Books: Pictures from Italy
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Charles Dickens >> Pictures from Italy
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SIMOND compares the Tower to the usual pictorial representations in
children's books of the Tower of Babel. It is a happy simile, and
conveys a better idea of the building than chapters of laboured
description. Nothing can exceed the grace and lightness of the
structure; nothing can be more remarkable than its general
appearance. In the course of the ascent to the top (which is by an
easy staircase), the inclination is not very apparent; but, at the
summit, it becomes so, and gives one the sensation of being in a
ship that has heeled over, through the action of an ebb-tide. The
effect UPON THE LOW SIDE, so to speak--looking over from the
gallery, and seeing the shaft recede to its base--is very
startling; and I saw a nervous traveller hold on to the Tower
involuntarily, after glancing down, as if he had some idea of
propping it up. The view within, from the ground--looking up, as
through a slanted tube--is also very curious. It certainly
inclines as much as the most sanguine tourist could desire. The
natural impulse of ninety-nine people out of a hundred, who were
about to recline upon the grass below it, to rest, and contemplate
the adjacent buildings, would probably be, not to take up their
position under the leaning side; it is so very much aslant.
The manifold beauties of the Cathedral and Baptistery need no
recapitulation from me; though in this case, as in a hundred
others, I find it difficult to separate my own delight in recalling
them, from your weariness in having them recalled. There is a
picture of St. Agnes, by Andrea del Sarto, in the former, and there
are a variety of rich columns in the latter, that tempt me
strongly.
It is, I hope, no breach of my resolution not to be tempted into
elaborate descriptions, to remember the Campo Santo; where grass-
grown graves are dug in earth brought more than six hundred years
ago, from the Holy Land; and where there are, surrounding them,
such cloisters, with such playing lights and shadows falling
through their delicate tracery on the stone pavement, as surely the
dullest memory could never forget. On the walls of this solemn and
lovely place, are ancient frescoes, very much obliterated and
decayed, but very curious. As usually happens in almost any
collection of paintings, of any sort, in Italy, where there are
many heads, there is, in one of them, a striking accidental
likeness of Napoleon. At one time, I used to please my fancy with
the speculation whether these old painters, at their work, had a
foreboding knowledge of the man who would one day arise to wreak
such destruction upon art: whose soldiers would make targets of
great pictures, and stable their horses among triumphs of
architecture. But the same Corsican face is so plentiful in some
parts of Italy at this day, that a more commonplace solution of the
coincidence is unavoidable.
If Pisa be the seventh wonder of the world in right of its Tower,
it may claim to be, at least, the second or third in right of its
beggars. They waylay the unhappy visitor at every turn, escort him
to every door he enters at, and lie in wait for him, with strong
reinforcements, at every door by which they know he must come out.
The grating of the portal on its hinges is the signal for a general
shout, and the moment he appears, he is hemmed in, and fallen on,
by heaps of rags and personal distortions. The beggars seem to
embody all the trade and enterprise of Pisa. Nothing else is
stirring, but warm air. Going through the streets, the fronts of
the sleepy houses look like backs. They are all so still and
quiet, and unlike houses with people in them, that the greater part
of the city has the appearance of a city at daybreak, or during a
general siesta of the population. Or it is yet more like those
backgrounds of houses in common prints, or old engravings, where
windows and doors are squarely indicated, and one figure (a beggar
of course) is seen walking off by itself into illimitable
perspective.
Not so Leghorn (made illustrious by SMOLLETT'S grave), which is a
thriving, business-like, matter-of-fact place, where idleness is
shouldered out of the way by commerce. The regulations observed
there, in reference to trade and merchants, are very liberal and
free; and the town, of course, benefits by them. Leghorn had a bad
name in connection with stabbers, and with some justice it must be
allowed; for, not many years ago, there was an assassination club
there, the members of which bore no ill-will to anybody in
particular, but stabbed people (quite strangers to them) in the
streets at night, for the pleasure and excitement of the
recreation. I think the president of this amiable society was a
shoemaker. He was taken, however, and the club was broken up. It
would, probably, have disappeared in the natural course of events,
before the railroad between Leghorn and Pisa, which is a good one,
and has already begun to astonish Italy with a precedent of
punctuality, order, plain dealing, and improvement--the most
dangerous and heretical astonisher of all. There must have been a
slight sensation, as of earthquake, surely, in the Vatican, when
the first Italian railroad was thrown open.
Returning to Pisa, and hiring a good-tempered Vetturino, and his
four horses, to take us on to Rome, we travelled through pleasant
Tuscan villages and cheerful scenery all day. The roadside crosses
in this part of Italy are numerous and curious. There is seldom a
figure on the cross, though there is sometimes a face, but they are
remarkable for being garnished with little models in wood, of every
possible object that can be connected with the Saviour's death.
The cock that crowed when Peter had denied his Master thrice, is
usually perched on the tip-top; and an ornithological phenomenon he
generally is. Under him, is the inscription. Then, hung on to the
cross-beam, are the spear, the reed with the sponge of vinegar and
water at the end, the coat without seam for which the soldiers cast
lots, the dice-box with which they threw for it, the hammer that
drove in the nails, the pincers that pulled them out, the ladder
which was set against the cross, the crown of thorns, the
instrument of flagellation, the lanthorn with which Mary went to
the tomb (I suppose), and the sword with which Peter smote the
servant of the high priest,--a perfect toy-shop of little objects,
repeated at every four or five miles, all along the highway.
On the evening of the second day from Pisa, we reached the
beautiful old city of Siena. There was what they called a
Carnival, in progress; but, as its secret lay in a score or two of
melancholy people walking up and down the principal street in
common toy-shop masks, and being more melancholy, if possible, than
the same sort of people in England, I say no more of it. We went
off, betimes next morning, to see the Cathedral, which is
wonderfully picturesque inside and out, especially the latter--also
the market-place, or great Piazza, which is a large square, with a
great broken-nosed fountain in it: some quaint Gothic houses: and
a high square brick tower; OUTSIDE the top of which--a curious
feature in such views in Italy--hangs an enormous bell. It is like
a bit of Venice, without the water. There are some curious old
Palazzi in the town, which is very ancient; and without having (for
me) the interest of Verona, or Genoa, it is very dreamy and
fantastic, and most interesting.
We went on again, as soon as we had seen these things, and going
over a rather bleak country (there had been nothing but vines until
now: mere walking-sticks at that season of the year), stopped, as
usual, between one and two hours in the middle of the day, to rest
the horses; that being a part of every Vetturino contract. We then
went on again, through a region gradually becoming bleaker and
wilder, until it became as bare and desolate as any Scottish moors.
Soon after dark, we halted for the night, at the osteria of La
Scala: a perfectly lone house, where the family were sitting round
a great fire in the kitchen, raised on a stone platform three or
four feet high, and big enough for the roasting of an ox. On the
upper, and only other floor of this hotel, there was a great, wild,
rambling sala, with one very little window in a by-corner, and four
black doors opening into four black bedrooms in various directions.
To say nothing of another large black door, opening into another
large black sala, with the staircase coming abruptly through a kind
of trap-door in the floor, and the rafters of the roof looming
above: a suspicious little press skulking in one obscure corner:
and all the knives in the house lying about in various directions.
The fireplace was of the purest Italian architecture, so that it
was perfectly impossible to see it for the smoke. The waitress was
like a dramatic brigand's wife, and wore the same style of dress
upon her head. The dogs barked like mad; the echoes returned the
compliments bestowed upon them; there was not another house within
twelve miles; and things had a dreary, and rather a cut-throat,
appearance.
They were not improved by rumours of robbers having come out,
strong and boldly, within a few nights; and of their having stopped
the mail very near that place. They were known to have waylaid
some travellers not long before, on Mount Vesuvius itself, and were
the talk at all the roadside inns. As they were no business of
ours, however (for we had very little with us to lose), we made
ourselves merry on the subject, and were very soon as comfortable
as need be. We had the usual dinner in this solitary house; and a
very good dinner it is, when you are used to it. There is
something with a vegetable or some rice in it which is a sort of
shorthand or arbitrary character for soup, and which tastes very
well, when you have flavoured it with plenty of grated cheese, lots
of salt, and abundance of pepper. There is the half fowl of which
this soup has been made. There is a stewed pigeon, with the
gizzards and livers of himself and other birds stuck all round him.
There is a bit of roast beef, the size of a small French roll.
There are a scrap of Parmesan cheese, and five little withered
apples, all huddled together on a small plate, and crowding one
upon the other, as if each were trying to save itself from the
chance of being eaten. Then there is coffee; and then there is
bed. You don't mind brick floors; you don't mind yawning doors,
nor banging windows; you don't mind your own horses being stabled
under the bed: and so close, that every time a horse coughs or
sneezes, he wakes you. If you are good-humoured to the people
about you, and speak pleasantly, and look cheerful, take my word
for it you may be well entertained in the very worst Italian Inn,
and always in the most obliging manner, and may go from one end of
the country to the other (despite all stories to the contrary)
without any great trial of your patience anywhere. Especially,
when you get such wine in flasks, as the Orvieto, and the Monte
Pulciano.
It was a bad morning when we left this place; and we went, for
twelve miles, over a country as barren, as stony, and as wild, as
Cornwall in England, until we came to Radicofani, where there is a
ghostly, goblin inn: once a hunting-seat, belonging to the Dukes
of Tuscany. It is full of such rambling corridors, and gaunt
rooms, that all the murdering and phantom tales that ever were
written might have originated in that one house. There are some
horrible old Palazzi in Genoa: one in particular, not unlike it,
outside: but there is a winding, creaking, wormy, rustling, door-
opening, foot-on-staircase-falling character about this Radicofani
Hotel, such as I never saw, anywhere else. The town, such as it
is, hangs on a hill-side above the house, and in front of it. The
inhabitants are all beggars; and as soon as they see a carriage
coming, they swoop down upon it, like so many birds of prey.
When we got on the mountain pass, which lies beyond this place, the
wind (as they had forewarned us at the inn) was so terrific, that
we were obliged to take my other half out of the carriage, lest she
should be blown over, carriage and all, and to hang to it, on the
windy side (as well as we could for laughing), to prevent its
going, Heaven knows where. For mere force of wind, this land-storm
might have competed with an Atlantic gale, and had a reasonable
chance of coming off victorious. The blast came sweeping down
great gullies in a range of mountains on the right: so that we
looked with positive awe at a great morass on the left, and saw
that there was not a bush or twig to hold by. It seemed as if,
once blown from our feet, we must be swept out to sea, or away into
space. There was snow, and hail, and rain, and lightning, and
thunder; and there were rolling mists, travelling with incredible
velocity. It was dark, awful, and solitary to the last degree;
there were mountains above mountains, veiled in angry clouds; and
there was such a wrathful, rapid, violent, tumultuous hurry,
everywhere, as rendered the scene unspeakably exciting and grand.
It was a relief to get out of it, notwithstanding; and to cross
even the dismal, dirty Papal Frontier. After passing through two
little towns; in one of which, Acquapendente, there was also a
'Carnival' in progress: consisting of one man dressed and masked
as a woman, and one woman dressed and masked as a man, walking
ankle-deep, through the muddy streets, in a very melancholy manner:
we came, at dusk, within sight of the Lake of Bolsena, on whose
bank there is a little town of the same name, much celebrated for
malaria. With the exception of this poor place, there is not a
cottage on the banks of the lake, or near it (for nobody dare sleep
there); not a boat upon its waters; not a stick or stake to break
the dismal monotony of seven-and-twenty watery miles. We were late
in getting in, the roads being very bad from heavy rains; and,
after dark, the dulness of the scene was quite intolerable.
We entered on a very different, and a finer scene of desolation,
next night, at sunset. We had passed through Montefiaschone
(famous for its wine) and Viterbo (for its fountains): and after
climbing up a long hill of eight or ten miles' extent, came
suddenly upon the margin of a solitary lake: in one part very
beautiful, with a luxuriant wood; in another, very barren, and shut
in by bleak volcanic hills. Where this lake flows, there stood, of
old, a city. It was swallowed up one day; and in its stead, this
water rose. There are ancient traditions (common to many parts of
the world) of the ruined city having been seen below, when the
water was clear; but however that may be, from this spot of earth
it vanished. The ground came bubbling up above it; and the water
too; and here they stand, like ghosts on whom the other world
closed suddenly, and who have no means of getting back again. They
seem to be waiting the course of ages, for the next earthquake in
that place; when they will plunge below the ground, at its first
yawning, and be seen no more. The unhappy city below, is not more
lost and dreary, than these fire-charred hills and the stagnant
water, above. The red sun looked strangely on them, as with the
knowledge that they were made for caverns and darkness; and the
melancholy water oozed and sucked the mud, and crept quietly among
the marshy grass and reeds, as if the overthrow of all the ancient
towers and housetops, and the death of all the ancient people born
and bred there, were yet heavy on its conscience.
A short ride from this lake, brought us to Ronciglione; a little
town like a large pig-sty, where we passed the night. Next morning
at seven o'clock, we started for Rome.
As soon as we were out of the pig-sty, we entered on the Campagna
Romana; an undulating flat (as you know), where few people can
live; and where, for miles and miles, there is nothing to relieve
the terrible monotony and gloom. Of all kinds of country that
could, by possibility, lie outside the gates of Rome, this is the
aptest and fittest burial-ground for the Dead City. So sad, so
quiet, so sullen; so secret in its covering up of great masses of
ruin, and hiding them; so like the waste places into which the men
possessed with devils used to go and howl, and rend themselves, in
the old days of Jerusalem. We had to traverse thirty miles of this
Campagna; and for two-and-twenty we went on and on, seeing nothing
but now and then a lonely house, or a villainous-looking shepherd:
with matted hair all over his face, and himself wrapped to the chin
in a frowsy brown mantle, tending his sheep. At the end of that
distance, we stopped to refresh the horses, and to get some lunch,
in a common malaria-shaken, despondent little public-house, whose
every inch of wall and beam, inside, was (according to custom)
painted and decorated in a way so miserable that every room looked
like the wrong side of another room, and, with its wretched
imitation of drapery, and lop-sided little daubs of lyres, seemed
to have been plundered from behind the scenes of some travelling
circus.
When we were fairly going off again, we began, in a perfect fever,
to strain our eyes for Rome; and when, after another mile or two,
the Eternal City appeared, at length, in the distance; it looked
like--I am half afraid to write the word--like LONDON!!! There it
lay, under a thick cloud, with innumerable towers, and steeples,
and roofs of houses, rising up into the sky, and high above them
all, one Dome. I swear, that keenly as I felt the seeming
absurdity of the comparison, it was so like London, at that
distance, that if you could have shown it me, in a glass, I should
have taken it for nothing else.
CHAPTER X--ROME
We entered the Eternal City, at about four o'clock in the
afternoon, on the thirtieth of January, by the Porta del Popolo,
and came immediately--it was a dark, muddy day, and there had been
heavy rain--on the skirts of the Carnival. We did not, then, know
that we were only looking at the fag end of the masks, who were
driving slowly round and round the Piazza until they could find a
promising opportunity for falling into the stream of carriages, and
getting, in good time, into the thick of the festivity; and coming
among them so abruptly, all travel-stained and weary, was not
coming very well prepared to enjoy the scene.
We had crossed the Tiber by the Ponte Molle two or three miles
before. It had looked as yellow as it ought to look, and hurrying
on between its worn-away and miry banks, had a promising aspect of
desolation and ruin. The masquerade dresses on the fringe of the
Carnival, did great violence to this promise. There were no great
ruins, no solemn tokens of antiquity, to be seen;--they all lie on
the other side of the city. There seemed to be long streets of
commonplace shops and houses, such as are to be found in any
European town; there were busy people, equipages, ordinary walkers
to and fro; a multitude of chattering strangers. It was no more MY
Rome: the Rome of anybody's fancy, man or boy; degraded and fallen
and lying asleep in the sun among a heap of ruins: than the Place
de la Concorde in Paris is. A cloudy sky, a dull cold rain, and
muddy streets, I was prepared for, but not for this: and I confess
to having gone to bed, that night, in a very indifferent humour,
and with a very considerably quenched enthusiasm.
Immediately on going out next day, we hurried off to St. Peter's.
It looked immense in the distance, but distinctly and decidedly
small, by comparison, on a near approach. The beauty of the
Piazza, on which it stands, with its clusters of exquisite columns,
and its gushing fountains--so fresh, so broad, and free, and
beautiful--nothing can exaggerate. The first burst of the
interior, in all its expansive majesty and glory: and, most of
all, the looking up into the Dome: is a sensation never to be
forgotten. But, there were preparations for a Festa; the pillars
of stately marble were swathed in some impertinent frippery of red
and yellow; the altar, and entrance to the subterranean chapel:
which is before it: in the centre of the church: were like a
goldsmith's shop, or one of the opening scenes in a very lavish
pantomime. And though I had as high a sense of the beauty of the
building (I hope) as it is possible to entertain, I felt no very
strong emotion. I have been infinitely more affected in many
English cathedrals when the organ has been playing, and in many
English country churches when the congregation have been singing.
I had a much greater sense of mystery and wonder, in the Cathedral
of San Mark at Venice.
When we came out of the church again (we stood nearly an hour
staring up into the dome: and would not have 'gone over' the
Cathedral then, for any money), we said to the coachman, 'Go to the
Coliseum.' In a quarter of an hour or so, he stopped at the gate,
and we went in.
It is no fiction, but plain, sober, honest Truth, to say: so
suggestive and distinct is it at this hour: that, for a moment--
actually in passing in--they who will, may have the whole great
pile before them, as it used to be, with thousands of eager faces
staring down into the arena, and such a whirl of strife, and blood,
and dust going on there, as no language can describe. Its
solitude, its awful beauty, and its utter desolation, strike upon
the stranger the next moment, like a softened sorrow; and never in
his life, perhaps, will he be so moved and overcome by any sight,
not immediately connected with his own affections and afflictions.
To see it crumbling there, an inch a year; its walls and arches
overgrown with green; its corridors open to the day; the long grass
growing in its porches; young trees of yesterday, springing up on
its ragged parapets, and bearing fruit: chance produce of the
seeds dropped there by the birds who build their nests within its
chinks and crannies; to see its Pit of Fight filled up with earth,
and the peaceful Cross planted in the centre; to climb into its
upper halls, and look down on ruin, ruin, ruin, all about it; the
triumphal arches of Constantine, Septimus Severus, and Titus; the
Roman Forum; the Palace of the Caesars; the temples of the old
religion, fallen down and gone; is to see the ghost of old Rome,
wicked, wonderful old city, haunting the very ground on which its
people trod. It is the most impressive, the most stately, the most
solemn, grand, majestic, mournful sight, conceivable. Never, in
its bloodiest prime, can the sight of the gigantic Coliseum, full
and running over with the lustiest life, have moved one's heart, as
it must move all who look upon it now, a ruin. GOD be thanked: a
ruin!
As it tops the other ruins: standing there, a mountain among
graves: so do its ancient influences outlive all other remnants of
the old mythology and old butchery of Rome, in the nature of the
fierce and cruel Roman people. The Italian face changes as the
visitor approaches the city; its beauty becomes devilish; and there
is scarcely one countenance in a hundred, among the common people
in the streets, that would not be at home and happy in a renovated
Coliseum to-morrow.
Here was Rome indeed at last; and such a Rome as no one can imagine
in its full and awful grandeur! We wandered out upon the Appian
Way, and then went on, through miles of ruined tombs and broken
walls, with here and there a desolate and uninhabited house: past
the Circus of Romulus, where the course of the chariots, the
stations of the judges, competitors, and spectators, are yet as
plainly to be seen as in old time: past the tomb of Cecilia
Metella: past all inclosure, hedge, or stake, wall or fence: away
upon the open Campagna, where on that side of Rome, nothing is to
be beheld but Ruin. Except where the distant Apennines bound the
view upon the left, the whole wide prospect is one field of ruin.
Broken aqueducts, left in the most picturesque and beautiful
clusters of arches; broken temples; broken tombs. A desert of
decay, sombre and desolate beyond all expression; and with a
history in every stone that strews the ground.
On Sunday, the Pope assisted in the performance of High Mass at St.
Peter's. The effect of the Cathedral on my mind, on that second
visit, was exactly what it was at first, and what it remains after
many visits. It is not religiously impressive or affecting. It is
an immense edifice, with no one point for the mind to rest upon;
and it tires itself with wandering round and round. The very
purpose of the place, is not expressed in anything you see there,
unless you examine its details--and all examination of details is
incompatible with the place itself. It might be a Pantheon, or a
Senate House, or a great architectural trophy, having no other
object than an architectural triumph. There is a black statue of
St. Peter, to be sure, under a red canopy; which is larger than
life and which is constantly having its great toe kissed by good
Catholics. You cannot help seeing that: it is so very prominent
and popular. But it does not heighten the effect of the temple, as
a work of art; and it is not expressive--to me at least--of its
high purpose.
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