turning our faces with much pleasure towards Florence, we commenced the return walk. I must not forget to mention the delicious grapes which we bought, begged and stole on the way. The whole country is like one vineyard–and the people live, in a great measure, on the fruit, during this part of the year. Would you not think it highly romantic and agreeable to sit in the shade of a cypress grove, beside some old weather-beaten statues, looking out over the vales of the Appenines, with a pile of white and purple grapes beside you, the like of which can scarcely be had in America for love or money, and which had been given you by a dark-eyed peasant girl? If so, you may envy us, for such was exactly our situation on the morning before reaching Florence.
Being in the Duomo, two or three days ago, I met a German traveler, who has walked through Italy thus far, and intends continuing his journey to Rome and Naples. His name is Von Raumer. He was well acquainted with the present state of America, and I derived much pleasure from his intelligent conversation. We concluded to ascend the cupola in company. Two black-robed boys led the way; after climbing an infinite number of steps, we reached the gallery around the foot of the dome. The glorious view of that paradise, the vale of the Arno, shut in on all sides by mountains, some bare and desolate, some covered with villas, gardens, and groves, lay in soft, hazy light, with the shadows of a few light clouds moving slowly across it. They next took us to a gallery on the inside of the dome, where we first saw the immensity of its structure. Only from a distant view, or in ascending it, can one really measure its grandeur. The frescoes, which from below appear the size of life, are found to be rough and monstrous daubs; each figure being nearly as many fathoms in length as a man is feet. Continuing our ascent, we mounted between the inside and outside shells of the dome. It was indeed a bold idea for Brunelleschi to raise such a mass in air. The dome of Saint Peter’s, which is scarcely as large, was not made until a century after, and this was, therefore, the first attempt at raising one on so grand a scale. It seems still as solid as if just built.
There was a small door in one of the projections of the lantern, which the sacristan told us to enter and ascend still higher. Supposing there was a fine view to be gained, two priests, who had just come up, entered it; the German followed, and I after him. After crawling in at the low door, we found ourselves in a hollow pillar, little wider than our bodies. Looking up, I saw the German’s legs just above my head, while the other two were above him, ascending by means of little iron bars fastened in the marble. The priests were very much amused, and the German said:–“This is the first time I ever learned chimney-sweeping!” We emerged at length into a hollow cone, hot and dark, with a rickety ladder going up somewhere; we could not see where. The old priest, not wishing to trust himself to it, sent his younger brother up, and we shouted after him:–“What kind of a view have you?” He climbed up till the cone got so narrow he could go no further, and answered back in the darkness:–“I see nothing at all!” Shortly after he came down, covered with dust and cobwebs, and we all descended the chimney quicker than we went up. The old priest considered it a good joke, and laughed till his fat sides shook. We asked the sacristan why he sent us up, and he answered:–“To see _the construction of the Church_!”
I attended service in the Cathedral one dark, rainy morning, and was never before so deeply impressed with the majesty and grandeur of the mighty edifice. The thick, cloudy atmosphere darkened still more the light which came through the stained windows, and a solemn twilight reigned in the long aisles. The mighty dome sprang far aloft, as if it enclosed a part of heaven, for the light that struggled through the windows around its base, lay in broad bars on the blue, hazy air. I would not have been surprised at seeing a cloud float along within it. The lofty burst of the organ, that seemed like the pantings of a monster, boomed echoing away through dome and nave, with a chiming, metallic vibration, that shook the massive pillars which it would defy an earthquake to rend. All was wrapped in dusky obscurity, except where, in the side-chapels, crowns of tapers were burning around the images. One knows not which most to admire, the genius which could conceive, or the perseverance which could accomplish such a work, On one side of the square, the colossal statue of the architect, glorious old Brunelleschi, is most appropriately placed, looking up with pride at his performance.
The sunshine and genial airs of Italy have gone, leaving instead a cold, gloomy sky and chilling winds. The autumnal season has fairly commenced, and I suppose I must bid adieu to the brightness which made me in love with the land. The change has been no less sudden than unpleasant, and if, as they say, it will continue all winter with little variation, I shall have to seek a clearer climate. In the cold of these European winters, there is, as I observed last year in Germany, a dull, damp chill, quite different from the bracing, exhilarating frosts of America. It stagnates the vital principle and leaves the limbs dull and heavy, with a lifeless feeling which can scarcely be overcome by vigorous action. At least, such has been my experience.
We lately made an excursion to Pratolino, on the Appenines, to see the vintage and the celebrated colossus, by John of Bologna. Leaving Florence in the morning, with a cool, fresh wind blowing down from the mountains, we began ascending by the road to Bologna. We passed Fiesole with its tower and acropolis on the right, ascending slowly, with the bold peak of one of the loftiest Appenines on our left. The abundant fruit of the olive was beginning to turn brown, and the grapes were all gathered in from the vineyards, but we learned from a peasant boy that the vintage was not finished at Pratolino.
We finally arrived at an avenue shaded with sycamores, leading to the royal park. The vintagers were busy in the fields around, unloading the vines of their purple tribute, and many a laugh and jest among the merry peasants enlivened the toil. We assisted them in disposing of some fine clusters, and then sought the “Colossus of the Appenines.” He stands above a little lake, at the head of a long mountain-slope, broken with clumps of magnificent trees. This remarkable figure, the work of John of Bologna, impresses one like a relic of the Titans. He is represented as half-kneeling, supporting himself with one hand, while the other is pressed upon the head of a dolphin, from which a little stream falls into the lake. The height of the figure when erect, would amount to more than sixty feet! We measured one of the feet, which is a single piece of rock, about eight feet long; from the ground to the top of one knee is nearly twenty feet. The limbs are formed of pieces of stone, joined together, and the body of stone and brick. His rough hair and eyebrows, and the beard, which reached nearly to the ground, are formed of stalactites, taken from caves, and fastened together in a dripping and crusted mass. These hung also from his limbs and body, and gave him the appearance of Winter in his mail of icicles. By climbing up the rocks at his back, we entered his body, which contains a small-sized room; it was even possible to ascend through his neck and look out at his ear! The face is in keeping with the figure–stern and grand, and the architect (one can hardly say sculptor) has given to it the majestic air and sublimity of the Appenines. But who can build up _an image of the Alp_?
We visited the factory on the estate, where wine and oil are made. The men had just brought in a cart load of large wooden vessels, filled with grapes, which they were mashing with heavy wooden pestles. When the grapes were pretty well reduced to pulp and juice, they emptied them into an enormous tub, which they told us would be covered air-tight, and left for three or four weeks, after which the wine would be drawn off at the bottom. They showed us also a great stone mill for grinding olives; this estate of the Grand Duke produces five hundred barrels of wine and a hundred and fifty of oil, every year. The former article is the universal beverage of the laboring classes in Italy, or I might say of all classes; it is, however, the pure blood of the grape, and although used in such quantities, one sees little drunkenness–far less than in our own land.
Tuscany enjoys at present a more liberal government than any other part of Italy, and the people are, in many respects, prosperous and happy. The Grand Duke, although enjoying almost absolute privileges, is disposed to encourage every measure which may promote the welfare of his subjects. The people are, indeed, very heavily taxed, but this is less severely felt by them, than it would be by the inhabitants of colder climes. The soil produces with little labor all that is necessary for their support; though kept constantly in a state of comparative poverty, they appear satisfied with their lot, and rarely look further than the necessities of the present. In love with the delightful climate, they cherish their country, fallen as she is, and are rarely induced to leave her. Even the wealthier classes of the Italians travel very little; they can learn the manners and habits of foreigners nearly as well in their own country as elsewhere, and they prefer their own hills of olive and vine to the icy grandeur of the Alps or the rich and garden-like beauty of England.
But, although this sweet climate, with its wealth of sunlight and balmy airs, may enchant the traveler for awhile and make him wish at times that his whole life might be spent amid such scenes, it exercises a most enervating influence on those who are born to its enjoyment. It relaxes mental and physical energy, and disposes body and mind to dreamy inactivity. The Italians, as a race, are indolent and effeminate. Of the moral dignity of man they have little conception. Those classes who are engaged in active occupation seem even destitute of common honesty, practising all kinds of deceits in the most open manner and apparently without the least shame. The state of morals is lower than in any other country of Europe; what little virtue exists is found among the peasants. Many of the most sacred obligations of society are universally violated, and as a natural consequence, the people are almost entire strangers to that domestic happiness, which constitutes the true enjoyment of life.
This dark shadow in the moral atmosphere of Italy hangs like a curse on her beautiful soil, weakening the sympathies of citizens of freer lands with her fallen condition. I often feel vividly the sentiment which Percival puts into the mouth of a Greek in slavery:
“The spring may here with autumn twine And both combined may rule the year,
And fresh-blown flowers and racy wine In frosted clusters still be near–
Dearer the wild and snowy hills
Where hale and ruddy Freedom smiles.”
No people can ever become truly great or free, who are not virtuous. If the soul aspires for liberty–pure and perfect liberty–it also aspires for everything that is noble in Truth, everything that is holy in Virtue. It is greatly to be feared that all those nervous and impatient efforts which have been made and are still being made by the Italian people to better their condition, will be of little avail, until they set up a better standard of principle and make their private actions more conformable with their ideas of political independence.
_Oct. 22._–I attended to-day the fall races at the _Cascine_. This is a dairy farm of the Grand Duke on the Arno, below the city; part of it, shaded with magnificent trees, has been made into a public promenade and drive, which extends for three miles down the river. Towards the lower end, on a smooth green lawn, is the race-course. To-day was the last of the season, for which the best trials had been reserved; on passing out the gate at noon, we found a number of carriages and pedestrians going the same way. It was the very perfection of autumn temperature, and I do not remember to have ever seen so blue hills, so green meadows, so fresh air and so bright sunshine combined in one scene before. All that gloom and coldness of which I lately complained has vanished.
Traveling increases very much one’s capacity for admiration. Every beautiful scene appears as beautiful as if it had been the first; and although I may have seen a hundred times as lovely a combination of sky and landscape, the pleasure which it awakens is never diminished. This is one of the greatest blessings we enjoy–the freshness and glory which Nature wears to our eyes forever. It shows that the soul never grows old–that the eye of age can take in the impression of beauty with the same enthusiastic joy that leaped through the heart of childhood.
We found the crowd around the race-course but thin; half the people there, and _all_ the horses, appeared to be English. It was a good place to observe the beauty of Florence, which however, may be done in a short time, as there is not much of it. There is beauty in Italy, undoubtedly, but it is either among the peasants or the higher class of nobility. I will tell our American women confidentially, for I know they have too much sense to be vain of it, that they surpass the rest of the world as much in beauty as they do in intelligence and virtue. I saw in one of the carriages the wife of Alexander Dumas, the French author. She is a large, fair complexioned woman, and is now, from what cause I know not, living apart from her husband.
The jockeys paced up and down the fields, preparing their beautiful animals for the approaching heat, and as the hour drew nigh the mounted dragoons busied themselves in clearing the space. It was a one-mile course, to the end of the lawn and back. At last the bugle sounded, and off went three steeds like arrows let fly. They passed us, their light limbs bounding over the turf, a beautiful dark-brown taking the lead. We leaned over the railing and watched them eagerly. The bell rang–they reached the other end–we saw them turn and come dashing back, nearer, nearer; the crowd began to shout, and in a few seconds the brown one had won it by four or five lengths. The fortunate horse was led around in triumph, and I saw an English lady, remarkable for her betting propensities, come out from the crowd and kiss it in apparent delight.
After an interval, three others took the field–all graceful, spirited creatures. This was a more exciting race than the first; they flew past us nearly abreast, and the crowd looked after them in anxiety. They cleared the course like wild deer, and in a minute or two came back, the racer of an English nobleman a short distance ahead. The jockey threw up his hand in token of triumph as he approached the goal, and the people cheered him. It was a beautiful sight to see those noble animals stretching to the utmost of their speed, as they dashed down the grassy lawn. The lucky one always showed by his proud and erect carriage, his consciousness of success.
Florence is fast becoming modernized. The introduction of gas, and the construction of the railroad to Pisa, which is nearly completed, will make sad havoc with the air of poetry which still lingers in its silent streets. There is scarcely a bridge, a tower, or a street, which is not connected with some stirring association. In the Via San Felice, Raphael used to paint when a boy; near the Ponte Santa Trinita stands Michael Angelo’s house, with his pictures, clothes, and painting implements, just as he left it three centuries ago; on the south side of the Arno is the house of Galileo, and that of Machiavelli stands in an avenue near the Ducal Palace. While threading my way through some dark, crooked streets in an unfrequented part of the city, I noticed an old, untenanted house, bearing a marble tablet above the door. I drew near and read:–“In this house of the Alighieri was born the Divine Poet!” It was the birth-place of Dante!
_Nov. 1._–Yesterday morning we were apprised of the safe arrival of a new scion of the royal family in the world by the ringing of the city bells. To-day, to celebrate the event, the shops were closed, and the people made a holiday of it. Merry chimes pealed out from every tower, and discharges of cannon thundered up from the fortress. In the evening the dome of the Cathedral was illuminated, and the lines of cupola, lantern, and cross were traced in flame on the dark sky, like a crown of burning stars dropped from Heaven on the holy pile. I went in and walked down the aisle, listening for awhile to the grand choral, while the clustered tapers under the dome quivered and trembled, as if shaken by the waves of music which burst continually within its lofty concave.
A few days ago Prince Corsini, Prime Minister of Tuscany, died at an advanced age. I saw his body brought in solemn procession by night, with torches and tapers, to the church of Santa Trinita. Soldiers followed with reversed arms and muffled drums, the band playing a funeral march. I forced myself through the crowd into the church, which was hung with black and gold, and listened to the long drawn chanting of the priests around the bier.
We lately visited the Florentine Museum. Besides the usual collection of objects of natural history, there is an anatomical cabinet, very celebrated for its preparations in wax. All parts of the human frame are represented so wonderfully exact, that students of medicine pursue their studies here in summer with the same facility as from real “subjects.” Every bone, muscle, and nerve in the body is perfectly counterfeited, the whole forming a collection as curious as it is useful. One chamber is occupied with representations of the plague of Rome, Milan, and Florence. They are executed with horrible truth to nature, but I regretted afterwards having seen them. There are enough forms of beauty and delight in the world on which to employ the eye, without making it familiar with scenes which can only be remembered with a shudder.
We derive much pleasure from the society of the American artists who are now residing in Florence. At the houses of Powers, and Brown, the painter, we spend many delightful evenings in the company of our gifted countrymen. They are drawn together by a kindred, social feeling as well as by their mutual aims, and form among themselves a society so unrestrained, American-like, that the traveler who meets them forgets his absence for a time. These noble representatives of our country, all of whom possess the true, inborn spirit of republicanism, have made the American name known and respected in Florence. Powers, especially, who is intimate with many of the principal Italian families, is universally esteemed. The Grand Duke has more than once visited his studio and expressed the highest admiration of his talents.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
AMERICAN ART IN FLORENCE.
I have seen Ibrahim Pacha, the son of old Mehemet Ali, driving in his carriage through the streets. He is hero on a visit from Lucca, where he has been spending some time on account of his health. He is a man of apparently fifty years of age; his countenance wears a stern and almost savage look, very consistent with the character he bears and the political part he has played. He is rather portly in person, the pale olive of his complexion contrasting strongly with a beard perfectly white. In common with all his attendants, he wears the high red cap, picturesque blue tunic and narrow trowsers of the Egyptians. There is scarcely a man of them whose face with its wild, oriental beauty, does not show to advantage among us civilized and prosaic Christians.
In Florence, and indeed through all Italy, there is much reason for our country to be proud of the high stand her artists are taking. The sons of our rude western clime, brought up without other resources than their own genius and energy, now fairly rival those, who from their cradle upwards have drawn inspiration and ambition from the glorious masterpieces of the old painters and sculptors. Wherever our artists are known, they never fail to create a respect for American talent, and to dissipate the false notions respecting our cultivation and refinement, which prevail in Europe. There are now eight or ten of our painters and sculptors in Florence, some of whom, I do not hesitate to say, take the very first rank among living artists.
I have been highly gratified in visiting the studio of Mr. G.L. Brown, who, as a landscape painter, is destined to take a stand second to few, since the days of Claude Lorraine. He is now without a rival in Florence, or perhaps in Italy, and has youth, genius and a plentiful stock of the true poetic enthusiasm for his art, to work for him far greater triumphs. His Italian landscapes have that golden mellowness and transparency of atmosphere which give such a charm to the real scenes, and one would think he used on his pallette, in addition to the more substantial colors, condensed air and sunlight and the liquid crystal of streams. He has wooed Nature like a lover, and she has not withheld her sympathy. She has taught him how to raise and curve her trees, load their boughs with foliage, and spread underneath them the broad, cool shadows–to pile up the shattered crag, and steep the long mountain range in the haze of alluring distance.
He has now nearly finished, a large painting of “Christ Preaching in the Wilderness,” which is of surprising beauty. You look upon one of the fairest scenes of Judea. In front, the rude multitude are grouped on one side, in the edge of a magnificent forest; on the other side, towers up a rough wall of rock and foliage that stretches back into the distance, where some grand blue mountains are piled against the sky, and a beautiful stream, winding through the middle of the picture, slides away out of the foreground. Just emerging from the shade of one of the cliffs, is the benign figure of the Saviour, with the warm light which breaks from behind the trees, falling around him as he advances. There is a smaller picture of the “Shipwreck of St. Paul,” in which he shows equal skill in painting a troubled sea and breaking storm. He is one of the young artists from whom we have most to hope.
I have been extremely interested in looking over a great number of sketches made by Mr. Kellogg, of Cincinnati, during a tour through Egypt, Arabia Petraea and Palestine. He visited many places out of the general route of travelers, and beside the great number of landscape views, brought away many sketches of the characters and costumes of the Orient. From some of these he has commenced paintings, which, as his genius is equal to his practice, will be of no ordinary value. Indeed, some of these must give him at once an established reputation in America. In Constantinople, where he resided several months, he enjoyed peculiar advantges for the exercise of his art, through the favor and influence of Mr. Carr, the American, and Sir Stratford Canning, the British Minister. I saw a splendid diamond cup, presented to him by Riza Pacha, the late Grand Vizier. The sketches he brought from thence and from the valleys of Phrygia and the mountain solitudes of old Olympus, are of great interest and value. Among his later paintings, I might mention an angel, whose countenance beams with a rapt and glorious beauty. A divine light shines through all the features and heightens the glow of adoration to an expression all spiritual and immortal. If Mr. Kellogg will give us a few more of these heavenly conceptions, we will place him on a pedestal, little lower than that of Guido.
Greenough, who has been sometime in Germany, returned lately to Florence, where he has a colossal group in progress for the portico of the Capitol. I have seen part of it, which is nearly finished in the marble. It shows a backwoodsman just triumphing in the struggle with an Indian; another group to be added, will represent the wife and child of the former. The colossal size of the statues gives a grandeur to the action, as if it were a combat of Titans; there is a consciousness of power, an expression of lofty disdain in the expansion of the hunter’s nostril and the proud curve of his lip, that might become a god. The spirit of action, of breathing, life-like exertion, so much more difficult to infuse into the marble than that of repose, is perfectly attained. I will not enter into a more particular description, as it will probably be sent to the United States in a year or two. It is a magnificent work; the best, unquestionably, that Greenough has yet made. The subject, and the grandeur he has given it in the execution, will ensure it a much more favorable reception than a false taste gave to his Washington.
Mr. C.B. Ives, a young sculptor from Connecticut, has not disappointed the high promise he gave before leaving home. I was struck with some of his busts in Philadelphia, particularly those of Mrs. Sigourney and Joseph R. Chandler, and it has been no common pleasure to visit his studio here in Florence, and look on some of his ideal works. He has lately made two models, which, when finished in marble, will be works of great beauty. They will contribute greatly to his reputation here and in America. One of these represents a child of four or five years of age, holding in his hand a dead bird, on which he is gazing, with childish grief and wonder, that it is so still and drooping. It is a beautiful thought; the boy is leaning forward as he sits, holding the lifeless playmate close in his hands, his sadness touched with a vague expression, as if he could not yet comprehend the idea of death.
The other is of equal excellence, in a different style; it is a bust of “Jephthah’s daughter,” when the consciousness of her doom first flashes upon her. The face and bust are beautiful with the bloom of perfect girlhood. A simple robe covers her breast, and her rich hair is gathered up behind, and bound with a slender fillet. Her head, of the pure classical mould, is bent forward, as if weighed down by the shock, and there is a heavy drooping in the mouth and eyelids, that denotes a sudden and sickening agony. It is not a violent, passionate grief, but a deep and almost paralyzing emotion–a shock from which the soul will finally rebound, strengthened to make the sacrifice.
Would it not be better for some scores of our rich merchants to lay out their money on statues and pictures, instead of balls and spendthrift sons? A few such expenditures, properly directed, would do much for the advancement of the fine arts. An occasional golden blessing, bestowed on genius, might be returned on the giver, in the fame he had assisted in creating. There seems, however, to be at present a rapid increase in refined taste, and a better appreciation of artistic talent, in our country. And as an American, nothing has made me feel prouder than this, and the steadily increasing reputation of our artists.
Of these, no one has done more within the last few years, than Powers. With a tireless and persevering energy, such as could have belonged to few but Americans, he has already gained a name in his art, that posterity will pronounce in the same breath with Phidias, Michael Angelo and Thorwaldsen. I cannot describe the enjoyment I have derived from looking at his matchless works. I should hesitate in giving my own imperfect judgment of their excellence, if I had not found it to coincide with that of many others who are better versed in the rules of art. The sensation which his “Greek Slave” produced in England, has doubtless ere this been breezed across the Atlantic, and I see by the late American papers that they are growing familiar with his fame. When I read a notice seven or eight years ago, of the young sculptor of Cincinnati, whose busts exhibited so much evidence of genius, I little dreamed I should meet him in Florence, with the experience of years of toil added to his early enthusiasm, and every day increasing his renown.
You would like to hear of his statue of Eve, which men of taste pronounce one of the finest works of modern times. A more perfect figure never filled my eye. I have seen the masterpieces of Thorwaldsen, Dannecker and Canova, and the Venus de Medici, but I have seen nothing yet that can exceed the beauty of this glorious statue. So completely did the first view excite my surprise and delight, and thrill every feeling that awakes at the sight of the Beautiful, that my mind dwelt intensely on it for days afterwards. This is the Eve of Scripture–the Eve of Milton–mother of mankind and fairest of all her race. With the full and majestic beauty of ripened womanhood, she wears the purity of a world as yet unknown to sin. With the hearing of a queen, there is in her countenance the softness and grace of a tender, loving woman;
“God-like erect, with native honor clad In naked majesty.”
She holds the fatal fruit extended in her hand, and her face expresses the struggle between conscience, dread and desire. The serpent, whose coiled length under the leaves and flowers entirely surrounds her, thus forming a beautiful allegorical symbol, is watching her decision from an ivied trunk at her side. Her form is said to be fully as perfect as the Venus de Medici, and from its greater size, has an air of conscious and ennobling dignity. The head is far superior in beauty, and soul speaks from every feature of the countenance. I add a few stanzas which the contemplation of this statue called forth. Though unworthy the subject, they may perhaps faintly shadow the _sentiment_ which Powers has so eloquently embodied in marble:
THE “EVE” OF POWERS.
A faultless being from the marble sprung, She stands in beauty there!
As when the grace of Eden ’round her clung– Fairest, where all was fair!
Pure, as when first from God’s creating hand She came, on man to shine;
So seems she now, in living stone to stand– A mortal, yet divine!
The spark the Grecian from Olympus caught, Left not a loftier trace;
The daring of the sculptor’s hand has wrought A soul in that sweet face!
He won as well the sacred fire from heaven. God-sent, not stolen down,
And no Promethean doom for him is given, But ages of renown!
The soul of beauty breathes around that form A more enchanting spell;
There blooms each virgin grace, ere yet the storm On blighted Eden fell!
The first desire upon her lovely brow, Raised by an evil power;
Doubt, longing, dread, are in her features now– It is the trial-hour!
How every thought that strives within her breast, In that one glance is shown!
Say, can that heart of marble be at rest, Since spirit warms the stone?
Will not those limbs, of so divine a mould, Move, when her thought is o’er–
When she has yielded to the tempter’s hold And Eden blooms no more?
Art, like a Phoenix, springs from dust again– She cannot pass away!
Bound down in gloom, she breaks apart the chain And struggles up today!
The flame, first kindled in the ages gone, Has never ceased to burn,
And _westward_ now, appears the kindling dawn, Which marks the day’s return!
The “Greek Slave” is now in the possession of Mr. Grant, of London, and I only saw the clay model. Like the Eve, it is a form that one’s eye tells him is perfect, unsurpassed; but it is the budding loveliness of a girl, instead of the perfected beauty of a woman. In England it has been pronounced superior to Canova’s works, and indeed _I_ have seen nothing of his, that could be placed beside it.
Powers has now nearly finished a most exquisite figure of a fisher-boy, standing on the shore, with his net and rudder in one hand, while with the other he holds a shell to his ear and listens if it murmur to him of a gathering storm. His slight, boyish limbs are full of grace and delicacy–you feel that the youthful frame could grow up into nothing less than an Apollo. Then the head–how beautiful! Slightly bent on one side, with the rim of the shell thrust under his locks, lips gently parted, and the face wrought up to the most hushed and breathless expression, he listens whether the sound be deeper than its wont. It makes you hold your breath and listen, to look at it. Mrs. Jameson somewhere remarks that repose or suspended motion, should be always chosen for a statue that shall present a perfect, unbroken impression to the mind. If this be true, the enjoyment must be much more complete where not only the motion, but almost breath and thought are suspended, and all the faculties wrought into one hushed and intense sensation. In gazing on this exquisite conception, I feel my admiration filled to the utmost, without that painful, aching impression, so often left by beautiful works. It glides into my vision like a form long missed from the gallery of beauty I am forming in my mind, and I gaze on it with an ever new and increasing delight.
Now I come to the last and fairest of all–the divine Proserpine. Not the form, for it is but a bust rising from a capital of acanthus leaves, which curve around the breast and arms and turn gracefully outward, but the face, whose modest maiden beauty can find no peer among goddesses or mortals. So looked she on the field of Ennae–that “fairer flower,” so soon to be gathered by “gloomy Dis.” A slender crown of green wheatblades, showing alike her descent from Ceres and her virgin years, circles her head. Truly, if Pygmalion stole his fire to warm such a form as this, Jove should have pardoned him. Of Powers’ busts it is unnecessary for me to speak. He has lately finished a very beautiful one of the Princess Demidoff, daughter of Jerome Bonaparte.
We will soon, I hope, have the “Eve” in America. Powers has generously refused many advantageous offers for it, that he might finally send it home; and his country, therefore, will possess this statue, his first ideal work. She may well be proud of the genius and native energy of her young artist, and she should repay them by a just and liberal encouragement.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
AN ADVENTURE ON THE GREAT ST. BERNARD–WALKS AROUND FLORENCE.
_Nov. 9._–A few days ago I received a letter from my cousin at Heidelberg, describing his solitary walk from Genoa over the Alps, and through the western part of Switzerland. The news of his safe arrival dissipated the anxiety we were beginning to feel, on account of his long silence, while it proved that our fears concerning the danger of such a journey were not altogether groundless. He met with a startling adventure on the Great St. Bernard, which will be best described by an extract from his own letter:
* * * * *
“Such were my impressions of Rome. But leaving the ‘Eternal City,’ I must hasten on to give you a description of an adventure I met with in crossing the Alps, omitting for the present an account of the trip from Rome to Genoa, and my lonely walk through Sardinia. When I had crossed the mountain range north of Genoa, the plains of Piedmont stretched out before me. I could see the snowy sides and summits of the Alps more than one hundred miles distant, looking like white, fleecy clouds on a summer day. It was a magnificent prospect, and I wonder not that the heart of the Swiss soldier, after years of absence in foreign service, beats with joy when he again looks on his native mountains.
“As I approached nearer, the weather changed, and dark, gloomy clouds enveloped them, so that they seemed to present an impassible barrier to the lands beyond them. At Ivrea, I entered the interesting valley of Aosta. The whole valley, fifty miles in length, is inhabited by miserable looking people, nearly one half of them being afflicted with goitre and cretinism. They looked more idiotic and disgusting than any I have ever seen, and it was really painful to behold such miserable specimens of humanity dwelling amid the grandest scenes of nature. Immediately after arriving in the town of Aosta, situated at the upper end of the valley, I began, alone, the ascent of the Great St. Bernard. It was just noon, and the clouds on the mountains indicated rain. The distance from Aosta to the monastery or hospice of St. Bernard, is about twenty English miles.
“At one o’clock it commenced raining vary hard, and to gain shelter I went into a rude hut; but it was filled with so many of those idiotic cretins, lying down on the earthy floor with the dogs and other animals, that I was glad to leave them as soon as the storm had abated in some degree. I walked rapidly for three hours, when I met a traveler and his guide descending the mountain. I asked him in Italian the distance to the hospice, and he undertook to answer me in French, but the words did not seem to flow very fluently, so I said quickly, observing then that he was an Englishman: ‘Try some other language, if you please, sir!’ He replied instantly in his vernacular: ‘You have a d–d long walk before you, and you’ll have to hurry to get to the top before night!’ Thanking him, we shook hands and hurried on, he downward and I upward. About eight miles from the summit, I was directed into the wrong path by an ignorant boy who was tending sheep, and went a mile out of the course, towards Mont Blanc, before I discovered my mistake. I hurried back into the right path again, and soon overtook another boy ascending the mountain, who asked me if he might accompany me as he was alone, to which I of course answered, yes; but when we began to enter the thick clouds that covered the mountains, he became alarmed, and said he would go no farther. I tried to encourage him by saying we had only five miles more to climb, but, turning quickly, he ran down the path and was soon out of sight.
“After a long and most toilsome ascent, spurred on as I was by the storm and the approach of night, I saw at last through the clouds a little house, which I supposed might be a part of the monastery, but it turned out to be only a house of refuge, erected by the monks to take in travelers in extreme cases or extraordinary danger. The man who was staying there, told me the monastery was a mile and a half further, and thinking therefore that I could soon reach it, I started out again, although darkness was approaching. In a short time the storm began in good earnest, and the cold winds blew with the greatest fury. It grew dark very suddenly and I lost sight of the poles which are placed along the path to guide the traveler. I then ran on still higher, hoping to find them again, but without success. The rain and snow fell thick, and although I think I am tolerably courageous, I began to be alarmed, for it was impossible to know in what direction I was going. I could hear the waterfalls dashing and roaring down the mountain hollows on each side of me; in the gloom, the foam and leaping waters resembled streaming fires. I thought of turning back to find the little house of refuge again, but it seemed quite as dangerous and uncertain as to go forward. After the fatigue I had undergone since noon, it would have been dangerous to be obliged to stay, out all night in the driving storm, which was every minute increasing in coldness and intensity.
“I stopped and shouted aloud, hoping I might be somewhere near the monastery, but no answer came–no noise except the storm and the roar of the waterfalls. I climbed up the rocks nearly a quarter of a mile higher, and shouted again. I listened with anxiety for two or three minutes, but hearing no response, I concluded to find a shelter for the night under a ledge of rocks. While looking around me, I fancied I heard in the distance a noise like the trampling of hoofs over the rocks, and thinking travelers might be near, I called aloud for the third time. After wailing a moment, a voice came ringing on my ears through the clouds, like one from Heaven in response to my own. My heart beat quickly; I hurried in the direction from which the sound came, and to my joy found two men–servants of the monastery–who were driving their mules into shelter. Never in my whole life was I more glad to hear the voice of man. These men conducted me to the monastery, one-fourth of a mile higher, built by the side of a lake at the summit of the pass, while on each side, the mountains, forever covered with snow, tower some thousands of feet higher.
“Two or three of the noble St. Bernard dogs barked a welcome as we approached, which brought a young monk to the door. I addressed him in German, but to my surprise he answered in broken English. He took me into a warm room and gave me a suit of clothes, such as are worn by the monks, for my dress, as well as my package of papers, were completely saturated with rain. I sat down to supper in company with till the monks of the Hospice, I in my monkish robe looking like one of the holy order. You would have laughed to have seen me in their costume. Indeed, I felt almost satisfied to turn monk, as everything seemed so comfortable in the warm supper room, with its blazing wood fire, while outside raged the storm still more violently. But when I thought of their voluntary banishment from the world, up in that high pass of the Alps, and that the affection of woman never gladdened their hearts, I was ready to renounce my monkish dress next morning, without reluctance.
“In the address book of the monastery, I found Longfellow’s ‘Excelsior’ written on a piece of paper and signed ‘America.’ You remember the stanza:
At break of clay, as heavenward,
The pious monks of St. Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,
A voice cried through the startled air: Excelsior!
It seemed to add a tenfold interest to the poem, to read it on old St. Bernard. In the morning I visited the house where are kept the bodies of the travelers, who perish in crossing the mountain. It is filled with corpses, ranged in rows, and looking like mummies, for the cold is so intense that they will keep for years without decaying, and are often recognized and removed by their friends.
“Of my descent to Martigny, my walk down the Rhone, and along the shores of Lake Leman, my visit to the prison of Chilian and other wanderings across Switzerland, my pleasure in seeing the old river Rhine again, and my return to Heidelberg at night, with the bright moon shining on the Neckar and the old ruined castle, I can now say no more, nor is it necessary, for are not all these things ‘written in my book of Chronicles,’ to be seen by you when we meet again in Paris?
Ever yours, FRANK.”
_Dec. 16._–I took a walk lately to the tower of Galileo. In company with three friends, I left Florence by the _Porta Romana_, and ascended the _Poggie Imperiale_. This beautiful avenue, a mile and a quarter in length, leading up a gradual ascent to a villa of the Grand Duke, is bordered with splendid cypresses and evergreen oaks, and the grass banks are always fresh and green, so that even in winter it calls up a remembrance of summer. In fact, winter does not wear the scowl here that he has at home; he is robed rather in a threadbare garment of autumn, and it is only high up on the mountain tops, out of the reach of his enemy, the sun, that he dares to throw it off, and bluster about with his storms and scatter down his snow-flakes. The roses still bud and bloom in the hedges, the emerald of the meadows is not a whit paler, the sun looks down lovingly as yet, and there are only the white helmets of some of the Appenines, with the leafless mulberries and vines, to tell us that we have changed seasons.
A quarter of an hour’s walk, part of it by a path through an olive orchard, brought us to the top of a hill, which was surmounted by a square, broken, ivied tower, forming part of a storehouse for the produce of the estate. We entered, saluted by a dog, and passing through a court-yard, in which stood two or three carts full of brown olives, found our way to the rickety staircase. I spared my sentiment in going up, thinking the steps might have been renewed since Galileo’s time, but the glorious landscape which opened around us when we reached the top, time could not change, and I gazed upon it with interest and emotion, as my eye took in those forms which had once been mirrored in the philosopher’s. Let me endeavor to describe the features of the scene.
Fancy yourself lifted to the summit of a high hill, whose base slopes down to the valley of the Arno, and looking northward. Behind you is a confusion of hill and valley, growing gradually dimmer away to the horizon. Before and below you is a vale, with Florence and her great domes and towers in its lap, and across its breadth of five miles the mountain of Fiesole. To the west it stretches away unbroken for twenty miles, covered thickly with white villas–like a meadow of daisies, magnified. A few miles to the east the plain is rounded with mountains, between whose interlocking bases we can see the brown current of the Arno. Some of their peaks, as well as the mountain of Vallombrosa, along the eastern sky, are tipped with snow. Imagine the air filled with a thick blue mist, like a semi-transparent veil, which softens every thing into dreamy indistinctness, the sunshine falling slantingly through this in spots, touching the landscape here and there as with a sudden blaze of fire, and you will complete the picture. Does it not repay your mental flight across the Atlantic.
One evening, on coming out of the cafe, the moon was shining so brightly and clearly, that I involuntarily bent my steps towards the river; I walked along the _Lung’Arno_, enjoying the heavenly moonlight–“the night of cloudless climes and starry skies!” A purer silver light never kissed the brow of Endymion. The brown Arno took into his breast “the redundant glory,” and rolled down his pebbly bed with a more musical ripple; opposite stretched the long mass of buildings–the deep arches that rose from the water were filled with black shadow, and the irregular fronts of the houses touched with a mellow glow. The arches of the upper bridge were in shadow, cutting their dark outline on the silvery sweep of the Appenines, far up the stream. A veil of luminous gray covered the hill of San Miniato, with its towers and cypress groves, and there was a crystal depth in the atmosphere, as if it shone with its own light. The whole scene affected me as something too glorious to be real–painful from the very intensity of its beauty. Three moons ago, at the foot of Vallombrosa, I saw the Appenines flooded with the same silvery gush, and thought also, then, that I had seen the same moon amid far dearer scenes, but never before the same dreamy and sublime glory showered down from her pale orb. Some solitary lights were burning along the river, and occasionally a few Italians passed by, wrapped in their mantles. I went home to the Piazza del Granduca as the light, pouring into the square from behind the old palace, fell over the fountain of Neptune and sheathed in silver the back of the colossal god.
Whoever looks on the valley of the Arno from San Miniato, and observes the Appenine range, of which Fiesole is one, bounding it on the north, will immediately notice to the northwest a double peak rising high above all the others. The bare, brown forehead of this, known by the name of _Monte Morello_, seemed so provokingly to challenge an ascent, that we determined to try it. So we started early, the day before yesterday, from the Porta San Gallo, with nothing but the frosty grass and fresh air to remind us of the middle of December. Leaving the Prato road, at the base of the mountain, we passed Careggi, a favorite farm of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and entered a narrow glen where a little brook was brawling down its rocky channel. Here and there stood a rustic mill, near which women were busy spreading their washed clothes on the grass. Following the footpath, we ascended a long eminence to a chapel where some boys were amusing themselves with a common country game. They have a small wheel, around which they wind a rope, and, running a little distance to increase the velocity, let it off with a sudden jerk. On a level road it can be thrown upwards of a quarter of a mile.
From the chapel, a gradual ascent along the ridge of a hill brought us to the foot of the peak, which rose high before us, covered with bare rocks and stunted oaks. The wind blew coldly from a snowy range to the north, as we commenced ascending with a good will. A few shepherds were leading their flocks along the sides, to browse on the grass and withered bushes, and we started up a large hare occasionally from his leafy covert. The ascent was very toilsome; I was obliged to stop frequently on account of the painful throbbing of my heart, which made it difficult to breathe. When the summit was gained, we lay down awhile on the leeward side to recover ourselves.
We looked on the great valley of the Arno, perhaps twenty-five miles long, and five or six broad, lying like a long elliptical basin sunk among the hills. I can liken it to nothing but a vast sea; for a dense, blue mist covered the level surface, through which the domes of Florence rose up like a craggy island, while the thousands of scattered villas resembled ships, with spread sails, afloat on its surface. The sharp, cutting wind soon drove us down, with a few hundred bounds, to the path again. Three more hungry mortals did not dine at the _Cacciatore_ that day.
The chapel of the Medici, which we visited, is of wonderful beauty. The walls are entirely encrusted with _pietra dura_ and the most precious kinds of marble. The ceiling is covered with gorgeous frescoes by Benevenuto, a modern painter. Around the sides, in magnificent sarcophagi of marble and jasper, repose the ashes of a few Cosmos and Ferdinands. I asked the sacristan for the tomb of Lorenzo the Magnificent. “Oh!” said he, “he lived during the republic–he has no tomb; these are only for Dukes!” I could not repress a sigh at the lavish waste of labor and treasure on this one princely chapel. They might have slumbered unnoted, like Lorenzo, if they had done as much for their country and Italy.
_December 19._–It is with a heavy heart, that I sit down tonight to make my closing note in this lovely city and in the journal which has recorded my thoughts and impressions since leaving America. I should find it difficult to analyze my emotions, but I know that they oppress me painfully. So much rushes at once over the mind and heart–memories of what has passed through both, since I made the first note in its pages–alternations of hope and anxiety and aspiration, but _never_ despondency–that it resembles in a manner, the closing of a life. I seem almost to have lived through the common term of a life in this short period. Much spiritual and mental experience has crowded into a short time the sensations of years. Painful though some of it has been, it was still welcome. Difficulty and toil give the soul strength to crush, in a loftier region, the passions which draw strength only from the earth. So long as we listen to the purer promptings within us, there is a Power invisible, though not unfelt, who protects us–amid the toil and tumult and soiling struggle, there is ever an eye that watches, ever a heart that overflows with Infinite and Almighty Love! Let us trust then in that Eternal Spirit, who pours out on us his warm and boundless blessings, through the channels of so many kindred human hearts!
CHAPTER XXXIX.
WINTER TRAVELING AMONG THE APPENINES.
_Valley of the Arno, Dec 22._–It is a glorious morning after our two days’ walk, through rain and mud, among these stormy Appenines. The range of high peaks, among which is the celebrated monastery of Camaldoli, lie just before us, their summits dazzling with the new fallen snow. The clouds are breaking away, and a few rosy flushes announce the approach of the sun. It has rained during the night, and the fields are as green and fresh as on a morning in spring.
We left Florence on the 20th, while citizens and strangers were vainly striving to catch a glimpse of the Emperor of Russia. He is, from some cause, very shy of being seen, in his journeys from place to place, using the greatest art and diligence to prevent the time of his departure and arrival from being known. On taking leave of Powers, I found him expecting the Autocrat, as he had signified his intention of visiting his studio; it was a cause of patriotic pride to find that crowned heads know and appreciate the genius of our sculptor. The sky did not promise much, as we set out; when we had entered the Appenines and taken a last look of the lovely valley behind us, and the great dome of the city where we had spent four delightful months, it began to rain heavily. Determined to conquer the weather at the beginning, we kept on, although before many miles were passed, it became too penetrating to be agreeable. The mountains grew nearly black under the shadow of the clouds, and the storms swept drearily down their passes and defiles, till the scenery looked more like the Hartz than Italy. We were obliged to stop at Ponte Sieve and dry our saturated garments: when, as the rain slackened somewhat, we rounded the foot of the mountain of Vallombrosa, above the swollen and noisy Arno, to the little village of Cucina.
We entered the only inn in the place, followed by a crowd of wondering boys, for two such travelers had probably never been seen there. They made a blazing fire for us in the broad chimney, and after the police of the place satisfied themselves that we were not dangerous characters, they asked many questions about our country. I excited the sympathy of the women greatly in our behalf by telling them we had three thousand miles of sea between us and our homes. They exclaimed in the most sympathising tones: “_Poverini!_ so far to go!–three thousand miles of water!”
The next morning we followed the right bank of the Arno. At Incisa, a large town on the river, the narrow pass broadens into a large and fertile plain, bordered on the north by the mountains. The snow storms were sweeping around their summits the whole day, and I thought of the desolate situation of the good monks who had so hospitably entertained us three months before. It was weary traveling; but at Levane our fatigues were soon forgotten. Two or three peasants were sitting last night beside the blazing fire, and we were amused to hear them talking about us. I overheard one asking another to converse with us awhile. “Why should I speak to them?” said he; “they are not of our profession–we are swineherds, and they do not care to talk with us.” However, his curiosity prevailed at last, and we had a long conversation together. It seemed difficult for them to comprehend how there could be so much water to cross, without any land, before reaching our country. Finding we were going to Rome, I overheard one remark we were pilgrims, which seemed to be the general supposition, as there are few foot-travelers in Italy. The people said to one another as we passed along the road:–“They are making a journey of penance!” Those peasants expressed themselves very well for persons of their station, but they were remarkably ignorant of everything beyond their own olive orchards and vine fields.
_Perugia, Dec. 24._–On leaving Levane, the morning gave a promise, and the sun winked at us once or twice through the broken clouds, with a watery eye; but our cup was not yet full. After crossing one or two shoulders of the range of hills, we descended to the great upland plain of Central Italy, watered by the sources of the Arno and the Tiber. The scenery is of a remarkable character. The hills appear to have been washed and swept by some mighty flood. They are worn into every shape–pyramids, castles, towers–standing desolate and brown, in long ranges, like the ruins of mountains. The plain is scarred with deep gulleys, adding to the look of decay which accords so well with the Cyclopean relics of the country.
A storm of hail which rolled away before us, disclosed the city of Arezzo, on a hill at the other end of the plain, its heavy cathedral crowning the pyramidal mass of buildings. Our first care was to find a good trattoria, for hunger spoke louder than sentiment, and then we sought the house where Petrarch was born. A young priest showed it to us on the summit of the hill. It has not been changed since he lived in it.
On leaving Florence, we determined to pursue the same plan as in Germany, of stopping at the inns frequented by the common people. They treated us here, as elsewhere, with great kindness and sympathy, and we were freed from the outrageous impositions practised at the greater hotels. They always built a large fire to dry us, after our day’s walk in the rain, and placing chairs in the hearth, which was raised several feet above the floor, stationed us there, like the giants Gog and Magog, while the children, assembled below, gazed up in open-mouthed wonder at our elevated greatness. They even invited us to share their simple meals with them, and it was amusing to hear their goodhearted exclamations of pity at finding we were so far from home. We slept in the great beds (for the most of the Italian beds are calculated for a man, wife, and four children!) without fear of being assassinated, and only met with banditti in dreams.
This is a very unfavorable time of the year for foot-traveling. We were obliged to wait three or four weeks in Florence for a remittance from America, which not only prevented our leaving as soon as was desirable, but, by the additional expense of living, left us much smaller means than we required. However, through the kindness of a generous countryman, who unhesitatingly loaned us a considerable sum, we were enabled to start with thirty dollars each, which, with care and economy, will be quite sufficient to take us to Paris, by way of Rome and Naples, if these storms do not prevent us from walking. Greece and the Orient, which I so ardently hoped to visit, are now out of the question. We walked till noon to-day, over the Val di Chiana to Camuscia, the last post-station in the Tuscan dominions. On a mountain near it is the city of Cortona, still enclosed within its Cyclopean walls, built long before the foundation of Rome. Here our patience gave way, melted down by the unremitting rains, and while eating dinner we made a bargain for a vehicle to bring us to this city. We gave a little more than half of what the vetturino demanded, which was still an exorbitant price–two scudi each for a ride of thirty miles.
In a short time we were called to take our seats; I beheld with consternation a rickety, uncovered, two-wheeled vehicle, to which a single lean horse was attached. “What!” said I; “is that the carriage you promised?” “You bargained for a _calesino_,” said he, “and there it is!” adding, moreover, that there was nothing else in the place. So we clambered up, thrust our feet among the hay, and the machine rolled off with a kind of saw-mill motion, at the rate of five miles an hour.
Soon after, in ascending the mountain of the Spelunca, a sheet of blue water was revealed below us–the Lake of Thrasymene! From the eminence around which we drove, we looked on the whole of its broad surface and the mountains which encompass it. It is a magnificent sheet of water, in size and shape somewhat like New York Bay, but the heights around it are far higher than the hills of Jersey or Staten Island. Three beautiful islands lie in it, near the eastern shore.
While our _calesino_ was stopped at the papal custom-house, I gazed on the memorable field below us. A crescent plain, between the mountain and the lake, was the arena where two mighty empires met in combat. The place seems marked by nature for the scene of some great event. I experienced a thrilling emotion, such as no battle plain has excited, since, when a schoolboy, I rambled over the field of Brandywine. I looked through the long arcades of patriarchal olives, and tried to cover the field with the shadows of the Roman and Carthaginian myriads. I recalled the shock of meeting legions, the clash of swords and bucklers, and the waving standards amid the dust of battle, while stood on the mountain amphitheatre, trembling and invisible, the protecting deities of Rome.
“Far other scene is Thrasymene now!”
We rode over the plain, passed through the dark old town of Passignano, built on a rocky point by the lake, and dashed along the shore. A dark, stormy sky bent over us, and the roused waves broke in foam on the rocks. The winds whistled among the bare oak boughs, and shook the olives till they twinkled all over. The vetturino whipped our old horse into a gallop, and we were borne on in unison with the scene, which would have answered for one of Hoffman’s wildest stories.
Ascending a long hill, we took a last look in the dusk at Thrasymene, and continued our journey among the Appenines. The vetturino was to have changed horses at Magione, thirteen miles from Perugia, but there were none to be had, and our poor beast was obliged to perform the whole journey without rest or food. It grew very dark, and a storm, with thunder and lightning, swept among the hills. The clouds were of pitchy darkness, and we could see nothing beyond the road, except the lights of peasant-cottages trembling through the gloom. Now and then a flash of lightning revealed the black masses of the mountains, on which the solid sky seemed to rest. The wind and cold rain swept wailing past us, as if an evil spirit were abroad on the darkness. Three hours of such nocturnal travel brought us here, wet and chilly, as well as our driver, but I pitied the poor horse more than him.
When we looked out the window, on awaking, the clustered house-tops of the city, and the summits of the mountains near were covered with snow. But on walking to the battlements we saw that the valleys below were green and untouched. Perugia, for its “pride of place,” must endure the storms, while the humbler villages below escape them. As the rain continues, we have taken seats in a country diligence for Foligno and shall depart in a few minutes.
_Dec. 28._–We left Perugia in a close but covered vehicle, and descending the mountain, crossed the muddy and rapid Tiber in the valley below. All day we rode slowly among the hills; where the ascent was steep, two or four large oxen were hitched before the horses. I saw little of the scenery, for our Italian companions would not bear the windows open. Once, when we stopped, I got out and found we were in the region of snow, at the foot of a stormy peak, which towered sublimely above. At dusk, we entered Foligno, and were driven to the “Croce Bianca”–glad to be thirty miles further on our way to Rome.
After some discussion with a vetturino, who was to leave next morning, we made a contract with him for the remainder of the journey, for the rain, which fell in torrents, forbade all thought of pedestrianism. At five o’clock we rattled out of the gate, and drove by the waning moon and morning starlight, down the vale of the Clitumnus. As the dawn stole on, I watched eagerly the features of the scene. Instead of a narrow glen, as my fancy had pictured, we were in a valley, several miles broad, covered with rich orchards and fertile fields. A glorious range of mountains bordered it on the north, looking like Alps in their winter garments. A rosy flush stole over the snow, which kindled with the growing morn, till they shone like clouds that float in the sunrise. The Clitumnus, beside us, was the purest of streams. The heavy rains which had fallen, had not soiled in the least its limpid crystal.
When it grew light enough, I looked at our companions for the three days’ journey. The two other inside seats were occupied by a tradesman of Trieste, with his wife and child; an old soldier, and a young dragoon going to visit his parents after seven years’ absence, occupied the front part. Persons traveling together in a carriage are not long in becoming acquainted–close companionship soon breeds familiarity. Before night, I had made a fast friend of the young soldier, learned to bear the perverse humor of the child with as much patience as its father, and even drawn looks of grim kindness from the crusty old vetturino.
Our mid-day resting place was Spoleto. As there were two hours given us, we took a ramble through the city, visited the ruins of its Roman theatre and saw the gate erected to commemorate the victory gained here over Hannibal, which stopped his triumphal march towards Rome. A great part of the afternoon was spent in ascending among the defiles of Monte Somma, the highest pass on the road between Ancona and Rome. Assisted by two yoke of oxen we slowly toiled up through the snow, the mountains on both sides covered with thickets of box and evergreen oaks, among whose leafy screens the banditti hide themselves. It is not considered dangerous at present, but as the dragoons who used to patrol this pass have been sent off to Bologna, to keep down the rebellion, the robbers will probably return to their old haunts again. We saw many suspicious looking coverts, where they might have hidden.
We slept at Terni and did not see the falls–not exactly on Wordsworth’s principle of leaving Yarrow “unvisited,” but because under the circumstances, it was impossible. The vetturino did not arrive there till after dark; he was to leave before dawn; the distance was five miles, and the roads very bad. Besides, we had seen falls quite as grand, which needed only a Byron to make them as renowned–we had been told that those of Tivoli, which we shall see, were equally fine. The Velino, which we crossed near Terni, was not a large stream–in short, we hunted as many reasons as we could find, why the falls need not be seen.
Leaving Terni before day, we drove up the long vale towards Narni. The roads were frozen hard; the ascent becoming more difficult, the vetturino was obliged to stop at a farm-house and get another pair of horses, with which, and a handsome young contadino as postillion, we reached Narni in a short time. In climbing the hill, we had a view of the whole valley of Terni, shut in on all sides by snow-crested Appenines, and threaded by the Nar, whose waters flow “with many windings, through the vale!”
At Otricoli, while dinner was preparing, I walked around the crumbling battlements to look down into the valley and trace the far windings of the Tiber. In rambling through the crooked streets, we saw everywhere the remains of the splendor which this place boasted in the days of Rome. Fragments of fluted pillars stood here and there in the streets; large blocks of marble covered with sculpture and inscriptions were built into the houses, defaced statues used as door-ornaments, and the steppingstone to our rude inn, worn every day by the feet of grooms and vetturini, contained some letters of an inscription which may have recorded the glory of on emperor.
Traveling with a vetturino, is unquestionably the pleasantest way of seeing Italy. The easy rate of the journey allows time for becoming well acquainted with the country, and the tourist is freed from the annoyance of quarrelling with cheating landlords. A translation of our written contract, will best explain this mode of traveling:
“CARRIAGE” FOR ROME.
“Our contract is, to be conducted to Rome for the sum of twenty francs each, say 20f. and the _buona mano_, if we are well served. We must have from the vetturino, Giuseppe Nerpiti, supper each night, a free chamber with two beds, and fire, until we shall arrive at Rome.
“I, Geronymo Sartarelli, steward of the Inn of the White Cross, at Foligno, in testimony of the above contract.”
Beyond Otricoli, we passed through some relics of an age anterior to Rome. A few soiled masses of masonry, black with age, stood along the brow of the mountain, on whose extremity were the ruins of a castle of the middle ages. We crossed the Tiber on a bridge built by Augustus Caesar, and reached Borghetto as the sun was gilding with its last rays the ruined citadel above. As the carriage with its four horses was toiling slowly up the hill, we got out and walked before, to gaze on the green meadows of the Tiber.
On descending from Narni, I noticed a high, prominent mountain, whose ridgy back, somewhat like the profile of a face, reminded me of the Traunstein, in Upper Austria. As we approached, its form gradually changed, until it stood on the Campagna
“Like a long-swept wave about to break, That on the curl hangs pausing”–
and by that token of a great bard, I recognized Monte Soracte. The dragoon took us by the arms, and away we scampered over the Campagna, with one of the loveliest sunsets before us, that ever painted itself on my retina. I cannot portray in words the glory that flooded the whole western heaven. It was like a sea of melted ruby, amethyst and topaz–deep, dazzling and of crystal transparency. The color changed in tone every few minutes, till in half an hour it sank away before the twilight to a belt of deep orange along the west.
We left Civita Castellana before daylight. The sky was red with dawn as we approached Nepi, and we got out to walk, in the clear, frosty air. A magnificent Roman aqueduct, part of it a double row of arches, still supplies the town with water. There is a deep ravine, appearing as if rent in the ground by some convulsion, on the eastern side of the city. A clear stream that steals through the arches of the aqueduct, falls in a cascade of sixty feet down into the chasm, sending up constant wreaths of spray through the evergreen foliage that clothes the rocks. In walking over the desolate Campagna, we saw many deep chambers dug in the earth, used by the charcoal burners; the air was filled with sulphureous exhalations, very offensive to the smell, which rose from the ground in many places.
Miles and miles of the dreary waste, covered only with flocks of grazing sheep, were passed,–and about noon we reached Baccano, a small post station, twenty miles from Rome. A long hill rose before us, and we sprang out of the carriage and ran ahead, to see Rome from its summit. As we approached the top, the Campagna spread far before and around us, level and blue as an ocean. I climbed up a high bank by the roadside, and the whole scene came in view. Perhaps eighteen miles distant rose the dome of St. Peter’s, near the horizon–a small spot on the vast plain. Beyond it and further east, were the mountains of Albano–on our left Soracte and the Appenines, and a blue line along the west betrayed the Mediterranean. There was nothing peculiarly beautiful or sublime in the landscape, but few other scenes on earth combine in one glance such a myriad of mighty associations, or bewilder the mind with such a crowd of confused emotions.
As we approached Rome, the dragoon, with whom we had been walking all day, became anxious and impatient. He had not heard from his parents for a long time, and knew not if they were living. His desire to be at the end of his journey finally became so great, that he hailed a peasant who was driving by in a light vehicle, left our slow carriage and went out of sight in a gallop.
As we descended to the Tiber in the dusk of evening, the domes and spires of Rome came gradually into view, St. Peter’s standing like a mountain in the midst of them. Crossing the yellow river by the Ponte Molle, two miles of road, straight as an arrow, lay before us, with the light of the _Porta del Popolo_ at the end. I felt strangely excited as the old vehicle rumbled through the arch, and we entered a square with fountains and an obelisk of Egyptian granite in the centre. Delivering up our passports, we waited until the necessary examinations were made, and then went forward. Three streets branch out from the square, the middle one of which, leading directly to the Capitol, is the Corso, the Roman Broadway. Our vetturino chose that to the left, the Via della Scrofa, leading off towards the bridge of St. Angelo. I looked out the windows as we drove along, but saw nothing except butcher-shops, grocer-stores, etc.–horrible objects for a sentimental traveler!
Being emptied out on the pavement at last, our first care was to find rooms; after searching through many streets, with a coarse old Italian who spoke like an angel, we arrived at a square where the music of a fountain was heard through the dusk and an obelisk cut out some of the starlight. At the other end I saw a portico through the darkness, and my heart gave a breathless bound on recognizing the _Pantheon_–the matchless temple of Ancient Rome! And now while I am writing, I hear the gush of the fountain–and if I step to the window, I see the time-worn but still glorious edifice.
On returning for our baggage, we met the funeral procession of the Princess Altieri. Priests in white and gold carried flaming torches, and the coffin, covered with a magnificent golden pall, was borne in a splendid hearse, guarded by four priests. As we were settling our account with the vetturino, who demanded much more _buona mano_ than we were willing to give, the young dragoon returned. He was greatly agitated. “I have been at home!” said he, in a voice trembling with emotion. I was about to ask him further concerning his family, but he kissed and embraced us warmly and hurriedly, saying he had only come to say “addio!” and to leave us. I stop writing to ramble through Rome. This city of all cities to me–this dream of my boyhood–giant, god-like, fallen Rome–is around me, and I revel in a glow of anticipation and exciting thought that seems to change my whole state of being.
CHAPTER XL.
ROME.
_Dec. 29._–One day’s walk through Rome–how shall I describe it? The Capitol, the Forum, St. Peter’s, the Coliseum–what few hours’ ramble ever took in places so hallowed by poetry, history and art? It was a golden leaf in my calendar of life. In thinking over it now, and drawing out the threads of recollection from the varied woof of thought I have woven to-day, I almost wonder how I dared so much at once; but within reach of them all, how was it possible to wait? Let me give a sketch of our day’s ramble.
Hearing that it was better to visit the ruins by evening or moonlight, (alas! there is no moon now) we started out to hunt St. Peter’s. Going in the direction of the Corso, we passed the ruined front of the magnificent Temple of Antoninus, now used as the Papal Custom House. We turned to the right on entering the Corso, expecting to have a view of the city from the hill at its southern end. It is a magnificent street, lined with palaces and splendid edifices of every kind, and always filled with crowds of carriages and people. On leaving it, however, we became bewildered among the narrow streets–passed through a market of vegetables, crowded with beggars and contadini–threaded many by-ways between dark old buildings–saw one or two antique fountains and many modern churches, and finally arrived at a hill.
We ascended many steps, and then descending a little towards the other side, saw suddenly below us the _Roman Forum_! I knew it at once–and those three Corinthian columns that stood near us–what could they be but the remains of the temple of Jupiter Stator? We stood on the Capitoline Hill; at the foot was the Arch of Septimus Severus, brown with age and shattered; near it stood the majestic front of the Temple of Fortune, its pillars of polished granite glistening in the sun, as if they had been erected yesterday, while on the left the rank grass was waving from the arches and mighty walls of the Palace of the Caesars! In front, ruin upon ruin lined the way for half a mile, where the Coliseum towered grandly through the blue morning mist, at the base of the Esquiline Hill!
Good heavens, what a scene! Grandeur, such as the world never saw, once rose through that blue atmosphere; splendor inconceivable, the spoils of a world, the triumphs of a thousand armies had passed over that earth; minds which for ages moved the ancient world had thought there, and words of power and glory, from the lips of immortal men, had been syllabled on that hallowed air. To call back all this on the very spot, while the wreck of what once was, rose mouldering and desolate around, aroused a sublimity of thought and feeling too powerful for words.
Returning at hazard through the streets, we came suddenly upon the column of Trajan, standing in an excavated square below the level of the city, amid a number of broken granite columns, which formed part of the Forum dedicated to him by Rome, after the conquest of Dacia. The column is one hundred and thirty-two feet high, entirely covered with bas-reliefs representing his victories, winding about it in a spiral line to the top. The number of figures is computed at two thousand five hundred, and they were of such excellence that Raphael used many of them for his models. They are now much defaced, and the column is surmounted by a statue of some saint. The inscription on the pedestal has been erased, and the name of Sixtus V. substituted. Nothing can exceed the ridiculous vanity of the old popes in thus mutilating the finest monuments of ancient art. You cannot look upon any relic of antiquity in Rome, but your eyes are assailed by the words “PONTIFEX MAXIMUS,” in staring modern letters. Even the magnificent bronzes of the Pantheon were stripped to make the baldachin under the dome of St. Peter’s.
Finding our way back again, we took a fresh start, happily in the right direction, and after walking some time, came out on the Tiber, at the Bridge of St. Angelo. The river rolled below in his muddy glory, and in front, on the opposite bank, stood “the pile which Hadrian retired on high”–_now_, the Castle of St. Angelo. Knowing that St. Peter’s was to he seen from this bridge, I looked about in search of it. There was only one dome in sight, large and of beautiful proportions. I said at once, “surely _that_ cannot be St. Peter’s!” On looking again, however, I saw the top of a massive range of building near it, which corresponded so nearly with the pictures of the Vatican, that I was unwillingly forced to believe the mighty dome was really before me. I recognized it as one of those we saw from the Capitol, but it appeared so much smaller when viewed from a greater distance, that I was quite deceived. On considering we were still three-fourths of a mile from it, and that we could see its minutest parts distinctly, the illusion was explained.
Going directly down the _Borgo Vecchio_, towards it, it seemed a long time before we arrived at the square of St. Peter’s; when at length we stood in front with the majestic colonnade sweeping around–the fountains on each side sending up their showers of silvery spray–the mighty obelisk of Egyptian granite piercing the sky–and beyond, the great front and dome of the Cathedral, I confessed my unmingled admiration. It recalled to my mind the grandeur of ancient Rome, and mighty as her edifices must have been, I doubt if there were many views more overpowering than this. The facade of St. Peter’s seemed close to us, but it was a third of a mile distant, and the people ascending the steps dwindled to pigmies.
I passed the obelisk, went up the long ascent, crossed the portico, pushed aside the heavy leathern curtain at the entrance, and stood in the great nave. I need not describe my feelings at the sight, but I will tell the dimensions, and you may then fancy what they were. Before me was a marble plain six hundred feet long, and under the cross four hundred and seventeen feet wide! One hundred and fifty feet above, sprang a glorious arch, dazzling with inlaid gold, and in the centre of the cross there were four hundred feet of air between me and the top of the dome! The sunbeam, stealing through the lofty window at one end of the transept, made a bar of light on the blue air, hazy with incense, one-tenth of a mile long, before it fell on the mosaics and gilded shrines of the other extremity. The grand cupola alone, including lantern and cross, is two hundred and eighty-five feet high, or sixty feet higher than the Bunker Hill Monument, and the four immense pillars on which it rests are each one hundred and thirty-seven feet in circumference! It seems as if human art had outdone itself in producing this temple–the grandest which the world ever erected for the worship of the Living God! The awe felt in looking up at the giant arch of marble and gold, did not humble me; on the contrary, I felt exalted, ennobled–beings in the form I wore planned the glorious edifice, and it seemed that in godlike power perseverance, they were indeed but “a little lower than the angels!” I felt that, if fallen, my race was still mighty and immortal.
The Vatican is only open twice a week, on days which are not _festas_; most fortunately, to-day happened to be one of these, and we took a _run_ through its endless halls. The extent and magnificence of the gallery of sculpture is perfectly amazing. The halls, which are filled to overflowing with the finest works of ancient art, would, if placed side by side, make a row more than two miles in length! You enter at once into a hall of marble, with a magnificent arched ceiling, a third of a mile long; the sides are covered for a great distance with inscriptions of every kind, divided into compartments according to the era of the empire to which they refer. One which I examined, appeared to be a kind of index of the roads in Italy, with the towns on them; and we could decipher on that time-worn block, the very route I had followed from Florence hither.
Then came the statues, and here I am bewildered, how to describe them. Hundreds upon hundreds of figures–statues of citizens, generals, emperors and gods–fauns, satyrs and nymphs–children, cupids and tritons–in fact, it seemed inexhaustible. Many of them, too, were forms of matchless beauty; there were Venuses and nymphs, born of the loftiest dreams of grace; fauns on whose faces shone the very soul of humor, and heroes and divinities with an air of majesty worthy the “land of lost gods and godlike men!”
I am lost in astonishment at the perfection of art attained by the Greeks and Romans. There is scarcely a form of beauty, that has ever met my eye, which is not to be found in this gallery. I should almost despair of such another blaze of glory on the world, were it not my devout belief that what has been done may be done again, and had I not faith that the dawn in which we live will bring another day equally glorious. And why should not America, with the experience and added wisdom which three thousand years have slowly yielded to the old world, joined to the giant energy of her youth and freedom, re-bestow on the world the divine creations of art? Let Powers answer!
But let us step on to the hemicycle of the Belvidere, and view some works greater than any we have yet seen, or even imagined. The adjoining gallery is filled with masterpieces of sculpture, but we will keep our eyes unwearied and merely glance along the rows. At length we reach a circular court with a fountain flinging up its waters in the centre. Before us is an open cabinet; there is a beautiful, manly form within, but you would not for an instant take it for the Apollo. By the Gorgon head it holds aloft, we recognize Canova’s Perseus–he has copied the form and attitude of the Apollo, but he could not breathe into it the same warming fire. It seemed to me particularly lifeless, and I greatly preferred his Boxers, who stand on either side of it. One, who has drawn back in the attitude of striking, looks as if he could fell an ox with a single blow of his powerful arm. The other is a more lithe and agile figure, and there is a quick fire in his countenance which might overbalance the massive strength of his opponent.
Another cabinet–this is the far-famed Antinous. A countenance of perfect Grecian beauty, with a form such as we would imagine for one of Homer’s heroes. His features are in repose, and there is something in their calm, settled expression, strikingly like life.
Now we look on a scene of the deepest physical agony. Mark how every muscle of old Laocoon’s body is distended to the utmost in the mighty struggle! What intensity of pain in the quivering, distorted, features! Every nerve, which despair can call into action, is excited in one giant effort, and a scream of anguish seems just to have quivered on those marble lips. The serpents have rolled their strangling coils around father and sons, but terror has taken away the strength of the latter, and they make but feeble resistance. After looking with indifference on the many casts of this group, I was the more moved by the magnificent original. It deserves all the admiration that has been heaped upon it.
I absolutely trembled on approaching the cabinet of the Apollo, I had built up in fancy a glorious ideal, drawn from all that bards have sung or artists have rhapsodized about its divine beauty. I feared disappointment–I dreaded to have my ideal displaced and my faith in the power of human genius overthrown by a form less than perfect. However, with a feeling of desperate excitement, I entered and looked upon it.
Now what shall I say of it? How make you comprehend its immortal beauty? To what shall I liken its glorious perfection of form, or the fire that imbues the cold marble with the soul of a god? Not with sculpture, for it stands alone and above all other works of art–nor with men, for it has a majesty more than human. I gazed on it, lost in wonder and joy–joy that I could, at last, take into my mind a faultless ideal of godlike, exalted manhood. The figure appears actually to possess a spirit, and I looked on it, not as on a piece of marble, but a being of loftier mould, and half expected to see him step forward when the arrow had reached its mark. I would give worlds to feel one moment the sculptor’s mental triumph when his work was completed; that one exulting thrill must have repaid him for every ill he might have suffered on earth! With what divine inspiration has he wrought its faultless lines! There is a spirit in every limb which mere toil could not have given. It must have been caught in those lofty moments.
“When each conception was a heavenly guest–a ray of immortality–and stood
star-like, around, until they gathered to a god?”
We ran through a series of halls, roofed with golden stars on a deep blue, midnight sky, and filled with porphyry vases, black marble gods, and mummies. Some of the statues shone with the matchless polish they had received from a Theban artisan before Athens was founded, and are, apparently, as fresh and perfect as when looked upon by the vassals of Sesostris. Notwithstanding their stiff, rough-hewn limbs, there were some figures of great beauty, and they gave me a much higher idea of Egyptian sculpture. In an adjoining hall, containing colossal busts of the gods, is a vase forty-one feet in circumference, of one solid block of red porphyry.
The “Transfiguration” is truly called the first picture in the world. The same glow of inspiration which created the Belvidere, must have been required to paint the Saviour’s aerial form. The three figures hover above the earth in a blaze of glory, seemingly independent of all material laws. The terrified Apostles on the mount, and the wondering group below, correspond in the grandeur of their expression to the awe and majesty of the scene. The only blemish in the sublime perfection of the picture is the introduction of the two small figures on the left hand; who, by-the-bye, were Cardinals, inserted there by command. Some travelers say the color is all lost, but I was agreeably surprised to find it well preserved. It is, undoubtedly, somewhat imperfect in this respect, as Raphael died before it was entirely finished; but “take it all in all,” you may search the world in vain to find its equal.
_January 1, 1846._–New Year’s Day in the Eternal City! It will be something to say in after years, that I have seen one year open in _Rome_–that, while my distant friends were making up for the winter without, with good cheer around the merry board, I have walked in sunshine by the ruins of the Coliseum, watched the orange groves gleaming with golden fruitage in the Farnese gardens, trodden the daisied meadow around the sepulchre of Caius Cestius, and mused by the graves of Shelley, Keats and Salvator Rosa! The Palace of the Cassars looked even more mournful in the pale, slant sunshine, and the yellow Tiber, as he flowed through the “marble wilderness,” seemed sullenly counting up the long centuries during which degenerate slaves have trodden his banks. A leaden-colored haze clothed the seven hills, and heavy silence reigned among the ruins, for all work was prohibited, and the people were gathered in their churches. Rome never appeared so desolate and melancholy as to-day.
In the morning I climbed the Quirinal Hill, now called Monte Cavallo, from the colossal statues of Castor and Pollux, with their steeds, supposed to be the work of Phidias and Praxiteles. They stand on each side of an obelisk of Egyptian granite, beside which a strong stream of water gushes up into a magnificent bronze basin, found in the old Forum. The statues, entirely browned by age, are considered masterpieces of Grecian art, and whether or not from the great masters, show in all their proportions, the conceptions of lofty genius.
We kept on our way between gardens filled with orange groves, whose glowing fruit reminded me of Mignon’s beautiful reminiscence–“Im dunkeln Laub die Gold Orangen gluhn!” Rome, although subject to cold winds from the Appenines, enjoys so mild a climate that oranges and palm trees grow in the open air, without protection. Daisies and violets bloom the whole winter, in the meadows of never-fading green. The basilic of the Lateran equals St. Peter’s in splendor, though its size is much smaller. The walls are covered with gorgeous hangings of velvet embroidered with gold, and before the high altar, which glitters with precious stones, are four pillars of gilt bronze, said to be those which Augustus made of the spars of Egyptian vessels captured at the battle of Actium.
We descended the hill to the Coliseum, and passing under the Arch of Constantine, walked along the ancient triumphal way, at the foot of the Palatine Hill, which is entirely covered with the ruins of the Caesars’ Palace. A road, rounding its southern base towards the Tiber, brought us to the Temple of Vesta–a beautiful little relic which has been singularly spared by the devastations that have overthrown so many mightier fabrics. It is of circular form, surrounded by nineteen Corinthian columns, thirty-six feet in height; a clumsy tiled roof now takes the place of the elegant cornice which once gave the crowning charm to its perfect proportions. Close at hand are the remains of the temple of Fortuna Virilis, of which some Ionic pillars alone are left, and the house of Cola di Rienzi–the last Tribune of Rome.
As we approached the walls, the sepulchre of Caius Cestius came in sight–a single solid pyramid, one hundred feet in height. The walls are built against it, and the light apex rises far above the massive gate beside it, which was erected by Belisarius. But there were other tombs at hand, for which we had more sympathy than that of the forgotten Roman, and we turned away to look for the graves of Shelley and Keats.
They lie in the Protestant burying ground, on the side of a mound that slopes gently up to the old wall of Rome, beside the pyramid of Cestius. The meadow around is still verdant and sown thick with daisies, and the soft green of the Italian pine mingles with the dark cypress above the slumberers. Huge aloes grow in the shade, and the sweet bay and bushes of rosemary make the air fresh and fragrant. There is a solemn, mournful beauty about the place, green and lonely as it is, beside the tottering walls of ancient Rome, that takes away the gloomy associations of death, and makes one wish to lie there, too, when his thread shall be spun to the end.
We found first the simple head-stone of Keats, alone, in the grassy meadow. Its inscription states that on his death-bed, in the bitterness of his heart, at the malice of his enemies, be desired these words to be written on his tombstone: “_Here lies one whose name was written in water_.” Not far from him reposes the son of Shelley.
Shelley himself lies at the top of the shaded slope, in a lonely spot by the wall, surrounded by tall cypresses. A little hedge of rose and bay surrounds his grave, which bears the simple inscription–
“PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY; _Cor Cordium_.”
“Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.”
Glorious, but misguided Shelley! He sleeps calmly now in that silent nook, and the air around his grave is filled with sighs from those who mourn that the bright, erratic star should have been blotted out ere it reached the zenith of its mounting fame. I plucked a leaf from the fragrant bay, as a token of his fame, and a sprig of cypress from the bough that bent lowest over his grave; and passing between tombs shaded with blooming roses or covered with unwithered garlands, left the lovely spot.
Amid the excitement of continually changing scenes, I have forgotten to mention our first visit to the Coliseum. The day after our arrival we set out with two English friends, to see it by sunset. Passing by the glorious fountain of Trevi, we made our way to the Forum, and from thence took the road to the Coliseum, lined on both sides with the remains of splendid edifices. The grass-grown ruins of the Palace of the Caesars stretched along on our right; on our left we passed in succession the granite front of the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina, the three grand arches of the Temple of Peace and the ruins of the Temple of Venus and Rome. We went under the ruined triumphal arch of Titus, with broken friezes representing the taking of Jerusalem, and the mighty walls of the Coliseum gradually rose before us. They grew in grandeur as we approached them, and when at length we stood in the centre, with the shattered arches and grassy walls rising above and beyond one another, far around us, the red light of sunset giving them a soft and melancholy beauty, I was fain to confess that another form of grandeur had entered my mind, of which I before knew not.
A majesty like that of nature clothes this wonderful edifice. Walls rise above walls, and arches above arches, from every side of the grand arena, like a sweep of craggy, pinnacled mountains around an oval lake. The two outer circles have almost entirely disappeared, torn away by the rapacious nobles of Rome, during the middle ages, to build their palaces. When entire, and filled with its hundred thousand spectators, it must have exceeded any pageant which the world can now produce. No wonder it was said–
“While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall; And when Rome falls, the world!”
–a prediction, which time has not verified. The world is now going forward, prouder than ever, and though we thank Rome for the legacy she has left us, we would not wish the dust of her ruin to cumber our path.
While standing in the arena, impressed with the spirit of the scene around me, which grew more spectral and melancholy as the dusk of evening began to fill up the broken arches, my eye was assailed by the shrines ranged around the space, doubtless to remove the pollution of paganism. In the middle stands also a cross, with an inscription, granting an absolution of forty days to all who kiss it. Now, although a simple cross in the centre might be very appropriate, both as a token of the heroic devotion of the martyr Telemachus and the triumph of a true religion over the barbarities of the Past, this congregation of shrines and bloody pictures mars very much the unity of association so necessary to the perfect enjoyment of any such scene.
We saw the flush of sunset fade behind the Capitoline Hill, and passed homeward by the Forum, as its shattered pillars were growing solemn and spectral through the twilight. I intend to visit them often again, and “meditate amongst decay.” I begin already to grow attached to their lonely grandeur. A spirit, almost human, speaks from the desolation, and there is something in the voiceless oracles it utters, that strikes an answering chord in my own breast.
In the _Via de’ Pontefici_, not far distant from the Borghese Palace, we saw the Mausoleum of Augustus. It is a large circular structure somewhat after the plan of that of Hadrian, but on a much smaller scale. The interior has been cleared out, seats erected around the walls, and the whole is now a summer theatre, for the amusement of the peasantry and tradesmen. What a commentary on greatness! Harlequin playing his pranks in the tomb of an Emperor, and the spot which nations approached with reverence, resounding with the mirth of beggars and degraded vassals!
I visited lately the studio of a young Philadelphian, Mr. W. B. Chambers, who has been here two or three years. In studying the legacies of art which the old masters left to their country, he has caught some of the genuine poetic inspiration which warmed them. But he is modest as talented, and appears to undervalue his works, so long as they do not reach his own mental ideal. He chooses principally subjects from the Italian peasant-life, which abounds with picturesque and classic beauty. His pictures of the shepherd boy of the Albruzzi, and the brown maidens of the Campagna are fine illustrations of this class, and the fidelity with which he copies nature, is an earnest of his future success.
I was in the studio of Crawford, the sculptor; he has at present nothing finished in the marble. There were many casts of his former works, which, judging from their appearance in plaster, must be of no common excellence–for the sculptor can only be justly judged _in marble_. I saw some fine bas-reliefs of classical subjects, and an exquisite group of Mercury and Psyche, but his masterpiece is undoubtedly the Orpheus. There is a spirit in this figure which astonished me. The face is full of the inspiration of the poet, softened by the lover’s tenderness, and the whole fervor of his soul is expressed in the eagerness with which he gazes forward, on stepping past the sleeping Cerberus. Crawford is now engaged on the statue of an Indian girl, pierced by an arrow, and dying. It is a simple and touching figure, and will, I think, be one of his best works.
We are often amused with the groups in the square of the Pantheon, which we can see from our chamber-window. Shoemakers and tinkers carry on their business along the sunny side, while the venders of oranges and roasted chesnuts form a circle around the Egyptian obelisk and fountain. Across the end of an opposite street we get a glimpse of the vegetable-market, and now and then the shrill voice of a pedlar makes its nasal solo audible above the confused chorus. As the beggars choose the Corso, St. Peter’s, and the ruins for their principal haunts, we are now spared the hearing of their lamentations. Every time we go out we are assailed with them. “_Maladetta sia la vostra testa_!”–“Curses be upon your head!”–said one whom I passed without notice. The priests are, however, the greatest beggars. In every church are kept offering boxes, for the support of the church or some unknown institution; they even go from house to house, imploring support and assistance in the name of the Virgin and all the saints, while their bloated, sensual countenances and capacious frames tell of anything but fasts and privations. Once, as I was sitting among the ruins, I was suddenly startled by a loud, rattling sound; turning my head, I saw a figure clothed in white from head to foot, with only two small holes for the eyes. He held in his hand a money-box, on which was a figure of the Virgin, which he held close to my lips, that I might kiss it. This I declined doing, but dropped a baiocco into his box, when, making the sign of the cross, he silently disappeared.
Our present lodging (Trattoria del Sole) is a good specimen of an Italian inn for mechanics and common tradesmen. Passing through the front room, which is an eating-place for the common people–with a barrel of wine in the corner, and bladders of lard hanging among orange boughs in the window–we enter a dark court-yard filled with heavy carts, and noisy with the neighing of horses and singing of grooms, for the stables occupy part of the house. An open staircase, running all around this hollow square, leads to the second, third, and fourth stories,
On the second story is the dining-room for the better class of travelers, who receive the same provisions as those below for double the price, and the additional privilege of giving the waiter two baiocchi. The sleeping apartments are in the fourth story, and are named according to the fancy of a former landlord, in mottos above each door. Thus, on arriving here, the Triester, with his wife and child, more fortunate than our first parents, took refuge in “Paradise,” while we Americans were ushered into the “Chamber of Jove.” We have occupied it ever since, and find a paul (ten cents) apiece cheap enough for a good bed and a window opening on the Pantheon.
Next to the Coliseum, the baths of Caracalla are the grandest remains of Rome. The building is a thousand feet square, and its massive walls look as if built by a race of giants. These Titan remains are covered with green shrubbery, and long, trailing vines sweep over the cornice, and wave down like tresses from architrave and arch. In some of its grand halls the mosaic pavement is yet entire. The excavations are still carried on; from the number of statues already found, this would seem to have been one of the most gorgeous edifices of the olden time.
I have been now several days loitering and sketching among the ruins, and I feel as if I could willingly wander for months beside these mournful relics, and draw inspiration from the lofty yet melancholy lore they teach. There is a spirit haunting them, real and undoubted. Every shattered column, every broken arch and mouldering wall, but calls up more vividly to mind the glory that has passed away. Each lonely pillar stands as proudly as if it still helped to bear up the front of a glorious temple, and the air seems scarcely to have ceased vibrating with the clarions that heralded a conqueror’s triumph.
“–the old majestic trees
Stand ghost-like in the Caesar’s home, As if their conscious roots were set
In the old graves of giant Rome,
And drew their sap all kingly yet!”
* * * * *
“There every mouldering stone beneath Is broken from some mighty thought,
And sculptures in the dust still breathe The fire with which their lines were wrought, And sunder’d arch and plundered tomb
Still thunder back the echo–‘_Rome!_'”
In Rome there is no need that the imagination be excited to call up thrilling emotion or poetic reverie–they are forced on the mind by the sublime spirit of the scene. The roused bard might here pour forth his thoughts in the wildest climaces, and I could believe he felt it all. This is like the Italy of my dreams–that golden realm whose image has been nearly chased away by the earthly reality. I expected to find a land of light and beauty, where every step crushed a flower or displaced a sunbeam–whose very air was poetic inspiration, and whose every scene filled the soul with romantic feelings. Nothing is left of my picture but the far-off mountains, robed in the sapphire veil of the Ausonian air, and these ruins, amid whose fallen glory sits triumphant the spirit of ancient song.
I have seen the flush of morn and eve rest on the Coliseum; I have seen the noon-day sky framed in its broken loopholes, like plates of polished sapphire; and last night, as the moon has grown into the zenith, I went to view it with her. Around the Forum all was silent and spectral–a sentinel challenged us at the Arch of Titus, under which we passed and along the Caesar’s wall, which lay in black shadow. Dead stillness brooded around the Coliseum; the pale, silvery lustre streamed through its arches, and over the grassy walls, giving them a look of shadowy grandeur which day could not bestow. The scene will remain fresh in my memory forever.
CHAPTER XLI.
TIVOLI AND THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA.
_Jan. 9._–A few days ago we returned from an excursion to Tivoli, one of the loveliest spots in Italy. We left the Eternal City by the Gate of San Lorenzo, and twenty minutes walk brought us to the bare and bleak Campagna, which was spread around us for leagues in every direction. Here and there a shepherd-boy in his woolly coat, with his flock of browsing sheep, were the only objects that broke its desert-like monotony.
At the fourth mile we crossed the rapid Anio, the ancient Teverone, formerly the boundary between Latium and the Sabine dominions, and at the tenth, came upon some fragments of the old Tibertine way, formed of large irregular blocks of basaltic lava. A short distance further, we saw across the plain the ruins of the bath of Agrippa, built by the side of the Tartarean Lake. The wind, blowing from it, bore us an overpowering smell of sulphur; the waters of the little river Solfatara, which crosses the road, are of a milky blue color, and carry those of the lake into the Anio. A fragment of the old bridge over it still remains.
Finding the water quite warm, we determined to have a bath. So we ran down the plain, which was covered with a thick coat of sulphur, and sounded hollow to our tread, till we reached a convenient place, where we threw off our clothes, and plunged in. The warm wave was delightful to the skin, but extremely offensive to the smell, and when we came out, our mouths and throats were filled with the stifling gas.
It was growing dark as we mounted through the narrow streets of Tivoli, but we endeavored to gain some sight of the renowned beauties of the spot, before going to rest. From a platform on a brow of the hill, we looked down into the defile, at whose bottom the Anio was roaring, and caught a sideward glance of the Cascatelles, sending up their spray amid the evergreen bushes that fringe the rocks. Above the deep glen that curves into the mountain, stands the beautiful temple of the Sybil–a building of the most perfect and graceful proportion. It crests the “rocky brow” like a fairy dwelling, and looks all the lovelier for the wild caverns below. Gazing downward from the bridge, one sees the waters of the Anio tumbling into the picturesque grotto of the Sirens; around a rugged corner, a cloud of white spray whirls up continually, while the boom of a cataract rumbles down the glen. All these we marked in the deepening dusk, and then hunted an albergo.
The shrill-voiced hostess gave us a good supper and clean beds; in return we diverted the people very much by the relation of our sulphur bath. We were awakened in the night by the wind shaking the very soul out of our loose casement. I fancied I heard torrents of rain dashing against the panes, and groaned in bitterness of spirit on thinking of a walk back to Rome in such weather. When morning came, we found it was only a hurricane of wind which was strong enough to tear off pieces of the old roofs. I saw some capuchins nearly overturned in crossing the square, by the wind seizing their white robes.
I had my fingers frozen and my eyes filled with sand, in trying to draw the Sybil’s temple, and therefore left it to join my companions, who had gone down into the glen to see the great cascade. The Anio bursts out of a cavern in the mountain-side, and like a prisoner giddy with recovered liberty, reels over the edge of a precipice more than two hundred feet deep. The bottom is hid in a cloud of boiling spray, that shifts from side to side, and driven by the wind, sweeps whistling down the narrow pass. It stuns the ear with a perpetual boom, giving a dash of grandeur to the enrapturing beauty of the scene. I tried a footpath that appeared to lead down to the Cascatelles, but after advancing some distance along the side of an almost perpendicular precipice, I came to a corner that looked so dangerous, especially as the wind was nearly strong enough to carry me off, that it seemed safest to return. We made another vain attempt to get down, by creeping along the bed of a torrent, filled with briars. The Cascatelles are formed by that part of the Anio, which is used in the iron works, made out of the ruins of Mecaenas’ villa. They gush out from under the ancient arches, and tumble more than a hundred feet down the precipice, their white waters gleaming out from the dark and feathery foliage. Not far distant are the remains of the villa of Horace.
We took the road to Frascati, and walked for miles among cane-swamps and over plains covered with sheep. The people we saw, were most degraded and ferocious-looking, and there were many I would not willingly meet alone after nightfall. Indeed it is still considered quite unsafe to venture without the walls of Rome, after dark. The women, with their yellow complexions, and the bright red blankets they wear folded around the head and shoulders, resemble Indian Squaws.
I lately spent three hours in the Museum of the Capitol, on the summit of the sacred hill. In the hall of the Gladiator I noticed an exquisite statue of Diana. There is a pure, virgin grace in the classic outlines of the figure that keeps the eye long upon it. The face is full of cold, majestic dignity, but it is the ideal of a being to be worshipped, rather than loved. The Faun of Praxiteles, in the same room, is a glorious work; it is the perfect embodiment of that wild, merry race the Grecian poets dreamed of. One looks on the Gladiator with a hushed breath and an awed spirit. He is dying; the blood flows more slowly from the deep wound in his side; his head is sinking downwards, and the arm that supports his body becomes more and more nerveless. You feel that a dull mist is coming over his vision, and almost wait to see his relaxing limbs sink suddenly on his shield. That the rude, barbarian form has a soul, may be read in his touchingly expressive countenance. It warms the sympathies like reality to look upon it. Yet how many Romans may have gazed on this work, moved nearly to tears, who have seen hundreds perish in the arena without a pitying emotion! Why is it that Art has a voice frequently more powerful than Nature?
How cold it is here! I was forced to run home to-night, nearly at full speed, from the Cafe delle _Belle Arti_ through the Corso and the Piazza Colonna, to keep warm. The clear, frosty moon threw the shadow of the column of Antoninus over me as I passed, and it made me shiver to look at the thin, falling sheet of the fountain. Winter is winter everywhere, and even the sun of Italy cannot always scorch his icy wings.
Two days ago we took a ramble outside the walls. Passing the Coliseum and Caracalla’s Baths, we reached the tomb of Scipio, a small sepulchral vault, near the roadside. The ashes of the warrior were scattered to the winds long ago, and his mausoleum is fast falling to decay. The old arch over the Appian way is still standing, near the modern _Porta San Sebastiano_ through which we entered on the far-famed road. Here and there it is quite entire, and we walked over the stones once worn by the feet of Virgil and Horace and Cicero. After passing the temple of Romulus–a shapeless and ivy-grown ruin–and walking a mile or more beyond the walls, we reached the Circus of Caracalla, whose long and shattered walls fill the hollow of one of the little dells of the Campagna. The original structure must have been of great size and splendor, but those twin Vandals–Time and Avarice–have stripped away everything but the lofty brick masses, whose nakedness the pitying ivy strives to cover.
Further, on a gentle slope, is the tomb of “the wealthiest Roman’s wife,” familiar to every one through Childe Harold’s musings. It is a round, massive tower, faced with large blocks of marble, and still bearing the name of Cecilia Metella. One side is much ruined, and the top is overgrown with grass and wild bushes. The wall is about thirty feet thick, so that but a small round space is left in the interior, which is open to the rain and filled will rubbish. The echoes pronounced hollowly after us the name of the dead for whom it was built, but they could tell us nothing of her life’s history–
“How lived, how loved, how died she?”
I made a hurried drawing of it, and we then turned to the left, across the Campagna, to seek the grotto of Egeria. Before us, across the brown plain, extended the Sabine Mountains; in the clear air the houses of Tivoli, twenty miles distant, were plainly visible. The giant aqueduct stretched in a long line across the Campagna to the mountain of Albano, its broken and disjointed arches resembling the vertebrae of some mighty monster. With the ruins of temples and tombs strewing the plain for miles around it, it might be called the _spine_ to the skeleton of Rome.
We passed many ruins, made beautiful by the clinging ivy, and reached a solemn grove of ever-green oak, overlooking a secluded valley. I was soon in the meadow, leaping ditches, rustling through cane-brakes, and climbing up to mossy arches to find out the fountain of Numa’s nymph; while my companion, who had less taste for the romantic, looked on complacently from the leeward side of the hill. At length we found an arched vault in the hill-side, overhung with wild vines, and shaded in summer by umbrageous trees that grow on the soil above. At the further end a stream of water gushed out from beneath a broken statue, and an aperture in the wall revealed a dark cavern behind. This, then, was “Egeria’s grot.” The ground was trampled by the feet of cattle, and the taste of the water was anything but pleasant. But it was not for Numa and his nymph alone, that I sought it so ardently. The sunbeam of another mind lingers on the spot. See how it gilds the ruined and neglected fount!
“The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled With thine Elysian water-drops; the face Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years unwrinkled, Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place, Whose wild, green margin, now no more erase Art’s works; no more its sparkling waters sleep, Prisoned in marble; bubbling from the base Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap, The rill runs o’er, and ’round, fern, flowers and ivy creep, Fantastically tangled.”
I tried to creep into the grotto, but it was unpleasantly dark, and no nymph appeared to chase away the shadow with her lustrous eyes. The whole hill is pierced by subterranean chambers and passages.
I spent another Sunday morning in St. Peter’s. High mass was being celebrated in one of the side Chapels, and a great number of the priesthood were present. The music was simple, solemn, and very impressive, and a fine effect was produced by the combination of the full, sonorous voices of the priests, and the divine sweetness of that band of mutilated unfortunates, who sing here. They sang with a full, clear tone, sweet as the first lispings of a child, but it was painful to hear that melody, purchased at the expense of manhood.
Near the dome is a bronze statue of St. Peter, which seems to have a peculiar atmosphere of sanctity. People say their prayers before it by hundreds, and then kiss its toe, which is nearly worn away by the application of so many thousand lips. I saw a crowd struggle most irreverently to pay their devotion to it. There was a great deal of jostling and confusion; some went so far as to thrust the faces of others against the toe as they were about to kiss it. What is more remarkable, it is an antique statue of Jupiter, taken, I believe, from the Pantheon. An English artist, showing it to a friend, just arrived in Rome, remarked very wittily that it was the statue of _Jew-Peter_.
I went afterwards to the Villa Borghese, outside the Porta del Popolo. The gardens occupy thirty or forty acres, and are always thronged in the afternoon with the carriages of the Roman and foreign nobility. In summer, it must be a heavenly place; even now, with its musical fountains, long avenues, and grassy slopes, crowned with the fan-like branches of the Italian pine, it reminds one of the fairy landscapes of Boccaccio. We threaded our way through the press of carriages on the Pincian hill, and saw the enormous bulk of St. Peter’s loom up against the sunset sky. I counted forty domes and spires in that part of Rome that lay below us–but on what a marble glory looked that sun eighteen centuries ago! Modern Rome–it is in comparison, a den of filth, cheats and beggars!
Yesterday, while taking a random stroll through the city, I visited the church of St. Onofrio, where Tasso is buried. It is not far from St. Peter’s, on the summit of a lonely hill. The building was closed, but an old monk admitted us on application. The interior is quite small, but very old, and the floor is covered with the tombs of princes and prelates of a past century. Near the end I found a small slab with the inscription:
“TORQUATI TASSI
OSSA
HIC JACENT.”