolta, il bel tacere. 
 
 All the fascinating arts described m these lines 
 are practised to gain, not barren admiration, but 
 men. That secret devotion of the heart, that ex- 
 clusion of mankind, that pure, incorporeal tender- 
 ness which enter into the composition of love in 
 
m 
 
 i\ 
 
 416 
 
 NAPLES. 
 
 our climates, all pass for mere fables in a society 
 like this, where every object is referred to direct 
 pleasure, and where quantity of pleasure becomes 
 a matter of calculation. Here gallantry enjoys 
 all the privileges that a rake can desire. Even 
 neighbourhood conveys rights of this kind. I 
 have seen ladies gesticulating love, up and down 
 the streets, to the gentlemen residing within a 
 certain distance from their windows; and new 
 settlers, if handsome, are soon admitted to the 
 benefit. 
 
 If Naples be " a paradise inhabited by devils," 
 I am sure it is by merry devils. Even the lowest 
 class enjoy every blessing that can make the 
 animal happy — a delicious climate, high spirits, a 
 facility of satisfying every appetite, a conscience 
 which gives no pain, a convenient ignorance of 
 their duty, and a church which ensures heaven to 
 every ruffian that has faith. Here tatters are not 
 misery, for the climate requires little covering; 
 filth is not misery to them who are born to it ; 
 and a few fingerings of maccaroni can wind up 
 the rattling machine for the day. 
 
 They are, perhaps, the only people on earth 
 that do not pretend to virtue. On their own 
 stage they suffer the Neapolitan of the drama to 
 be always a rogue. If detected in theft, a lazzarone 
 will ask you, with impudent surprise, how you 
 could possibly expect a poor man to be an angel. 
 
 SOCIETY. 
 
 417 
 
 Yet what are these wretches ? Why, men whose 
 persons might stand as models to a sculptor ; whose 
 gestures strike you with the commanding energy 
 of a savage ; whose language, gaping and broad 
 as it is, when kindled by passion, bursts into 
 oriental metaphor ; whose ideas are cooped, in- 
 deed, within a narrow circle — but a circle in which 
 they are invincible. If you attack them there, 
 you are beaten. Their exertion of soul, their 
 humour, their fancy, their quickness of argument, 
 their address at flattery, their rapidity of utter- 
 ance, their pantomime and grimace, none can 
 resist but a lazzarone himself. 
 
 These gifts of nature are left to luxuriate un- 
 repressed by education, by any notions of honesty, 
 or habits of labour. Hence their ingenuity is 
 wasted in crooked httle views. Intent on the 
 piddling game of cheating only for their own day, 
 they let the great chance lately go by, and left a 
 few immortal patriots to stake their all for pos- 
 terity, and to lose it. 
 
 In that dreadful trial of men's natures, the laz- 
 zaroni betrayed a pure love of blood which they 
 now disavow, and call in the Calabrians to divide 
 the infamy. They reeled ferociously from party 
 to party, from saint to saint, and were steady to 
 nothing but mischief and the church. Those 
 cannibals, feasting at their fires on human car- 
 nage,* would kneel down and beat their breasts 
 
 * Modesty must draw a vt'il over those lovely youn<» 
 
 2 E 
 
41S 
 
 NAPLES. 
 
 <l 
 
 II 
 
 ft 
 
 in the fervour of devotion, whenever the sacring- 
 bell went past to the sick ; and some of RutFo's 
 cut- throats would never mount their horses with- 
 out crossing themselves and muttering; a prayer. 
 
 On a people so fiery and prompt, I would em- 
 ploy every terror human and divine ac^ainst mur- 
 der ; yet no where is that crime more encoura£red 
 by impunity. A mattress-maker called lately at 
 the house where I Iodised, with a rueful face and 
 a " Malora ! malora !"— " What is the matter?" 
 said my landlord. — " My son, my poor Gennaro, 
 has had the misfortune to fall out with a neigh- 
 bour, and is now in sanctuarj ." — " What ! has he 
 murdered him ? " — " Alas ! we could not help it." 
 
 women who, to cfratify two passions at once, were led naked 
 to mutilation and death. Another outrage, too horril)lefor 
 modern language, I shall leave Juvenal to describe litcndhj. 
 
 Ut multis mortuus unus 
 
 Sufficeret, totum corrosis osslbus edit 
 Victrix turba. 
 A gentleman, whom 1 knew at Naples, had unguardedly 
 entered a street where a circle of such cannibals stood revel- 
 lino- round a fire. He wished to retreat; but he was afraid 
 of ajipearing afraid. He, therefore, advanced towards the 
 crowd, who instantly seized and threatened him with the 
 fate of a rebel. In vain did he protest his loyalty to the 
 king and cardinal. " You must prove it," said they ; '• here, 
 take this broiled slice of a jacobin's haunch and eat it be- 
 fore us." He shuddered at the idea and hesitated for a mo- 
 ment, till one of the monsters forced it into his mouth, and 
 thus created a perpetual loathing of all animal food. 
 
 SOCIETY. 
 
 419 
 
 — " Wretch ! were you an accessory too ?" — 
 " Nay, I only held the rascal's hands while my 
 poor boy dispatched him."—" And you call this 
 a misfortune ?"— " It was the will of God : what 
 would you have ?"— " I would have you both 
 hanged. Pray, how have you escaped the gal- 
 lows ?"—" Alas ! it has cost me two thousand 
 hard earned ducats to accommodate this foolish 
 affair."—" And so the relations of the dead have 
 compounded."— "No, hang them ! the cruel mon- 
 sters insisted on bringing us both to justice. You 
 must know, one of the fellow's ' compari ' is a 
 turner, who teaches the Prince Royal his trade.* 
 This vile informer denounced me to his pupil, his 
 pupil to the King, and the King ordered imme- 
 diate search to be made for me ; but the police 
 paid more respect to my ducats than to his Ma- 
 jesty's commands. We have now pacified all 
 concerned, except a brother of the deceased, a 
 malicious wretch who will listen to no terms." — 
 " He does perfectly right."—" Not if he consult 
 his own safety. My Gennaro, I can assure you, 
 is a lad of spirit."— " Miscreant ! would you mur- 
 der the brother too ?"— " If it be the wiil of God, 
 it must be done. I am sure we wish to live peace- 
 
 * How opinions change with times ! When the Romans 
 sought for some trade that should completely debase poor 
 Philip, the surviving son of King Perseus, they made a 
 turner of him. 
 
 2 E 2 
 
«l 
 
 4 
 
 fl' 
 
 t 
 
 420 
 
 NAPLES. 
 
 ably with our fellow citizens ; but if they are un- 
 reasonable, if they will keep honest people away 
 from their families and callings, they must even 
 take the consequences, and submit to God's holy 
 will." My landlord, on repeatini^ this dialogue to 
 me, added that the mattress-maker is much re- 
 spected in Naples, as an upright, religious, warm- 
 hearted man, who would cheerfully divide his 
 last ducat with his friend. 
 
 A cosi riposato, a cosl bello 
 ViviT (li cittadini, a cosi fida 
 Clttadinanza, a cosl dolce ostello 
 
 Maria mi diede. 
 
 421 
 
 TURIN. 
 
 SUB JOVE TAUKUS. AB HOC EUR.OPA VEHENDA QUIESCAT, 
 EN DOCILES HUMEROS ET COUNUA PUOMPTIOR OFFEUT : 
 CULTORES SUPERUM HUC AUEANT, ABEANTQUE PROFANI. 
 
 Inscrip. 
 
 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 widens before him — beyond him the 
 col Una studded with white villas and crowned by 
 the lofty dome of Superga. 
 
 The royal seats round Turin have lost their 
 original character. — The pretty Vigna della Re- 
 gina is deserted ; the high- roofed Valentino is con- 
 verted into a veterinary school ; the more princely 
 Stapinigi is assigned to the purposes of natural 
 history, and the vast Venerie is visited only as the 
 field of Bruley's agricultural experiments. 
 
 Turin is admired for the regularity of its plan, 
 the cleanness of its streets, the symmetry of its 
 squares, the splendour of its hotels, and the gene- 
 ral elegance of its houses. Though the Royal 
 Palace is not built in the rules of beauty, it is 
 grand enough for a monarch. The Palace of the 
 Dukes of Savoy, standing alone in the middle of 
 
m 
 
 
 TL'RIN. 
 
 the principal square, required four fronts equal 
 in dignity ; but three are hideous in themselves, 
 and derive comparative ug-liness from the beauty 
 of the fourth. This last front, (-omposed of one 
 Corinthian peristyle raised on a plain basement, 
 is the noblest elevation in Turin, where it holds 
 the post of honour. The Palace Carignaiio has 
 a curvilinear front, mezzanini above mezzanini, 
 orders that are of no order, and fantastic orna- 
 ments rather threatened than produced on the 
 unplastered bricks. The staircase is a difficult 
 trick of Guarini's, who wasted his architectural 
 wit in many attempts to frighten the world by the 
 appearance of weight unsupported. 
 
 Guarini and Guivarrahave profaned the churches 
 of Turin with the same puerile conceits, and osten- 
 tation of stone-cutting science. Their Carmine, 
 Carmelltane, Consola,&.c. evince wonderful talents 
 for the crooked, the singular and the gaudy. The 
 Sattto Sudario, a chapel common to the cathedral 
 and the palace, is entirely composed of a slate- 
 coloured marble. Such materials were in them- 
 selves solemn and monumental ; but, falline: into 
 the freakish hands of Guarini, they have been 
 frittered into a cupola full of triangular windows, 
 which form the w ildest lace-work that ever dis- 
 o^raced architecture. 
 
 Turin has suffered as a seat of trade. The 
 English, who knew best the superior value of 
 Piedmontese silk, are obliged to lessen their de- 
 
 TUllIN. 
 
 423 
 
 !*i 
 
 niand : the Germans do not require thrown silk of 
 so high a quality : and the French are satisfied 
 with their own. The silk manufactory, which 
 formerly employed 1400 looms in the city alone, 
 can hardly find work for 500, and the Albergo 
 della Virtu, which supplied them with weavers, 
 has not recovered from its late sujipression. To 
 rouse Turin from this stagnation, they are open- 
 ing: new councils of commerce, and chambers of 
 commerce, which agitate the tradesman, but which 
 do not lecal his customers. The calm, silent in- 
 dustry of the old firm is now replaced by an am- 
 bitious, impatient, precipitating activity. A desire 
 for instant and sinudtaneous improvement has 
 lately projected two new canals for the Doria and 
 the Sesia. They propose to extend the rice- 
 irrounds : leaving deserts behind, they aspire at 
 new conquests of soil, and begin to calculate on 
 the very bed of the Po. By giving a straighter 
 direction to its course, which is now double the 
 distance of its extremities, they expect to gain 
 myriads of rich acres, to increase the rapidity of 
 the flood, clear the stoppage of its mouths, and 
 prevent the inundations which annually attack its 
 
 turnings. 
 
 In science, Galvanism and Brown's system pre- 
 vail among the faculty, who are divided in most 
 states of Italy into Maggiori and Volgari. 
 
424 
 
 GENOA. 
 
 i 
 
 Genoa.— The women of all ranks go abroad 
 in the mezero, a kind of shawl which they dispose 
 over the head and shoulders, precisely as the 
 Scotch women used to wear their plaids ; and this, 
 bein^ universal, becomes as convenient a cloak 
 for jrallantry as the cucullus was of yore. The 
 Italian republics, whether from a principle of 
 equality, or from grave and frugal habits, very 
 early adopted an uniformity in dress and colours ; 
 an uniformity sometimes subservient to vice, as 
 the gondola to intrigue, and the long mantle to 
 assassination. 
 
 Here is a manufacture of stilettos allowed by 
 a government which punishes the persons that 
 wear them. During my short stay at Genoa, in 
 the beginning of 1802, three murders were com- 
 mitted in the streets. An assassin miffht be 
 hired for 50 lire; and, if taken, might be de- 
 fended by hackney swearers at 12 lire each. In 
 fact, the tribunals seemed then to trifle with jus- 
 tice. I saw two goldsmiths sentenced only to 
 one year's banishment from the city, for a crime 
 which in England incurs death, a crime which 
 even here brought the eloquent Bonfadio, the 
 public annalist of Genoa, to the block, and turned 
 the admiration of the state into outrage; for his 
 headless trunk was burnt with execration, and 
 his ashes scattered to the winds. 
 
 Poets. — Monti is another poetical priest still 
 
 GENOA. 
 
 425 
 
 worse than Casti. This sanguinary drudge of 
 revolution delights to mangle the murdered. His 
 hymn on the death of Lewis XVI. was composed 
 long after the wrath of Frenchmen had been 
 blunted by consummation ; yet it is pointed with 
 all the acrimony of fresh rancour. His dedica- 
 tions to Pius VI. " kiss the most holy feet of the 
 most blessed father;" but, when removed from 
 Rome, he refulminates at " the tyrant of the 
 Vatican," a poetical anathema written in blood. 
 Monti had been secretary and pimp to the Pope's 
 niece. Hence when his Galiotti Manfredi first 
 appeared at the theatre, some child of Pasquin 
 wrote on the doors that memorable verse of Dante, 
 
 Galeotto fu il libro e chi lo scrisse.* 
 
 Monti's turbulence had exposed him to the hatred 
 of both parties at Rome, where he owed his safety 
 to the charms of his wife. Some of the Romans 
 would have preferred the drugged cake to lull 
 this poetical Cerberus ; but the good-natured 
 Cisalpines presented the golden twig ; they ap- 
 pointed him Tragediografo to the republic, and 
 bound him by a pension of 8000 lires to write 
 patriotic plays. 
 
 * Galeotto, who catered like Monti for the amours of his 
 mistress Giiievra, passes amoni^ the Italians as an appel- 
 lative for ruffiano or pimp. — Pignotti was unusually happy 
 in a compliment which he paid at Bologna: — " Signor ! 
 grau cose in picciol tempo hai fatte I" &c. 
 
426 
 
 GENOA. 
 
 I am sorry to praise what a miscreant can do ; 
 but, in justice even to the bad, his Caius Gracchus 
 and his Aristodemus should be ranked, below 
 Alfieri's indeed, but above all other Italian tra- 
 gedies. His elegies teem with sentiments that 
 should flow from a better heart. His " Death 
 of Basseville" made him a i)ublic man. His 
 succeeding works breathe the fire of faction; 
 they are eruptions suited only to the volcanic 
 period of the revolution, mines which he sprung- 
 after the fort had been taken. How beautifully 
 does he describe his own patriotism ! 
 
 L'amor <li liberta, bello se stanza 
 Ha in cor gentile ; e se in cor basso e lortlo, 
 Non virtii ma furore e sceleranza. 
 
 Universitij. — Of the present professors the most 
 eminent were lately suspended for their partiality 
 to the French. The students were all enthusi- 
 astic, armed and eloquent in the cause of revolu- 
 tion. There was something in its doctrines, its 
 pretensions, and its promises, that stung their 
 generf)sity, their love of change, of danger, of 
 glory, and all the poetical part of the human soul. 
 They were not attached by long acquaintance to 
 old institutions, nor did they calculate the certain 
 expense of crime and of misery that was t(j pur- 
 chase an uncertain good. Some were swindled 
 out of their innocence ; they betrayed friendship 
 for the promise of liberty, and they are still as 
 
 CERTOSA. 
 
 427 
 
 they had been. Such, however, were the only 
 true proselytes that democracy could convert in 
 Italy. I believe that no man ever became a 
 patriot after his fortieth year, but from ambition 
 or disappointment, or debt, or a morbid hatred of 
 the old system, rather than a love of the new. 
 
 Certosa. — Alto recinto ai solitari figli 
 
 Del rigido Brunon secreca stanza, 
 Per sculti marmi, e per tlipinte tele, 
 Per ampio giro, e pur molt' oro famosa ! 
 
 BONDI. 
 
 This convent stands about six miles from Pisa, 
 on the side of a hill, and approaches as nearly to 
 symmetry of plan as the aggrandizing spirits of 
 monks would allow. It bears the air of a royal 
 palace, and is divided into a variety of courts. 
 In the first are the laboratory, the apothecary's 
 office, and the oil mills, all admirable for that 
 elegance of order which reigns through the whole 
 establishment, down to its most sordid details. 
 Before I saw half its extent I was astoni^hed to 
 have seen so much, astonished at the varieties of 
 mao-nificence wasted on eighteen monks. Each 
 monk has a chapel large ent)ugh for the whole 
 community, a cell consisting of several rooms, a 
 loggiata, and a garden. Their conimon prome- 
 nade is a lone: terraced roof which commands a 
 prospect of Pisa, Leghorn, the islands of Capraia, 
 
428 
 
 SETA. 
 
 Gorgona, Corsica, and thus gratifies the Fathers^ 
 with the idea, rather than the sight of their 
 estates, which are scattered over all. 
 
 Before Leopold came so often with demands 
 on their treasury, these sons of Bruno had been 
 accustomed to entertain strangers with royal hos- 
 pitality. They once received the whole court of 
 Tuscany, lodged it magnificently for one night, 
 and sent it back full of admiration : but Leopold, 
 differently impressed by their display of wealth, 
 laid his reverend hosts under immediate contri- 
 bution. This unprincely act might become a 
 Henry VIL, or Louis II., or Frederic IL; but 
 Leopold had a soul. 
 
 We were invited to dine, and saw crowds wait- 
 ing at the gate for their dole. Yet in all the 
 pride of this hospitality, the poor Carthusians 
 themselves submit to the hardest privations, con- 
 finement in a cloister, perpetual abstinence from 
 flesh, frequent fasting, solitary meals, sackcloth, 
 a bed of straw without sheets, flagellation, mid- 
 night choirs, exclusion from the sight of women, 
 and from common discourse. 
 
 Seta. — On passing from the Certosa by the 
 Baths of Pisa, the first object that strikes you, on 
 the road to Lucca, is the Villa Seta, an object 
 magnificent in itself, and remarkable for the sin- 
 gularities of its noble owner. 
 
 SETA. 
 
 429 
 
 The affectation of singularity is a pitiful little 
 passion, and needs the art of talent or of rank to 
 command the stare which it covets. Now the 
 Cavaliere Seta, being hereditary Prior of the 
 Knights of St. Stephen, and the rich representa- 
 tive of a family as ancient as the Pisan republic, 
 has sufficient means to play the fool conspicuously. 
 His advantages of birth and fortune enable him 
 to show his contempt for both. His gallery is the 
 largest in Pisa ; yet, though he cares little for his 
 pictures, and less for their presumptive heir, no 
 offer can bribe him to thin the collection, where 
 nothing struck me so much as its filth. His 
 eccentric pride will stoop to associate with none 
 but his own peasantry, whom he often entertains 
 with studied luxury at this superb villa. In his 
 town-palace he built a theatre, but left it unused, 
 and went to exhibit on a different stage. He 
 assumed the character of a mountebank, and 
 appeared on trestles in most of the Roman towns. 
 He afterwards opened a coffee-house at the baths 
 of Pisa, for the pleasure of acting as a waiter to 
 those whom he would not condescend to herd 
 with elsewhere. At present, he farms the post- 
 house at Fornacette, for the privilege of parading 
 the streets in the dress of a groom ; and, when 
 he drives his own cattle, he is more importunate 
 for drink-money, than his fellow-postiUons. 
 Such characters are peculiar to the higher order 
 
i 
 
 v: 
 
 430 
 
 LUCCA. 
 
 of Italians. The Marquis Bicchi is another noble 
 post-boy, as common as his own hacks on the 
 Siena road. Here I would impute the low pro- 
 pensities of" noblemen to the gallantry of their 
 mothers. Commodus convinced the whole world 
 that he was the son of a gladiator, and Italy is 
 still full of Faustinae. 
 
 LuccA. — I was not long enough among the 
 Lucchese to enter much into their character. 
 Dante swept all the men into his hell at one fell 
 swoop, with the broom of a true Florentine. 
 Their wives, perhaps, are more correct than their 
 neighbours ; for the " Santa Zitta" swarms with 
 prostitutes, a profession which is hardly neces- 
 sary at Pisa. I was introduced to three ladies 
 of a very different class at St. Catherine's con- 
 vent. While I stood with their brother admirina* 
 an altar-piece in the chapel, several nuns flocked 
 behind the grate, and wishfully asked us whether 
 that surpassed the great allegorical picture at 
 San Romano's convent. Those poor women had 
 renounced all personal and family prides, and 
 were alive only to that of their community. 
 
 Gallery. — All the treasures of the Tribuna, 
 the Venus, the dancing faun, the wrestlers, the 
 grinder ; all the Raphaels, Titians, Correggios, 
 lay then at Palermo, in the custody of the direc- 
 tor Puccini. The Florentines murmured at the 
 
 DOCCIA. 
 
 431 
 
 detention of objects so dear to them. Ferdinand 
 claimed them in right of his family ; Lewis, in 
 right of his crown ; and the King of Naples de- 
 tained them till the stronger claim should pre- 
 vail. Thus was this precious deposite disputed 
 by two princes, in the hands of a third, and at 
 the disposal of a fourth power, though it right- 
 fully belonged to none of them ; for Leopold, as 
 if presaging some contention of the kind, had 
 solemnly declared the gallery to be the property 
 of the nation. 
 
 Theatre. — I saw Zanerini in a translation of 
 Diderot's Pere de Famille extort applause from a 
 foreigner. " Quale franchezza ! quel piccoli det- 
 tagli ! e la natura stessa !" — " Predica un po 
 troppo," (said an Italian who sat next him) — 
 " Non e vero ; non o mai visto Italiano da pa- 
 ragonare con costui. I Francesi soli possono 
 superarlo." — " Become ! superare la natura 
 stessa!" — " Zitti !" cried the audience and 
 stopped the dialogue. 
 
 DocciA. — An Englishman must leave his own 
 country before he can be sensible how incom- 
 parably it excels all Europe in general manufac- 
 ture. Other countries may produce, for exhibi- 
 tion, a few bales of cloth or a few cases of cutlery 
 superior to any cloth or cutlery made in England; 
 but those should be considered rather as chefs- 
 

 AREZZO. 
 
 I 
 
 w 
 
 d'oeuvre than as articles of trade, and as the 
 
 fruits of a contention which often ruins the 
 
 tradesman. Here I saw no such ambition, nor 
 any pretensions to the exquisite. 
 
 Arezzo. — In 1799 the Aretinesset the French 
 at defiance, and cut down the tree of liberty be- 
 fore it was firm in the g-round. Armed with some 
 muskets, two swivels, and a few wooden cannon 
 bound with iron hoops, they began what the 
 other Tuscans, in defence of their own pusilla- 
 nimity, called insurrection. Thev assumed the 
 imperial cockade, they expelled, imprisoned, or 
 killed the patriots, and repulsed the Poles on 
 their march to Florence. They chose the Virgin 
 for their generalissima, raised her an army of 
 26,000 men, scoured the country, pulled down 
 bridges, and intercepted provisions. When Mac- 
 donald had left Florence, they summoned the 
 city to surrender, terrified the senate into capi- 
 tulation, and entered in triumph, headed by a 
 lady, la Signora Mari. 
 
 Convinced that the terror of their arms alone 
 had expelled the French army from Tuscany, they 
 had the temerity to oppose its return. Four hun- 
 dred Aretines, secure under the standard of the 
 Blessed Virgin, marched to Prato Antico, and 
 gave battle to 7000 victorious troops. They fired 
 and fled. Mounier pursued them to Arezzo, and 
 
 CORTONA — ROME. 
 
 433 
 
 entered the town ; but he was satisfied with the 
 plunder of some houses and the death of about 
 40 ringleaders in the war. 
 
 CoRTONA.— A seminary has been established 
 here by the Vagnotti in a spacious palace ; but 
 unfortunately the institution has fallen into the 
 hands of parish priests. All teaching that is not 
 clerical should be kept sacred from the clergy; 
 for, when united with theirs, the more important 
 duty will invariably give way to the more easy one. 
 
 Rome. VaUcan.—Such a receptacle for sculp- 
 ture would naturally excite a craving to fill it. 
 Pius VI. surely deserved well of the arts, lie 
 bought, he begged, he dug up, he removed anti- 
 quities : he even employed some of Verres's expe- 
 dients to form a gallery; but he never demolished. 
 He fleeced his subjects to enrich a rapacious 
 nephew; but not a stone nor a statue of antiquity 
 would he grant him, either to build his new palace 
 or to furnish it. 
 
 F///a6\— Their fervour, as if inspired by the 
 genius of the place, assumed here a fine antiqua- 
 rian tone. On detecting one of the four carya- 
 tides to be modern, they left her on the ground 
 where she lay in fragments.— Some of the'^Muses 
 in this work of Mengs's are portraits of the most 
 celebrated beauties of the day; but all are now 
 
 2f 
 
434 
 
 ROME. 
 
 sunk into oblivion, except the fair Lepri, who is 
 indebted to the late pope for a celebrity which has 
 sunived her charms. This lady had been ten 
 years married to the Marcpiis Lepri without being 
 a mother ; yet, immediately on his death, she 
 declared herself pregnant for the first time, and, 
 nine months after, she bore a daughter. The 
 marquis's brother, being thus disappointed by her 
 suspected gallantry, ceded, in a rage, all his claims 
 of inheritance to Pius VI., and entered into the 
 prelacy. Pius sued for the property before his 
 own tribunal ; telling the friends who dissuaded 
 him from such baseness, that " a million of 
 crowns was not a thing to spit on." As the 
 judges of the Ruota vote always in secret, the 
 majority were brave enough to decide against 
 their sovereign ; but the vindictive pontiff found 
 means to discover their names, and banished 
 them from his presence. He persisted in his ini- 
 quity, and, appealing to a second decision, ob- 
 tained too large a portion of his demand. I am 
 glad, however, to learn that this plunder, no 
 longer in holy hands, is now reclaimed from 
 Braschi. 
 
 Letters and Arts. — " This fellow ^ecks up wit 
 as pigeons pease." A gleaner of opinions, a 
 parasite in literature, Fea lives upon other men's 
 ideas, \\hatever you communicate — " Pho!" 
 cries he, " I knew that an age ago," and runs 
 
 FRASCATI. 
 
 435 
 
 home with it directly to his common-place. His 
 colleague in the Chigi library has enabled him 
 to edit Winkelman with the spirit of an enemy. 
 He is now connoisseur to the pope, the oracle of 
 all new comers, the living encyclopedia of Rome ; 
 — Abate Fea the antiquary. Abate Fea the 
 lawyer. Abate Fea the economist, the naturalist, 
 the journalist, the Arcadian, the translator; in 
 short, the grub of literature risen into a but- 
 terfly that flutters in every walk, and pesters you 
 into attention. En is a bee which has produced 
 honey and can sting. Esteemed only for his 
 antiquarian depth and sagacity, he was dreaded 
 during the late revolution for his vindictive spirit, 
 and will be ever abhorred for that ingratitude 
 which sought the blood of his generous patron, 
 the pope. He is now entrusted with the care of 
 statues: in the Bracciano cabinet he betrayed 
 too fine a passion for antique. 
 
 " Quemadmoduni ipse appellat, studium ; ut 
 amici ejus, morbuni et insaniam ; ut alii, lutro- 
 cinium." Cicero's distinction hit hundreds here. 
 One antique onyx, which I saw in a private ca- 
 binet, had been stolen successively from two dif- 
 ferent collections, and came back by theft to the 
 rightful owner. 
 
 Frascati. — The villa Bracciano has been lately 
 sold, with a whole duchy and its titles, (Ibr here 
 
 2 f2 
 
436 
 
 FRASCATI. 
 
 f 
 
 rank follows the feud,) to a shopman, the son of 
 a valet. This fellow's transformation into a duke 
 is not one of St. Peter's usual miracles, but the 
 fruits of a pawn-broking;, usurious bank. 
 
 The cardinal (York's) brother was a man of a 
 higher order, quick of perception, amiable, free 
 from all the Stuart prejudices, accomplished and 
 brave. Rash as a knig-ht-errant, he went back a 
 second time to a country whence his former es- 
 cape had been miraculous, and where his head 
 was still a high-priced object. — England was just 
 respiring from the late rebellion, when, in 1748, 
 on the faith of a single gentleman, he set out for 
 London in a hideous disguise, under the name of 
 Smith. On arriving there, he was introduced at 
 midnight into a room full of conspirators whom 
 he had never seen. " Here," said his conductor, 
 " is the person you want," and left him locked 
 up in this mysterious assembly. These were 
 men who imagined themselves equal, at that 
 time, to treat with him for the throne of England. 
 " Dispose of me, gentlemen, as you please," said 
 Charles ; " my life is in your power, and I there- 
 fore can stipulate for nothing. Yet give me, I 
 entreat, one solemn promise, that, if yoiu' design 
 should succeed, the present family shall be sent 
 safely and honourably home." 
 
 For a few davs the vouns: adventurer was flat- 
 tered with the glorious prospect, until difficulties 
 
 FRASCATI. 
 
 437 
 
 arose on the part of the French ambassador, 
 whose court had cooled in the Stuart cause. 
 Charles remained on the rack of suspense for a 
 week in London, where different persons recog- 
 nized him in the streets ; but (such was ever his 
 only good-fortune) none betrayed him. He then 
 returned to Paris to encounter cruel indignities, 
 and was there arrested and expelled the kingdom. 
 France had settled on James III, a pension of 
 24,000 crowns, which, on his death, she reduced 
 to 18,000; alleging that Charles was not, like 
 him, encumbered with the title of majesty nor 
 with children. Charles would not accept less 
 than his father had, and received nothing. Ap- 
 plication was then made to Spain. Spain pro- 
 mised him an allowance equal to whatever he 
 should receive from France ; and therefore gave 
 nothing. Thus eluded by kings, he was reduced 
 to live on the bounty of churchmen. Succeeding 
 popes, as if proud of a royal pensioner, settled on 
 him a fixed income, and assigned him palaces at 
 Rome and Albano ; while unknown friends in 
 Britain remitted to his banker occasional sums, 
 in defiance of the law which inflicted the pain of 
 treason on such 2:enerositv. 
 
 A dependence so ignoble, and such a train of 
 disappointment working on the mind of a man 
 who was surrounded by a drunken household of 
 Britons, betrayed him into a course of ebriety 
 
 
n 
 
 438 
 
 FRASCATI. 
 
 Nt 
 
 which (lenrraded Charles still more. He afterwards 
 returned, indeed, to the sober habits of an Itali in ; 
 but he returned all in ruins, and the ruins left by 
 intemperance are never venerable. Neither old 
 age, nor royal birth, nor misfortune itself, could 
 protect him from the impertinence of some tra- 
 vellers, who, catching him in this fallen state, un- 
 fairly described the prince when he had ceased to 
 be a man. Sunk into the weakness of an old 
 woman, he would then retire from every new 
 vexation, to consult Nostradamus, and, always 
 interpreting those prophecies in favour of his own 
 hopes, he continued till his death confident of 
 reigning one day in Britain. He often practised 
 the royal quackery of touching for the evil, and 
 
 once, I have been assured, on a prince of . 
 
 His conduct to his daughter was strange, was 
 unnatural. On this amiable child he resented the 
 sudden desertion of her mother, Miss Walkinshaw. 
 His wife afterwards left him at Florence, as 
 abruptly as his mistress had done. Cut to the 
 soul by this cruel infidelity, he implored the late 
 king of Sweden, who was then on his travels, to 
 engage the countess by any concessions to return ; 
 but Gustavus, when at Rome, was too highly 
 captivated by the lady to fulfil that commission. 
 Charles, then bending under anticipated old age, 
 was at last persuaded to recall his daughter from 
 the convent where she resided in France. He 
 
 TERRACINA NAPLES CASERTA. 
 
 439 
 
 received her back with tears of contrition. His 
 fondness was excessive, like his aversion ; he 
 created her Duchess of Albany, and thus offended 
 his brother. 
 
 Terracina. — Braschi's works here challenge 
 admiration, till we rellect that the port of Terra- 
 cina and half the marshes are alienated from the 
 public to his nephew ; that, in attempting to drain 
 these, he also drained the strong box of Fort St. 
 Angelo, plundered the treasury of Loretto, and 
 robbed his subjects of 30 millions of piastres by 
 his bankrupt schedules. 
 
 Naples. — The Sedili are falling to ruin, and 
 are ilo longer the seats of assembly, nor even fit 
 to serve as halting places to the old processions. 
 The nobility of Sedili and of Piazza maintain 
 some of their old distinctions; yet what are those 
 deputati, capitani di strada, eletti, consultori, pro- 
 curatori, sindachi, but mere names, and robe- 
 bearers, who are suffered to amuse themselves and 
 the people with the shadow of ancient authorities, 
 of which n-overnment has assumed the substance ? 
 All those separate powers it has collected into one 
 and left no oppressor in Naples. 
 
 Caserta. — If their presence excludes the 
 stranger, it should at least protect him ; yet in 
 
440 
 
 CIVITA CASTELLANA FAENZA. 
 
 the very corridores of the palace we were pestered 
 with beggars, and in the courts below a ruffian 
 ran past us with a drawn poniard, in pursuit of a 
 man who had insulted him, and when disap- 
 pointed of his blow, he walked back deliberately 
 towards a sentinel who looked on. 
 
 CiviTA Castellana. — Here an Austrian gene- 
 ral was lately betrayed by his own obstinate piety. 
 An alarm of a sortie was given while he happened 
 to be praying at church ; he went instantly out, 
 but seeing no enemy, he damned the sentinel who 
 had disturbed him, and then returned to his de- 
 votions, where he persisted till the French sur- 
 rounded the church, and made him prisoner. 
 
 Faenza.— I passed through Cesenna, the three 
 Forums, and Faenza too rapidly for remark. But 
 what can now be remarked except their losses ! 
 A canon of Faenza after a year's absence from his 
 stall, returned as a guide to two French commis- 
 saries whom he assisted in selecting the treasures 
 of the cathedral. Against such treachery no con- 
 cealment could protect any cherished object, and 
 by such means did the con([uerors themselves 
 give to each community a minute inventory of the 
 effects to be produced.— Italian artists, if they 
 work for their country, should paint only in fresco, 
 until Italian soldiers learn to defend whatever an 
 invader can carry off. 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 441 
 
 Venice. — I found the arsenal scrupulously 
 guarded and difficult of access, thouGfb no lono-er, 
 as in Dante's davs. 
 
 Ne r Arzena de' Venitiani 
 
 Bolle r inverno la tenace pece, 
 A ripalmar li legni lor non sani. 
 
 With her marine, Venice has lost her commercia, 
 ascendant in the Adriatic, and lost that hope, 
 which alone could repair all other losses. Several 
 trades, even the goldsmiths, have declined since 
 the late revolution. At Murano I saw but few 
 furnaces in action. — That revolution has cut off 
 several subjects from the pen of a traveller, has 
 dissolved the mechanism of the late government, 
 and deterred him from inquiring into the new. 
 The Austrians seem to have shut up the mouths 
 of the people, as well as those of the lions, and 
 will necessarily train the Venetians to their own 
 politicid discipline. 
 
 Our company in the barge was motley in the 
 extreme — clergy of all colours, some of whom 
 went to prayers and others to cards ; noble Vene- 
 tians and Venetians plebeian enough. The women 
 of all ranks were easy and gay, with the exception 
 of one lady whom the rest stared at as a monster 
 in the species ; for, on the slightest freedom, her 
 delicacy bristled up all the defences of a decorous 
 old maid. 
 
442 
 
 VICENZA. 
 
 VicENZA. — From Vicenza we proceeded on 
 plain prround through a defile in the Eug-anean 
 hills ; but the Gua having- flooded the high road, 
 we were obliged to pass at a distance the flunous 
 wine of Montebello. At Torre de' Coufini we 
 found a group of people listening to one who was 
 dressed in republican green. This bold politician 
 would descend to nothing lower than revolutions. 
 Secure in the ignorance of his auditory, he was 
 declaiming on a late insurrection in China, the 
 flight of the emperor, his adventures and death. — 
 " Bagatelle ! " cried a dry humoured vetturino. — 
 " Nay, if you do not believe me, go to Verona, 
 for the conspiracy has spread all over the city." 
 — " Spread from China to Verona ?" — " Yes, I 
 left it this very morning."—" Which of the two?" 
 — " I say, I left Verona this morning all in flames 
 — twenty thousand in the plot — two hundred 
 and seventy arrested — the houses of the conspi- 
 rators burnt down, and their lists unfortunately 
 destroyed." 
 
 Poi si parti, e parve di coloro 
 
 Che corrono a Verona il drappo verde 
 Per la carapagnu — 
 
 We at last arrive at Verona, we inquire into the 
 conspiracy, and find the 20,000 insurgents re- 
 duced to a dozen of coiners, who had infested the 
 city with false money, and set fire to the rooms 
 where their tools were concealed. 
 
 MILAN niLEGR.EAN-FTELDS rADUA. 443 
 
 Milan. — The people are returning from the 
 late shock to those kind, convivial habits which 
 saved them from the hatred even of their Italian 
 neighbours. They desire no further changes that 
 may afl'ect their tranquillity, they look back with 
 horror to that short period when patriotism ran 
 mad, and trod under foot all the decencies, all 
 the charities of life, when wives contended with 
 their husbands in blasphemy and bloodshed, 
 when a daughter, mounting the tribune, offered 
 her primizie to any man that should bring her 
 the Pope's head, and her father, an instructor of 
 youth, embraced her, transported at the philo- 
 sophical proposal. 
 
 Phlegr^an-Fields. — Italians, though de- 
 clined from their former purity, have still the 
 vantage ground of Englishmen in Latin compo- 
 sition. They laugh severely at our present La- 
 tinity, as a beggarly patch-work dipt out of 
 heterogeneous classics, and sewed together with 
 solecisms of our own. 
 
 Padua. — Not long since, a Venetian Senator, 
 being deputed as a visitor to this University, 
 asked the astronomer if the observatory wanted 
 any instrument. " It wants nothing," replied 
 Chiminelli, " except a good horizon." — " Ho- 
 rizon !" said the most potent signor, " why then 
 we must send to London for one." 
 
444 
 
 TAVIA. PISA. 
 
 Pavia. — This is the present metropolis of 
 Italian science. Though scientific men are in 
 general less irritable than the race of i)oets, yet 
 the very genius of the place and the aguish air of 
 Pavia, seem to have infected its philosophers with 
 a feverous spleen. Spallanzani dispatched poor 
 Scopoli by his scurrility; and fell, in his turn, a 
 victim to the spite of Fontana, who, satisfied with 
 bringing him to the grave, bespattered him with 
 posthumous praise. Fontana himself died lately 
 in the very odour of ill-nature, and has left his 
 character to be embalmed by his enemies. Volta 
 was described to me as a " gran spacciatore delle 
 cose sue, e non sue," a name buoyed up for a 
 while by the French chemists, who are too full of 
 their own merits to dwell long on those of others. 
 Scarpa's fame is more solidly established, and 
 supports the fame of Pavia. 
 
 Pisa. — Scotto is the richest man in Tuscanv. 
 Born at Naples a lazzarone, he first appeared at 
 Leghorn in a wine-cellar as pot-boy. A Neapoli- 
 tan gave him a large sum to convey ; but this he 
 risked on an adventure of his own, and thus laid 
 the foundation of his future fortune. He con- 
 tracted with Spain for 100,000 muskets, and 
 gained a ducat on each. He could now afford to 
 be honest and restored the deposite. He has 
 lately withdrawn his money from the ignoble gain 
 of trade to usance of 4 per cent, per month ; he 
 
 PISA. 
 
 445 
 
 buys up every acre, has one of the Riccardi es- 
 tates, and lives here in one of the three Palazzi, 
 which he has called artists from Rome to embel- 
 lish. — His tenements are kept in bright repair, 
 thus employing the poor and showing the rich 
 how neatness excels their dirty magnificence. 
 Scotto stands here alone : he does not rise abreast 
 with his fortune, but looks as if he still wore the 
 apron. 
 
 St. Ann and St. Joseph^s convents are now 
 united as a conser\^atory for young ladies. A very 
 young man and I were conducted by a nun, even 
 into the bed-chambers, wliere one of the boarders 
 lay sick in bed. The nun who conducted us was 
 an old lady of the Manzi family. On asking my 
 name (the Casato is never mentioned) she con- 
 gratulated me that no Joseph was ever yet known 
 to be damned. St. Joseph being the patron of 
 her old convent and her own peculiar, tutelary 
 saint, in compliment to nie, she opened a little 
 sanctuary and showed us an ancient crucifix 
 which had belonged for ages to her family, and 
 had wrought many miracles. She was at the 
 trouble of lighting six candles, and on every St. 
 Joseph's day went to the expense of thirty masses 
 and a music to it. " Pray, are your convents 
 rich in England?" — " We have none." — "Ah! 
 che brutto 2:overno !" 
 
 Italian historians, from Petrarch downwards, 
 
446 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 can count volume for volume with any nation. 
 Some are respected but not read. Guicciardini, 
 Davila, Bentivoglio, Bembo, Giannoiie, Paruta, 
 Pallavicini, drop into books of reference and rest 
 on the shelf, while Muratori and Maffei, Mac- 
 chiavel and F. Paul, are admired and read : De- 
 nina read, not admired. Every little state in 
 Italy had its historian : yet Rome, strictly speak- 
 in"-, has none. 
 
 Florence. — Advent and Lent the two seasons 
 of preachinjr : Monks chiefly employed : much 
 unction : Some habits advantageous to action. 
 Preacher enters the pulpit followed by another 
 clergyman who remains concealed in it, and hands 
 the handkerchief. He bows all round to the au- 
 dience; repeats a short mental prayer standing; 
 then turning towards the altar, kneels and says an 
 Ave Mar}' aloud. He rises, gives his text in Latin, 
 which is always very short, a motto rather than a 
 source of deduction. He then begins his first pe- 
 riod, stops in the midst of it, takes off his square 
 cap and bows to the bishop or congregation, puts 
 it on and begins the period anew. At the men- 
 tion of Christ, his blood, or the Virgin, he and all 
 the clergy present take off their caps. A large 
 wooden crucifix is stuck in the side of the pulpit, 
 to receive an occasional apostrophe. He walks, 
 stands, sits, at freedom. The sermon lasts an 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 447 
 
 hour and is divided into three parts, of which the 
 middle is much the longest. Between the dif- 
 ferent parts all the people cough, hawk, spit, and 
 blow their noses. He begins the third part with 
 an appeal to the charity of his hearers, deduced 
 from the subject, upon which two acolytes go 
 round to collect alms. He then announces the 
 subject of his next, and concludes. Such is the 
 form: as to the substance of an Italian sermon, I 
 may say of every preacher but one, " quoniam 
 quid dicerit intelligi noluit, omittamus." 
 
 Lo Spedale degli Innocenti is the only charity 
 here free from debt, though it admits not only 
 bastards, but les^itimate children, who mav be 
 afterwards acknowledged by their parents, and 
 still remain here. It has 15 fattorie and several 
 houses in Florence. The sottoposti more than 
 2000, of whom 300 here, and the rest in depen- 
 dent hospitals, in the country at nurse, at work 
 with farmers, &c., 50 lattenti in house ; 50 under 
 2 years old, sitting in chairs, in a row, before 
 their nurses, four to each. I found the poor 
 creatures silent, yet anxiously looking towards the 
 door, for their dinner, which was just coming- in : 
 they were well fed and clean. Each wet-nurse 
 had three sucklings, but a generous allowance of 
 food. Instead of the hollow wheel, here is only 
 an iron grate for receiving the foundlings, which 
 cannot pass through, if more than a month old. 
 
448 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 When they are placed within the grate, which is 
 always at night, the bearer rings the bell and 
 departs. Instead of Cosimo's bust, I would place 
 over the grate the following passage of Juvenal — 
 
 Stat Fortuna improba noctii 
 
 Arridens nudis infautibus: hos fovet oranes 
 luvolvitque siuu. 
 
 Santissima Nunziata is the chief resort of the 
 godly. The rural fraternities bring hither every 
 Sunday from Dominica in albis till Trinity, a 
 barrel of oil each (15 gallons) on an ass tricked 
 out with ribbons, which enters the church fol- 
 lowed by the donors, who seem of the same family, 
 are dressed in canvass tunics, and measure their 
 steps by psalmody. F. Angelico (of the noble 
 family Cardi) told me that the church and house 
 consumed yearly 60 barrels of oil : their income is 
 18,000 crowns, out of which about 100 persons live. 
 These Servites possess some fine frescos. In one 
 cloister is the Madonna del Sacco of Andrea del 
 Sarto, so called from the sack of flour on which 
 Joseph reposes, and which was all that Andrea 
 received for this, his chef-d'oeuvre. Ilaviu"- taken 
 sanctuary here in consequence of a murder,* (like 
 
 * This is incorrect ; neither Doraenichino nor Andrea 
 were murderers. The latter painted the Madonna del Sacco 
 for a devout lady who had made a vow to present such a pic- 
 ture. Many of Andrea del Sarto's pictures also are highly 
 1 oetical and full of feeling. 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 449 
 
 Domenichino at Grotta Ferrata,) the fathers 
 kept him fully employed, chiefly on the story of 
 their founder. His Dead Christ painted on a stair 
 leading to the Seminary here, was so highly va- 
 lued by the Intendenti, that they attempted to cut 
 it out and transport it to the Academy. Sarto, 
 though a great colourist, had no poetry in his 
 head, nor pathos in his heart. A painter joined 
 us in the refectory, while I stood admirinn- Santi 
 da Tito's feast at the chief of the synao-on-ue's, he 
 found nothing excellent but the innesto of six 
 angels in the glory ; I, who do not like glories, 
 was more struck by the heavenly benignity which 
 beamed in the Christ. In the corridors and hall 
 are a multitude of portraits ; but I did not see 
 among those monks the most celebrated of their 
 order, Paolo Sarpi. It is not true, as some assert, 
 that F. Paul would never sit for his portrait; but 
 he was neither pope, cardinal, bishop, general, 
 nor prior, and to none else do those humble friars 
 allow house-room. 
 
 I went with some ladies to see a nun at St. 
 Donienico's convent. The grated parlour bein«- 
 full of visitors, we went to a hall where the nun 
 was sitting in conversation with her sister Sio-- 
 nora Orsi. Here was no grate. We sat in the 
 hall, the nun in a corridor; the door between 
 both was wide open, yet the sill of that door, only 
 an inch high, was a sacred partition which none 
 could pass without leave obtained from the arch- 
 
 2g 
 
450 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 451 
 
 bishop and abbess. The conversation falling an 
 some convent where clean linen was thought a 
 sinful luxury, and the sheets were never changed, 
 our cloistered friend said, " no pigs entered pa- 
 radise, for St. Peter excluded St. Anthony's 
 favourite hog even at the gate of heaven." When 
 her sister, who had been brought up at court, 
 talked freely of the monastic life, " Ah!" said 
 the nun, " God Almighty must make a very 
 large door for paradise, before thou canst enter." 
 Her idea of heaven appeared to me Mahometan. 
 A lady in our party was attended by a Baron 
 Testa of Pisa, to whom she was affianced. The 
 nun, knowing that this lady's guardian disap- 
 proved the match and wished her to take the 
 veil, told her at parting, in a most solemn tone, 
 " I know your engagement to the baron, but you 
 will die before it is accomplished." Thus do 
 such enthusiasts hazard jjrophecies. Some are 
 fulfilled, are recorded in the annals of the con- 
 vent and trumpeted abroad, while the hundreds 
 that fail are forgotten as words of course. Every 
 prophecy accomplished, passes as a miracle; 
 three miracles, well attested, are sufficient to 
 beatify, and nine of the first class, to canonize. 
 Hence the multitude of venerabili, beati, and 
 santi in the Italian rubric. 
 
 Santa Maddalena de* Pazzi. While admir- 
 ing the high altar, I heard the nuns, unseen, 
 begin their vespers, which they chanted divinely; 
 
 the distance, the seclusion, the quality of those 
 noble ladies, made it more interesting. In the 
 midst of rich architecture, twelve large jasper 
 columns, rilievi, in bronze, paintings of Luca 
 Giordano, and a church hung with embroidered 
 satin for the approaching festival of the saint, — 
 I had no eyes till the music ceased. " Te lucis 
 ante, si divotamente," &c. Purg. ix. — The Pazzi 
 family, which produced this saint, could also boast 
 some eminent sinners ; for the assassins of the 
 two Medici were relations of this holy lady. 
 Her festival and St. Zenobio's, another Floren- 
 tine saint, fell on the 25th of May. St. Zenobio 
 lies now in the nave of the Duomo, where, on 
 that day, a temporary altar was raised over liis 
 tomb, on which his mitre and skull cased in a 
 silver head were exposed. Some sickly children 
 were brought to kiss them ; after every kiss the 
 skull was wiped with a nosegay by the acolyte. 
 On July 9th, 1802, St. Zenobio's relics were 
 again exposed for three days, to obtain rain after 
 a long drought. Towards the close of the triduo 
 the queen went, and had hardly returned home 
 when a heavy shower of rain came on and lasted 
 for some days. The clergy were flushed with 
 triumph and all former failures forirotten. 
 
 Certosa, about two miles from Florence, re- 
 sembles a gothic fortress, and rivals the Pisan in 
 riches, situation, and extent. It was founded, in 
 
 2 G 2 
 
It 
 
 452 
 
 FLOREN'CE. 
 
 1 341, by Acciaioli, " for God's greater g'lory" and 
 his own. A French regiment was lately quar- 
 tered here without dislodging a single monk. 
 Pius VI., on his flight from Rome, retired here 
 and has left several memorials of his stay behind. 
 The prior, to whom my friend Giuseppe Baldi 
 introduced me, ordered the sanctuary to be 
 opened, and displayed his connoisseurship on the 
 pictures. Benvenuti and another young artist 
 have lately painted here two fine St. John 
 Baptists. 
 
 Good Friday. — The archbishop entered the 
 Duomo in the middle of the service, his shoes 
 were taken otf, and he went barefoot to prostrate 
 himself and kiss a recumbent crucifix. In the 
 most solemn parts of the performance, my emo- 
 tions were disturbed by a young priest who tit- 
 tered ostentatiously while chanting the Passion, 
 part of which was highly pathetic. A good 
 actor never laughs out of time ; I would have 
 hissed him from his stage, if I durst. The ser- 
 vice went on ; and so did this impertinent fool. 
 It w^as a string at variance with the rest of the 
 instrument, and destroyed the effect of the whole 
 piece. At night the company of Gesu Pellegrino 
 formed a lugubrious pageant. AU the streets in 
 the line of procession were illuminated, and the 
 houses buna: with festoons of black and white 
 cloth. Cavalcades of Jews and Romans, priests 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 453 
 
 and gentlemen, horse and foot. Every portable 
 object connected with the crucifixion — the cross, 
 scourging post, rods, crown of thorns, spear, 
 spunge, tankard, purple robe, dice, hammers, 
 nails, pincers, each had its bearer. Then came 
 the Dead Christ recumbent under a canopy of 
 black velvet and gold ; last the Virgin, following 
 him, erect in deep mourning, with a white hand- 
 kerchief in her hand. The Saviour passed un- 
 heeded by; but the " Santissima Vergine — ah 
 Poverina !" drew tears from many. Passing by 
 the Palazzo Vecchio where the court appeared at 
 a balcony in black, she courtsied to their majes- 
 ties, who graciously returned the salute. — Satur- 
 day I went to the Duomo : altar and throne were 
 hung with black, which were presently trans- 
 formed into cloth of gold. The Archbishop enters 
 with jewelled mitre and crosier. Gloria in excelsis 
 is sung. The organ, till then silent, strikes up. 
 The pigeon sets fire to the car. All the bells in 
 Florence, which had their clappers tied up for 
 two days lest the devil should get among them 
 and disturb the holy pause*, rang out at once. 
 
 * The devil owes them u spite : — 
 
 E a chi si faniio tanti preghi e tanti 
 Su le campane ? Perche sonin bene, 
 E la fime, e il battaglio non si schiauti ? 
 Si f'aimo solo per guastar con esse 
 Le traverse che il Diavol ci lacesse. 
 
 ItiCCIARDETTO. 
 
454 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 # 
 
 The public clocks were again allowed to strike ; 
 the soldiers, whose arms had been all that time 
 reversed, shouldered them. 
 
 About twenty young ladies, Spose monache, 
 who had left the convent for a few months, and 
 had come back to the world to take an eternal 
 leave of it, were brought to the Duomo, dressed 
 in a profusion of jewels, enormous nosegays and 
 emblematical bows of blue riband ; in this cos- 
 tume they are led to a final sacrifice, when half 
 an hour disrobes them of their finer)-, restores 
 their jewels to their friends, clips off their hair, 
 and gives up the finest forms to the shapeless 
 concealment of a woollen habit, the equalizing 
 tomb of elegance and deformity. Several of those 
 novices were much under thirty, the age pre- 
 scribed by Leopold. The church, sensible of the 
 doubts now spreading through her flock, slips in 
 among the distrusts of a divided society, and 
 exerts all the power which a most catholic go- 
 vernment gives her over its functionaries, to 
 drive back vagrants to her holy fold. During 
 Lent, the priests go round to every house to re- 
 gister all that would and all that would not com- 
 municate at Easter. Formerly the unprepared 
 kept at a reverend distance — " Sed nunc ad quas 
 non Clodius aras !" — An edict, published during 
 my stay at Florence, making the Tuscan church 
 dependant on the pope, seemed to clear the 
 
 SIENA. 
 
 455 
 
 ground for re-erecting the Inquisition. " And 
 is not the Holy Office (said I once to a priest) a 
 defence more necessary now than ever to your 
 religion?" — "Give yourself no concern (said 
 he) about our religion; it produced yours and 
 will outlive it. Its simplicity alone will make it 
 immortal. It excludes doubt and requires no- 
 thing but faith; while your religion, by admit- 
 ting investigation into it, has the principle of its 
 death working in its bosom." — " But your 
 church?" — "That is a very different thing. 
 All churches were created by politics, are suf- 
 fered to exist by politics, and will be abolished 
 by politics. It lately lay with one young man 
 whether there should be a church or no in France 
 and Italy. His political calculations determined 
 that there should; but religion and deism re^- 
 main just as before." 
 
 Siena. — Santa Anna Rinieri has the first con- 
 versazione here for talents and accomplishments ; 
 her cavaliere, the Commendatore Berlinghieri, is 
 the first poet here. She educates her own chil- 
 dren, and showed me a journal divided into co- 
 lumns, entitled Dottrina Christiana, lettura Ita- 
 liana, lettura Francese: scritto: abbaco : lavoro : 
 ballo : condotta : and opposite each day of the 
 month, an epithet appreciates and records the 
 merit of each pupil in each column. The chil- 
 
 III , iiiii"jiii'i||iiiiiiifi|'ir"~.T': 
 
456 
 
 SIENA. 
 
 |ll 
 
 r 
 
 dren hnns; her at night pen, ink and the journal, 
 with alacrity or hesitation accordinc: to their 
 deserts. The journal spares her the necessity of 
 correction or reproof. 
 
 The Accademia Italiana, established here about 
 five years ai^o, was nearly stranjrled in its cradle. 
 Its first journals, though they exclude politics, 
 being published while the French were here, the 
 printer took the name of citizen on the title-page, 
 and his shop was threatened with flames by the 
 Aretines. They resumed their publication last 
 January. Its president is a Count Vargas, an 
 Anglo-Portuguese, v^^hose lodgings I occupied 
 here. He is now at Naples, and the seal of the 
 academy, which is diffused over Italy, is sup- 
 posed to follow him. Vargas is too general to 
 be deep, he speaks all languages and none well. 
 He has an interest at all courts, and a corre- 
 spondence with literati all over Europe, which 
 alone qualify him for the presidence. A mystery 
 hangs over his birth and fortunes ; he has neither 
 estate nor friends, except a company in the Nea- 
 politan service. He showed me a military labo- 
 ratory and museum which he is forming at Castel 
 Nuovo. Alfieri was chosen one of the forty ordi- 
 nary members of this academy, but refused the 
 honour in a cynical letter which the secretary 
 Sacchetti read to me. " I have made a vow (said 
 he) to Apollo, never to belong to any literary 
 
 SIENA. 
 
 457 
 
 society on earth, as my peevish temper unfits me 
 either for sending* admonitions to others, or for 
 receiving any." 
 
 CoUcffe Tolomei was founded for young noble- 
 men, who pay 50/. per annum, for board, educa- 
 tion, clothes, and every thing. Each student 
 assumes an epithet, motto, and device figured 
 over the corridors, halls, ball-rooms. Those 
 epithets, II Grave, L'Insipido, often imply a 
 quality which the device and motto show in an 
 opposite light. This college is taught by Scolo- 
 pians, monks devoted to education, and who 
 being, as such, the rivals of the Jesuits, were 
 suppressed by them in the time of their founder. 
 Many went to Poland and flourish near their 
 enemies, who are now reimbodying in Russia. 
 P. Ricca has lately formed a museum here of 
 Italian minerals, &c. 
 
 A Signore Spannocchi excelled here indifiiciles 
 nugffi. He could write all the passages in St. 
 John's Gospel which concludes the mass, in a 
 space equal to the nail of a little finger. 
 
 Siirnore Camillo Sersrardi told me that Adimollo 
 designed one of the rooms of his palace in a day ; 
 another day he came to work, fell into a moody 
 silence , and lay prone on the floor for some hours, 
 nor did he rise till he had secured in his mind the 
 whole composition of the Rape of the Sabines, 
 grouped round a concave ceiling, and exhibiting 
 
■♦' 
 
 If" 
 
 458 
 
 ROME. 
 
 the same passion in a wonderful variety of ex- 
 pressions. 
 
 Rome. — Plays are allowed, except in Lent. 
 The Prima buffa at Teatro della Valle was Da 
 Via, widow of a Neapolitan prince whom she 
 had maintained by her profession. When past 
 50, she called herself 42 : " Yes," said a Roman, 
 " 42 in moneta fina, or 63 in rossa." On her hus- 
 band's death she resumed her first name. 
 
 Prince San Marino told me that he was obliged 
 to speak broken Italian and affect the English- 
 man, to get admission into the papal chapel of 
 Monte Cavallo, on Palm Sunday, where foreigners 
 had the best seats. 
 
 Prince Altieri, when a lad, was imprisoned in 
 Fort St. Angelo, for a habit of following well- 
 dressed women to spirt oil on them, inveigling 
 them to sit down on filth, &c. Having married 
 a German princess, he is now reformed, and 
 drives about his wife in defiance of fashion, and 
 would never leave her in the late revolution. 
 
 Lord Bristol, being always on the wing, gave 
 each town in turn an occasion to stare at this 
 lusus fortunae, whose ambition was to be stared 
 at. His conversation ran generally in support 
 of atheism; yet when others attacked revelation 
 he would for the moment defend that reliirion 
 which doubled his income. " Nil aequale homini 
 
 FRASCATI. 
 
 459 
 
 fuit illi — nil fuit unquam sic impar sibi." With 
 artists he was either close or lavish, never cor- 
 rectly just. Benvenuti told me that he bought 
 his Judith when half finished, and ordered it off 
 in that state to a garret in Naples. He would 
 sometimes talk divinely on art, and then relapse 
 into affected absurdity. His conversation was 
 obscenity itself; no modest woman could talk with 
 him, or go up his staircase at Rome, where the 
 frescos were most indecent : neither he nor his 
 son, the first Lord Harvey, could create any 
 esteem here with all their liberality. The latter 
 was detested at Florence. 
 
 TivoLi. A gentleman here talked to me of 
 mushrooms higher in flavour but more dangerous 
 than ours: " One of those boleti (siiid he) called 
 Death-heads was brought to me at Subiaco. 
 Struck at its enormous size, I went with the 
 peasant who had found it, to the spot where it 
 grew. We easily distinguished its unnatural 
 stalk, dug up the earth and found underneath a 
 nest of vipers." Pliny mentions among the sources 
 whence mushrooms imbibe poison, " si serpentis 
 caverna juxta fuerit." Dioscorides does the same. 
 
 Frascati. I was introduced to Cardinal York 
 by an Irish gentleman residing at Rome. When 
 my name and country were announced, he said 
 he had heard of Second sight in Scotland, but 
 
 IB>" -3ir"^.jivvC'3BX"-iiS 
 
4eo 
 
 FRASCATI. 
 
 1 1 
 
 ( 
 
 never of Foresight, and this poor joke drew a 
 Iaug:h from all that understood Eng-lish, which 
 his Holiness talks pretty well for a foreii^ner. 
 When my friend told him that my grandfather 
 fell in the Stuart cause, the recollection of that 
 cause drew a tear into his eye, an emotion to 
 which he is very subject. He says little, and in 
 that little there is nothing. His face is hand- 
 some, smooth, ruddy, without a wrinkle, except 
 on the forehead. He stoops much and walks 
 with difhcvdty ; for one leg is sore and a source 
 of health to him ; but the other has still the first 
 shape of his great uncle Charles II. 's. His 
 dress was an alternation of red and black : a 
 scarlet coif; a black coat lined with scarlet silk ; 
 a black silk mantle ; a scarlet waistcoat ; black 
 velvet breeches ; scarlet stockings ; black shoes, 
 scarlet heels; a purple coat laced with gold, and 
 a plain episcopal gold cross on his breast. On 
 our arrival at Frascati, he ordered a chariot and 
 four, and his master of the horse, a polite younn- 
 man, to conduct us through the different villas. 
 On our return to the Rocca, we found a nu- 
 merous company convened for dinner, a Neapo- 
 litan Duke, several Roman noblemen, a bishop 
 and a few prelates. I owed to my poor grand- 
 father a distinction not due to me. I sat next to 
 his Royal Highness at table, and of the little 
 that was said, the greater part was addressed to 
 
 FRASCATI. 
 
 461 
 
 me. I could perceive at dinner a residue of royal 
 state. There was a space between him and us 
 sufficient lor another cover. After a pause in 
 the conversation, none began till he spoke. He 
 had a salt-cellar to himself; but it was stone- 
 ware, and the rest silver ; he had his own soup ; 
 but it was served in a porringer, and ours in a 
 tureen. There was a distinction even in his 
 coffee-cup and saucer ; but they were of a much 
 inferior china to ours. After dinner a little do"* 
 came on the table to play a few tricks, when the 
 Cardinal, turning to me, said very significantly, 
 " This is a King Charles's dog." On his car- 
 riages he has the regal crown under the car- 
 dinal's hat : but he never assumed, like his 
 brother, the title of Majesty. Prince Augustus 
 of England, when living near Frascati, was often 
 at the Rocca, where they Royal Ilighnessed each 
 other incessantly. The Cardinal Duke visits 
 none but the pope and the kings of Sardinia. 
 He has two official palaces at Rome ; but he 
 often puts up at a convent of capuchin-nuns 
 which is under his protection. This community 
 includes some princesses, yet subsists by begging. 
 Madame Cicciaponi, at Siena, showed me the 
 correspondence between her brother-in-law. Sir 
 John Hippesley Cox, Cardinal Borgia, Lord 
 Minto, and Cardinal York, in behalf of his Royal 
 Kighueas, during his late retreat from Frascati. 
 
462 
 
 ir 
 
 9' 
 
 II 
 
 NAPLES. 
 
 Borgi2i, a man of science and literature, applies 
 to Sir John, with a delicate urgency, for assist- 
 ance from our court, and paints the distress of 
 the old prince in affecting colours. Our ministers 
 announce the kino's o-rant of 4000/. a year in a 
 very handsome manner ; but York,* while he 
 acknowledges in bad English the obligation con- 
 ferred on him, studiously avoids any mention of 
 his majesty. Sir John's letters to the Cardinal 
 contrast with Lord Minto's. The former are all 
 soul, the latter all formality; but Sir John wrote 
 as a friend, and his Lordship only as an agent. 
 
 Naples. A friend pointed out to me at the 
 Tuillerie, one Sunday morning, so many wild 
 sprigs of the nobility, that he proposed to prune 
 and even to replant the old tree. He would no 
 longer allow it half the soil of the kingdom to 
 flourish on and exhaust. He would reduce both 
 the number of noblemen and their aggregate pro- 
 perty. No man should bear more than one title, 
 and every title should represent a real inalien- 
 able feud of a value regulated to the rank. 
 Whatever land a noble might possess above 
 that value should be free and disposable. This 
 
 * He lies in the Crypt of St. Peter's, and his tomb is 
 inscribed Henry IX. of England. There is a little more 
 decency in the inscription on the monument by Canova in 
 the church. — C. 
 
 NAPLES. 
 
 463 
 
 principle would prevent such accumulations 
 of property as the Monteleone, the jVIondra- 
 gone, &c. ; it would lessen the number of 
 feudatories, and multiply that of proprietors. 
 " Then (cried the exultant lawgiver) those titled 
 vagabonds who are now concerting in these 
 alleys fresh plots for their subsistence would be 
 reduced to plain dons; but those dons would 
 have homes and acres of their own. A new in- 
 terest would call them off from this over-crowded 
 city, and attach them to their own cantons by 
 rural magistracies and functions, by rural im- 
 provements and sports, by every office, every 
 charity that domesticates gentlemen. Conjugal 
 habits would banish cecisbeism, and the noble 
 convents would soon want tenants. Yes, (cried 
 he, rising to supposed majesty,) I would encou- 
 rage the natural fecundity of my fair subjects, 
 and bestow my royal favour on none but married 
 men. No bachelor should govern a province, 
 nor bear an embassy, nor command a regiment, 
 nor wear a riband. The very surface of my 
 kingdom should feel the change. This capital 
 would be thinned of its worst inmates. The 
 population of the country, not clustered, as at 
 present, in town, would be equally spread over 
 the fields in detached farm-houses, and fifty neat 
 seats would rise for one palace. I would then 
 resign my unjust prerogative ; nor longer be 
 
464 
 
 NAPLES. 
 
 i 
 
 fourth of kin to every vacant estate. As baronies 
 dropped, their lands, then free and divisible, 
 should descend even to the remotest heir." He 
 was going on, building his castle very liberally on 
 the rights and property of others, when some 
 friends broke in upon the scaliblding. 
 
 A Neapolitan seeing two Englishmen about to 
 go into a shop, followed them in, and standing 
 behind them made signs to the shop-keeper that 
 he had brought him two pigeons to pluck, lie 
 followed the gentlemen out, as if belonging to 
 their party, and soon after he returned to the 
 shop for his share of the booty, which the mer- 
 chant paid him as due. 
 
 Acton's rise is not more astonishing than his 
 keeping his ground. He first appeared in Tus- 
 cany as a barber. At the age of 60, he married 
 a girl of 14, his brother's daughter, or perhaps 
 his own ; for he was her mother's professed 
 cecisbeo long before and after her birth. This 
 child brought Sir John a child during my stay 
 in Naples. An express went instantly to Caserta. 
 The queen drove into town in the morning with 
 rich presents to the lying-in lady. In the after- 
 noon came the king and made the new-born babe 
 a colonel. 
 
 Monteleone estates, largest in Italy, narrowly 
 escaped confiscation. The late Duke died just 
 after sentence of death had been passed on his 
 
 N A r L E S C E S E N N A — FO RLI . 
 
 465 
 
 elflest son, and Acton instantly seized his feuds 
 as Ibrfeited by high treason. The younger son 
 |)rotested against this, claiming as immediate 
 heir to the old Duke ; for his brother, being con- 
 <lenmed, had been civilly dead before his father 
 died, and was therefore incapable of forfeiting 
 that which he could not inherit. His claims 
 being rejected, he applied to Ferdinand for re- 
 dress, and obtained the restitution of every acre. 
 The elder brother was pardoned at the pope's 
 intercession, and is now expatriated. 
 
 Cesenna, the birth-place of the late and pre- 
 sent pope, pleased me by an air of cheerful 
 tranquillity. I saw no curve in its form that 
 could explain the epithet which it bears in the 
 Theodosian map, nor any remains of the castle 
 defended by the heroine Cia. 
 
 FoRLi. Sigonius considers the towns called 
 Forum as coeval with the ways which passed 
 through them, and as built by the founders of 
 those ways ; but the names of these three Fo- 
 rums, (Forum Cornelii, Livii, Pompilii,) all on 
 the Emilian way, indicate three different founders, 
 and not one of them Lepidus. Sigonius consi- 
 ders every forum as a conventus or assize-town ; 
 but the |)r(>xiinity of these three, particularly of 
 Foili and Forliiipopoli, conlradiets that opinion. 
 
 2 H 
 
466 
 
 FORLI VENICE VERONA. 
 
 J! 
 
 I believe that most of them were simply market- 
 towns. Some might have petty magistrates, but 
 none were seats of provincial government. Frejus 
 is the only Forum where I have seen any marks 
 of ancient grandeur. 
 
 Venice, with all her austerity, was as immo- 
 derate when she praised as when she punished 
 her magistrates. The monumental hyperboles 
 of the Dominican church excite laughter rather 
 than respect for the dead, and run the farthest 
 I have yet remarked from the modesty of the 
 ancient epitaph. At St. Peter's (patriarchal 
 church) Mauroceni's epitaph is " Majestas, &c. 
 — Hie ille at non ille unus, lingua et calamo 
 diserte multiplex, mente et manu impigre omne 
 genus moderandi provinciis termagnus, impe- 
 randi armis ter major, maturandis consiliis ter 
 quaterque maximus, &c. — Fato irascere, Viator, 
 sero te adventasse, et abi." A Roman widow 
 never went beyond a "benemerenti conjugi," or 
 a " dulcissimo," sometimes affectedly written 
 AOYAKICIMw. 
 
 Verona is called the birth-place of Vitruvius, 
 and one of its arches is considered as his work ; 
 but Vitruvius was more probably born at Formiae, 
 and on the arch of Gavi I remarked something 
 like the arabesque which liis book condemns. — 
 
 VERONA MILAN — GENERAL ITALY. 467 
 
 On each bridge were the barriers of the two 
 states painted in their respective colours, about 
 six yards asunder, and at each barrier an opposite 
 sentinel, who did not interrupt our passage. 
 
 Milan. A young Genevese, named Du Pau, 
 used here to cut portraits without looking at his 
 work. He could make his dog bite a slice of 
 cheese into a correct profile of Voltaire. They 
 were destroying the earth, and preparing an am- 
 phitheatre for Olympic games in the forum. 
 
 General Italy measures 22,500 geometrical 
 square miles; its population 17 or 18 millions. 
 Roman and Neapolitan states form one-third of 
 the surface, yet might admit two or three times 
 their present population. Women sooner and 
 longer nubile than in the north, an advantage 
 which they exercise to the full. The average 
 length of life lower than in France, or, perhaps. 
 Great Britain. Italian artists dwell chiefly on 
 Scripture, the lives of saints, or the loves of the 
 Gods, and neglect " celebrare domestica facta." 
 They seldom recur to their own poets for fiction, 
 and left Dante's Ugolino to two foreigners, Rey- 
 nolds and Berger. 
 
 THE end. 
 
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