CHAPTER VIII.
Pic de la Mirandole—Castel Franco—Bologna—A bad inn left for La Pace—Its mistress—Statue of Pope Julius the Second—St. Petronio—Mistake of a learned man—Charles the Fifth—Here crowned King of Lombardy—King Enzio—His peasant-love—His twenty years’ captivity—The origin of a name—The towers—Accademmia—St. Cecilia—The cathedral—Temple dedicated to Isis—Papal troops—A capitulation—Cholera—An Italian hospital—French soldiers—The procession barefoot—The well-attested miracle—The Appennines—Lojano—ThePellegrino—Filigare—Pietra Mala—Strange properties of its fire and cold spring—Fruit—Montecarelli—St. Antonio’s grapes—Palazzo Borghese—Hôtel du Nord—Jerome Bonaparte’s cook—Piazza della Santa Trinità—Spot occupied by thePalazzo degl’ Ubertileft vacant—Recording escutcheons—The Saviour, king of Florence—TheLoggia—Galleria de’ Medici—Piazza del Duomo—The Baptistery—Work ofGhibertiat twenty years old—Chains of the gates of Pisa—A funeral.
6th October.
Mirandola is not on our road although at no great distance, on theSecchia,and forming part of the duchy of Modena; near it are two other villages, called Concordia and Quarantola. It is said that Euridice, grand-daughter of theEmperor Constantine, and wife of Mainfroy the Saxon baron, in the first of the three became mother at a birth of three noble boys, from which strange fact it was named Miranda. Growing up in perfect harmony, the place which they inhabited was called Concordia; and years after, when their descendants, increased in number, in a neighbouring town mustered forty knights, it took from them the name of Quarantola. This legend you may doubt or believe in; but the family of Pio and Pic, sprung from Euridice, produced in 1463 the phœnix,Pic de la Mirandole, who, at ten years of age, held the first place among the poets and orators of his day; and in 1486, at Rome, published a list of nine hundred propositions on “all that is or can be known,” offering to argue their truth with any such learned personages as could be induced to meet him there, proposing to defray the expenses of their journey and their sojourn. The envy of these denouncing him as dangerous and a heretic, he endured persecution for a time and fled to France, but justifying himself, returned to Florence and died there the day that Charles the Eighth made his entry, and having known him in France, sent his physicians, who strove vainly to save his life. He left large legacies to his domestics, and the remainder ofhis possessions to the poor, and was not thirty-two when he died.
This is the fête of the Virgin. Before leaving Modena, the landlady took some trouble to convince me that the barber opposite, occupied in shaving several black faces, was a Jew, as a good catholic would on no account so labour to-day. Outside the town, we met numbers of peasants carrying the tallciergesintended as offerings at her altars, ornamented with flowers and ribands. The toilette of the women, who wore their best clothes, had an elegance about it, the lace or embroidered handkerchief covering, in guise of mantilla, the head and shoulders, and the clear worked muslin apron tied on over the bright petticoat. On the chapter of beauty, however, their “glory has departed.” Since leaving Milan, we have seen but few females not plain to ugliness, and but seldom among the men one of those dark faces so peculiarly handsome, notwithstanding its doubtful expression. The dirt of the lower classes is so excessive and indescribable, that, as they make their toilette before their cabin doors, the entire breadth of the road seemed scarce sufficient to save from contamination.
Having passed through St. Ambrogio, and over a fine bridge which crosses the Tanaro,we entered on the papal territory. At the barrier we paid two pauls per horse, the same at each of the two bridges, but on carriages the tax falls heavily; and atCastel Francoare the pope’s custom-house and passport office. Truly the subjects of his holiness lack conscience. One touched our baggage; “What have you here?” and to the usual reply, “Linen; will you see it?” rejoined, “On no account, but we will drink your health.” Then came up another to whisper “they were notinsieme,” and that the first was a narrow-minded man, who shared nothing with a comrade; and thirdly, a soldier bringing the passport murmured as he delivered it, “Le sue buone grazie.”
Arrived at Bologna as the sun set, passing on the right hand the long brick arcade, which, three miles in length, is carried up the hill to the church containing the Virgin’s most precious picture, painted by St. Luke; and riding beneath an archway which bears an inscription in Napoleon’s honour, whitewashed for the sake of effacing it, but restored by the late heavy rains. We went, as recommended, to the Pellegrino, but it was full and has no stables, and to the Aquila, which had accommodation for our horses, but none for ourselves, a circumstance it did not think proper tocommunicate till the latter were on the road to their quarters.
A voice in the crowd said “La Pace,” but it was overruled by another answering, “San Marco;” and as the latter was nearest, we went thither, and found it full also. The inn opposite, a branch of this, as belonging to the same master, and called theTre Mori,had still a disposable room, so said the innkeeper, and, weary of wandering, we agreed to take it if possible. He retreated with a bow within his own premises, and we were consigned to the care of hisdirettore, the great man’s great man at theTre Mori.The room, which was small and stifling, and exactly opposite a hall in which domestics were noisily dining, had been occupied, I think, by servants also, and left unarranged at their departure. The only answer to the bell was “Patienza,” a virtue I should have summoned to mine aid till morning, despite the inn’s dirt and incivility, but that D—— came in dismay to say that our poor comrades were lodged in a crowded stable, without space to lie down, and next kicking horses, one of whom had lamed his neighbour the night before. To run the risk of a like accident to ours was not to be thought of—the warlike Fanny, with open mouth and ears laid back, and Grizzle, with her heels,were prepared to resent any insult from the tall carriage horses, or even to take the initiative if necessary; and Italy being a place where even bribes are vain to induce an attendant to practise care, D—— remained standing beside the surly groom, while I sallied forth on a voyage of discovery, having changed my dress, and summoned to conduct me a poorfacchino,who had carried our baggage into the inn—a dwarfish wretched being we noticed for his civility, and who had since remained leaning against the wall in the hope of further employment. I desired him to be my guide to La Pace, and we threaded the winding and porticoed streets at a rapid step, as I feared it might grow dark ere our return, and San Marco being at one end of the town, La Pace is at the other, in a broader street, and better air, near the gate we shall pass through going to Florence. Arrived at the hotel, I found with satisfaction that its mistress was a Frenchwoman; and seeing that not only our horses could have a private stable, but that the house in accommodation, as well as in civility, wholly differed from theTre Mori,we hurried back; the little guide telling his history, and how he had been left an orphan, and with three sisters, he “povero ragazzo” (for theragazzois, like the Irish boy, named for life) andthey had struggled, and nearly starved for a time, and then established a good character, and got on in the world, till now (in his Sunday attire) he was another man.
We asked for our bill of an hour, and, though explaining the motive of our departure, endured insolence in return, paying with Christian meekness the moor’s exactions, which, for our horses and ourselves, charged such items as might have been fair the next morning. As we walked out, we passed an English gentleman, who stood on the inn steps holding a bill of interminable length, the innkeeper ofSan Marcoand thedirettoreof theTre Mori,one on each side, like Scylla and Charybdis, and the Englishman, foaming with the powerless fury of the sea in like situation, for the worthies were uncivil and positive. Escaped from their fangs, our horses led by theragazzo,we arrived atLa Paceat dusk, crossing on our way the finePiazza Maggiore,most striking in that imperfect light, with thePalazzo Pubblico,and thePalazzo del Podestà,and the unfinishedfaçadeofSan Petronio,occupying three of its sides, and the giant’s fountain, with its statue of Neptune by John of Bologna, built, not in the centre of the square, but in its angle, or rather on a “place” of its own, a kind of supplement to thePiazza Maggiore,facing the buildings of thePalazzo Pubblico,where they extend beyond it.
I have heard Bologna criticized for its unending arcades, which give it in my opinion a claim to admiration; a studious and solemn character, making it resemble some mighty cathedral and its cloisters. La Pace retains the name it bore when a resting-place for pilgrims on their way to Rome; the large vaulted kitchen was then the refectory, and the upper stories of the building have still the same distribution as in those days. Our hostess has known some of life’s vicissitudes. Her father had a place in, I think, the financial department, whose revenues sufficed for the comforts of his family, but, wishing to retire, he exerted what interest he possessed to get a friend, who promised compensation, named in his stead. Having succeeded, this man not only refused to fulfill his part of the agreement, but having borrowed and given no security for all the ready money the old man possessed, he finally turned into the streets, from the shelter which had been their own, the father and young daughter. The latter wandered over Paris during the day, vainly seeking employment, which, owing to her youth and disbelief in her story, was everywhere refused her. At last, night coming on, and those who passed examining the forlorngirl with curiosity or contempt, in despair, and ashamed to beg, as she crossed the Pont Royal on her way back to the spot where she had left her father, she suddenly resolved on suicide, and was about to throw herself into the river, when her arm was caught by an old officer, who forcibly held her back, gravely remonstrated with her, and passed on. Softened, and her purpose changed, she knocked meekly at several doors, and at last found shelter with a poor portress, who received herself and her father for charity. She next took service with a lady resident in the hotel, and accompanied her to Italy. There, after some years, she married the head-waiter of the inn of San Marco, and they embarked their savings in La Pace. Her father followed when she quitted France, but he had grown childish from misfortune, and died shortly after the change in his daughter’s prospects. He used to wander miles away from the inn, saying he would go back to France. The fat black terrier, who sits so petted and caressed on a chair in the kitchen, was his follower and guardian. One day, after a vain search for the old man, he was found sleeping on a mattress in a peasant’s cabin, with the dog sitting at his head: he had walked farther, thinking to pass the frontier, and fatigued, and unable to speak the language, he sankdown at last before the cottage which gave him its hospitality. I think she said it was his last excursion.
The Neptune of John of Bologna holds a place once occupied by a statue, by Raphael, of Pope Julius the Second, and raised by his command shortly after his first conquest of Bologna, in 1406, but the pope was represented with so haughty an aspect, and in so menacing an attitude, that the original of the statue had hardly quitted them, when the indignant Bolognese struck it down. The church of St. Petronio, though unfinished, and likely to remain so, has an imposing aspect, and is of ancient date, as commenced in 1590. It possesses its patron saint’s entire body, the head, which only was wanting, having been bestowed by PopeBenoitthe Fourteenth. The presence of this relic caused a strange mistake on the part of the learned German Meibomius, who, believing all the works of the satirical writer Petronius preserved at Bologna, made a long journey thither to behold his manuscripts, and was greatly disappointed when led to the shrine.
In this church was Charles the Fifth, the emperor, crowned king of Lombardy by Clement the Seventh;—kissing the same papal foot he had before held captive, and creating, after the ceremony, two hundred knights, inthe list of whom are included the names of several noble families still existing in Bologna.
The palace of King Enzio opposite still bears the same name as when the prison of the unfortunate young man, illegitimate son of the Emperor Frederic the Second, and dethroned king of Sardinia. The Bolognese took him captive, and would never restore his freedom more, for he pined within these walls twenty years, and died in the year 1262. There is a legend which would make the family ofBentivoglioof royal origin: it recites that there was a fair young peasant enamoured of Enzio, and who, by bribes or stratagem, found means to see him in his confinement. She loved, and was faithful to him, and brought forth a son, who, by favour likewise was sometimes allowed to be carried to his father’s arms. The sad prisoner was wont to hold him on his knee, and murmur to the boy while he caressed him, “Ben ti voglio, O ben ti voglio.”
When he died, he left him all his disposable property, and the youth adopted as a family name the words he had so often heard repeated by his father.
The towers of Asinelli and Garisenda, which serve us for landmarks in our perambulations, are at the gate ofRavignana,and at no greatdistance from thePiazza Maggiore.They are remarkable for their bending position: the first, towards the west, is but five feet out of the perpendicular; it was built in 1109, and is three hundred and seven feet high. The last is in height but one hundred and forty-four feet from the ground, but its inclination towards the east is far more considerable. It was built about a hundred years later, and its threatening and most awful position has remained unchanged since the sinking of the foundation first caused it.
We went toSan Ignace,which was formerly the convent of the Jesuits’ Noviciate, now theAccademmia delle Belli Arti,and I saw in its handsomesallesmany fine pictures, the most celebrated being Raphael’s St. Cecilia, and in which, though beautiful, I was disappointed. I believe it suffered repair when it came to Paris, then was repainted the sky, which now starts from the canvass, before the heads of which it is the back ground. You would have smiled to see the man who came when we rang for admittance, these halls being open to the public except on festivals. We asked if entrance were possible to view the St. Cecilia. “Possibile, si!” he answered; “ma sa ella che questa sia festa?” and held the door close, fearing we should pass him without agreement made; but I said, “Capisco.” And he then threw it wide,and when he came out again, stood bowing with hands outspread.
We had been employed in making a few purchases: for, notwithstanding that in every town, Milan included, I have visited and questioned thespeditori,of our baggage we have heard nothing since the day it quittedVevayto precede us in Italy. Whether it has crossed theSimplon, or is domiciliated in its torrents, remains unknown to me, and the linen contained in our valises at present constitutes our wardrobe.
We made the tour of most of the churches, the cathedral among the rest, which is modern and glaring, but owns the last fresco of LouisCarracci. The church of the Dominicans contains the tomb of King Enzio, or Hensius; and the old church of San Stefano, the only antiquity whose existence is certain in Bologna, and thought to have been a temple dedicated to Isis. Though this is the 7th of October, the heat continues excessive, and the arcades, which exclude the sun by day, also prevent the free circulation of air at night. The stifling and ill-scented streets make bad promenades; and the dirt of the population of Bologna passes description. We walked intoSan Petroniothis evening: it was decorated for the festival, and the altar, a blaze of wax-lights, contrasted with the gloom of thespacious aisles. The priests, in their rich robes, moving before, and the multitude kneeling on the pavement, had a fine and solemn effect; but the infected atmosphere made it impossible to stay more than a few moments within the curtain which falls before the entrance. On our return to La Pace, and as I walked along the broad and dimly-lighted corridor on which the apartments open, I saw it was occupied by a party, and forth from it issued our poor dwarffacchinooin the best coat of which he had spoken, and a new capacity: for he said this was his own band, and its music, he being one of the performers, was certainly delightful.
We expected letters to-day, but were disappointed, and the kind-hearted landlady, fancying my anxiety proceeded from some mistake in the forwarding of our funds, begged very earnestly that her bill might remain unpaid till our return from Florence. She regrets her own country, though she has stayed here long enough to lose its accent. Her Italian rivals strive to ruin her, a laudable purpose in which they generally succeed, against the French interloper who comes within their circle with civility and better accommodation.
They are a strange compound of ferocity and cowardice, these papal vassals. They bring to my mind an anecdote told me of theirbrethren at Ancona, by our friendCapt. de V——l,whose conduct at Lyons I mentioned to you, and I write it here, as a story of the pope’s troops will not be misplaced at Bologna. I give it you in almost his own words, as he was present there at the time:—
TheConte P——icommanded a battalion of infantry quartered in thelazzerettoof Ancona, which is a building of considerable size, and easy to defend, as the sea surrounds it. When the 66th took during the night possession of the town, thelazzeretto, the pontifical battalion, and the quiet commandant, were all three forgotten. In the morning, enraged at the neglect, he angrily inquired whether the French general was aware of the presence of a battalion in thelazzeretto. “Very probably,” was the reply. “Allora,” said theConte P——, “si vuole una capitulazione; perchè nella circostanza è cosa necessaria emilitare! Sono comandante; la capitulazione la voglio, vado dunque a visitare il general Francese e la capitulazione si farà.”
Such being theConte P——’swarlike views, he was escorted to the presence of Colonel Combes, who then commanded the 66th, and laughing heartily, willingly satisfied the military scruple of the gallant officer.
An anecdote of a different time, but of the papal troops also, animated by the same spirit,I must mention here:—After the revolution of —22 or —23, the Neapolitans, failing to prove their allegiance to their new government, yielded difficult passes it would have been easy to defend, retreating before the Austrian army, and continually defeated till their king was replaced on his throne. Asked why they had allowed themselves to be so easily conquered, they replied that their cannon had been taken. “Più non abbiamo canoni; e senza canoni che si può fare?”
It was shortly after the arrival of the French at Ancona, and in November, 1836, that the cholera broke out there, and believing it infectious as well as epidemic, the Italians had the barbarity to wall up the doors of the houses in which the first sufferers lay, introducing through the windows, and at the extremity of a pole, the food or medicine thought necessary. Our friend’s lodgings looked on the hospital, wherein, when the panic had in some measure subsided, the sick were admitted—to die—either from the virulence of the malady, or the measures adopted for its cure: for abstinence was so strictly practised, that many perished from starvation.Monsieur de V——lcertifies, what would otherwise seem incredible, that of all carried within its walls one only issued forth alive. This was a strong, powerful man, who attacked with cholera, but to a slightdegree, was borne to the hospital, and, laid in one of the beds, fell asleep,—and waking in the morning, refreshed and hungry, asked for food.
“Come!” said the Italian nurse; “quì non si mangià; sarebbe darsi la morte!”
Feeling the weakness of convalescence, the patient, though he insisted, lay quiet and soon slept again, and through almost the entire day and night which followed; but the second morning his hunger was no longer to be borne with. He implored food, and received the former answer: “No food is given in the hospital.”
Watching his time, therefore, the unfortunate man slipped from his bed, seized the first garments within his reach, rushed through doors happily for him unfastened, and into the street andGrande Place,where he saw a friend standing, and flung himself into his arms, demanding bread, as he was starving. He was fed and cured,—a solitary exception; yet the cruel and ignorant populace incurred more danger by an hour of fanaticism than they could have done in a month of charity. The French soldiers had soon constituted themselves nurses, performing frictions and other offices the Italians feared, and saving many. So great was the cowardice, that a consecrated wafer was presented to a dying man by his priest at the extremity of a pair of pincers. The only active means they adopted was the ordering aprocession in honour of Our Lady of Ancona, attired for the occasion in a white robe, spangled with golden stars.Capt. de V——land his company formed part of the procession, it always happening, he assured me, that he was on duty as the Madonna’s guard whenever she came forth. This Madonna is the same of whom Napoleon, when playing his part on this stage, asked an interview, and who, after a conference of some length, was observed to drop a tear!! Though it was the month of November, and the operation a dangerous one in times of cholera, by the clerical command all constituting the procession, saving our friend and his men, marched barefoot. Arrived at theGrande Place,on a kind of scaffolding raised there, appeared a priest to address the multitude; who vociferated with the whole power of his lungs, commanding that they should prostrate themselves on the cold pavement, and telling them that this scourge had come upon them because they observed fasts less strictly, and because their faith and confidence in their clergy had declined.
“Each of you,” he exclaimed in conclusion, “ask pardon of heaven with meekness and penitence; say frankly, I am a sinner, a thief, an assassin; therefore pardon me.” It would seem he knew his congregation. Of the poor wretches who assembled that day, swarms hadperished ere the close of the next; but there is, not far from Ancona, a small town or village, whose name I forget, which escaped the pestilence by reason of a miracle performed by its patron saint, the details of whichCapt. de V——lsaw on a printedaffiche.When disposed to avert evil from his native place, the saint pushes up the lid of his heavy tomb, and agitates above it his hands streaming with blood. The adjutant of the 66th, talking with a man of this town, asked if any one really believed it had happened.
“Giacchè,” answered the Italian, “le dico che ho veduto, veduto cogli occhi miei.”
We are to start to-morrow, and I sent on a bandbox, and a man who came the length of the street to fetch it, grumbling when I had paid him well, I took from the table, which was in a corner of the half-lighted room, what I thought a few morebaiocchi,and among them bestowed, most unworthily, a Napoleon.
9th October.
Left Bologna a little after sunrise, our good-natured hostess having got up early to prepare our coffee,à la Française,with her own hands; the horses pleased as ourselves to escape from their hot captivity. We rode for some distance still over the plain along the brink of the torrent Savena, butfrom Pianoro, the first post, the route ascends undulating in a succession of steep rises and falls, far more wearisome to horses than the broad way which, sweeping across the Alps, forced aside or pierced through every obstacle. The hills, some bare as those of Burgundy, clothed with chestnut, as we advanced, not having the bold character of the Alps’ mighty and lonely masses, but swelling like wave beyond wave, and in their details losing grandeur. On the whole, though admiring and enjoying the pure mountain air, and passing some spots of romantic beauty, (particularly one where the road was carried under a wall formed by the high cliff, while before us, on a tall crag, stood a lone church, and on the right hand far below, lay the valley, with its green hills close crowded and dotted with pleasant habitations,) our first day’s journey over the Appennine almost disappointed me in its tranquil beauty, as compared with the wild and grand Swiss passes. The heavy oxen toiling on their way, as they preceded the post-horses of travelling carriages, or the mules of waggons, added to the picturesque aspect of the country. Its breed of cattle is peculiarly beautiful, having the dun hide and black legs of the deer. We were to sleep at Lojano, a village under a hill with a fine gorge stretching below. I recommend thePellegrino, the new inn on the Bologna side, clean and comfortable and having civil masters, and not the Posta, known to me only as bearing a bad character, and being immured in the dirty town. Our horses had a separate and good stable, enjoying the thick bed of fern, here substituted for that of Indian corn leaves, which made so bad a one at Bologna.
10th.
A lovely morning, and beauteous ride from Lojano through chestnut woods, which cover these hills, laden with the fruit now ripe and dropping, which, as it forms the chief food of the poor, the pretty peasant girls were busily employed collecting in their baskets. Those we saw were mostly fair and light-haired, and if they wanted the bold dark eyes of the Bolognese dames, their more delicate features would have served the sculptor for model. The heat became excessive as we approached Scaricalasino; the view thence is superb, we could distinguish the chain of the Alps and the plains of Lombardy, but not, as I hear is sometimes possible, the Adriatic. Past the town the road grew wilder and the ascents more rapid, and we shortly arrived at Filigare, the frontier, where the grand duke has built a new and handsome edifice for police station and custom-house.Pietra Malais at no greatdistance, with its dirty town and church on a crag, and inn to which is linked a robber story. About half a mile to the right, a peasant pointed out the place occupied by the flame, which is so brilliant at night, as to light the neighbouring mountain. It covers a space of fourteen feet square, on a stony but fertile soil, as the vegetation almost touches the fire, which emits blue and red flames, and the earth beneath has neither crack nor hollow; it is believed by some naturalists to be the forerunner of a fearful volcano. At a short distance fromPietra Malathere is also a cold spring called by the natives “Acqua Buja,” which takes fire when approached by a lighted torch.
The day was oppressively warm, but we came up with a poor man driving his mule laden with pears and figs, the most delicious, and dismounted to rest under the shade of some of the bare crags which hereabouts rise, divested of plant or tree, broken into seeming pinnacles and towers, till we found we excited attention, and thought it unwise to do so any longer, as the Appennines have been of late in their loneliest parts scarcely safe for travellers. Hereabouts there is an inn, good apparently, but which I should hardly choose from its utter solitude, and we soon arrived at the summit of this mountain, the highest onour route; formerly dangerous, as the wind, which rushes down the gorge in sudden gusts, often swept off carriages. It is now, at the places of peril, protected by high walls, of the necessity of which we were aware, even to-day, as it blew freshly there, though the temperature below was burning and breathless. A long winding descent, commanding lovely views into wooded defiles, succeeded, and we passed the spot where the old road crosses ours; it was abandoned because impossible to protect it in the snow season.
Arrived at Montecarelli, a lone inn in a pretty situation; the village itself is some hundred yards farther. I cannot say that we dined or rested well, though the beds were clean and the people civil, and certainly honest, for neither here nor at Lojano could door or window be fastened or even closed. We were kept waking by carts and roulage waggons arriving late and starting early, aided by the poor patient oxen, labouring on with their meek heads bound to the yoke, and the lantern tied between them. As they took their short snatches of rest in the stable which held our travellers, and accidents were not impossible, and the pump beneath our bedroom was all night in motion, we gladly went on at dawn to escape the heat, at least in part. Our last day’s journey was the mostinteresting. Montecarelli left behind, we wound through groves of old oak up and down abrupt hills, catching glimpses through the trees into valleys on either side; to the west the sky was blue and pure, but eastward, as the sun rose, it shone on the surface of the mist which lay like a broad lake in the hollow, the green tops of the hills surmounting it like its islands. The clouds are more agreeable as well as picturesque far than near; for, riding through them, the country was completely veiled, and the chill unpleasant and penetrating. About four miles from Montecarelli, we passedLe Maschere,which appears a good inn; and near it the charming villa of some Florentine, its garden walls covered with roses, adjoining a ruined arch and grey tower, whence, following the slope of the hill, descends a noble cypress avenue. The views, as we issued from fog and into a burning atmosphere, grew at each step more Italian in their character, with villas on the wooded eminences, and here and there the umbrella pine rising above its fellow trees. Having left behindCafaggiolo,where on the right hand there is a turreted castle, which belongs to the duke and resembles a fortress, our road descended to a valley, skirting a bright and narrow river, enclosed between hills where wejourneyed beneath a sun it was difficult to believe that of October.
Here again by the road-side we found vineyards and their refreshment, and figures or pictures of saint and Virgin perched on poles among the vines to protect them from blight or storm; those I ate had been under the care of St. Antonio, and he had proved a good husbandman. Our horses suffered again from the small fly, and we were glad to ascend the mountain and exchange their presence and the extreme heat for its fresher air. Climbing slowly, as the way was steep, suddenly from behind a cabin at the angle issued forth to meet us an ill-dressed suspicious looking party; the eight or ten foremost carrying guns, the stragglers who followed, thick sticks; and as one must needs be imaginative in the Appennines, we began to think that robbers we had heard of were indeed abroad, and (having no arms) to speculate on the speed of our horses, and the necessity of galloping through the group, as we had no intention of riding back again. Having mustered courage to run away, we were prevented making any undue exertion by the banditti turning peaceably down a bye-path; we asked a little girl, who stood at the lone cabin door, who they were, and she saidCacciatori,sportsmen.
At last the steep succession of sunny hills ascended, refreshed by no shade, and riding under heat such as I never yet felt, we saw Florence below with her domes and towers rising out of the mist the heat made, backed by mountain above mountain, broken and numerous as the billows of a troubled ocean. On either side, as we rode down this last hill, the country was covered with vine and olive, sounding prettier in description than they look in reality; and the terraced gardens of the villas we passed were gay with a profusion of summer flowers, and thelaurier-rosewith its double and beautiful blossom, growing in the open ground and shooting up against the blue sky. In compensation, the heat was scarcely to be borne; the horses devoured with flies, ourselves blinded with sunshine, and (having left two miles from the city the Campo Santo with its cluster of sombre pines on the right hand, and entered, one after the other, several villages) persecuted by beggars and by a succession of vile odours, which all the winds of the Appennines cannot waft away.
On the left hand, before entering Florence, to which it is the nearest villa of importance, the avenue, whose grass grown road is lined with broken statues, leads to the desertedPalazzo Borghese.Riding beneath thetriumphal arch, raised in 1739 (in honour of the Emperor Francis the First when he came hither, yet only grand duke of Tuscany, and in imitation of the Arch of Constantine), we passed through the ancientPorta San Gallo,whose date is 1284, and into the city. A boy guided us over the flat and dangerous pavement to thePalazzo Bertolini,now thehôtel du Nord,and opened about a week since by theci-devantcook of Jerome Bonaparte, having moderate terms and fine apartments, only too comfortable, as this weather we would gladly dispense with their thick carpets. Our dresses changed and dinner ended, and the horses, for which there was no room here, lodged at Huband’s livery stables, I was too impatient to remain enclosed in the hôtel till morning, and, notwithstanding fatigue and the unusual heat which keeps Italians within doors, went out to receive my first impression of Florence; and though to me, as it does to many, it brought disappointment, with its streets crooked and narrow, its quays so inferior to those of Paris, and its Arno now shrunk in its bed to little better than a ditch, its ancient buildings and irregular squares have historical interest and picturesque combination, which make full atonement.
ThePiazza della Santa Trinità, on which our inn is situated, is near thePalazzo Vecchioand far famedDuomo. On our way to the last, we crossed the Place, at an angle of which the former stands, not in the centre, as a decree ordained that the spot once covered by the razed palace of theUbertishould remain vacant for ever, in memory of the traitor’s infamy. Built in the year 1298, it frowns unshaken by time, a square fortress with embattled walls of jutting stones, surmounted by one high tower, and the nine escutcheons which bear the coats of arms of the city’s various possessors ranged below the battlement. Crouching on the steps is the lion of Florence, holding its place in the city’s armorial bearings, from as early a period as the lily which blooms on the two first of these recording escutcheons. The arms of Napoleon and the grand dukes are last in order, and among those which mark the factions of Guelph and Gibelline, those of Charles ofAnjouand King Robert of Naples; of the wool-carders and the Medici, the merchant monarchs. There is one bearing the monogram of the Saviour, for Nicholas Capponi, in the year 1527, and at a period of excitement when no temporal sovereign seemed strong enough to sway the disobedient Florentines, proclaimed Jesus Christ theirking, in a grand council composed of a thousand voters, of whom twenty, opposing the election, formed aminority!! The colossal statues which guard the entrance, the fine fountain with its Neptune and marine horses, beside its steps to the left, and beyond on the Place the royal statue of Cosmo mounted on his war-horse, to the right, as we stood opposite the citadel, the Loggia d’Orgagna with its three arches, light and yet solid, which once served for tribune to the orators of the republic, and now shelters the beautiful Sabine group of John of Bologna—the Judith beheading Holophernes, and the proud Perseus ofBenvenuto Cellini, with the stern palace and the ancient prison tower, which rises above the roofs of the irregular houses opposite—and the two parallel lines of colonnaded buildings, which extend from thePalazzoand the Loggia to the quay, and contain in their attics the Galleria de’ Medici, make this the most striking portion of Florence. We saw it to advantage beneath the bluest of skies, and a sun which shone red and intense on the burning pavement, as if it had been August, calling up, alas! the succession of ill scents which betray an Italian town.
Passing the post-office, and turning down theVia de’ Calzajoli,we arrived shortly on thePiazza del Duomo. The cathedral and its elegant bell-tower, beside it, but detached, and St. John the Baptistery, opposite the unfinished façade of the cathedral, which hasbeen painted in fresco, now washed away by rain, occupy the centre of a fine open space, which shows to advantage their beauties or peculiarities. Is it sacrilege to think that its monstrous dome seems to weigh down the remainder of the building; that its mass of black and white marble wants relief, or what the French callmouvement, to give it light and shadow; that the octagon temple, with its pointed roof, once pagan, cased in marble, and become that of St. John, is heavy and ungraceful? St. John possesses the bronze doors, so beautiful in their workmanship: that facingSt. Maria del Fioreexecuted, when but twenty years old, byGhiberti, whose model was preferred to those of Donatelli andBrunelleschi, and of which Michael Angelo said, that it was worthy to be the portal of paradise. On either side of this door hang, as a trophy, chains once belonging to the gates of Pisa, and suspended here in memorial of the victory gained over Pisa by the Florentines in the year 1362.
Entering this square from thePiazza del Gran Duca,there is on the left hand a small church, its exterior not distinguished from the houses which adjoin it. It was growing dusk, and at the door stood attendants with torches, I fancied for some festival within, but, while we lingered, there issued thence a funerealprocession, the most solemn I have seen; the mourners in their long sable robes, and hoods forming masks, with openings for the eyes only, two and two, bearing torches in their hands, following the priests, carrying banners, and the coffin, with its velvet draperies, and followed in turn by the clerical attendants, in white robes and crimson capes, slowly sweeping round theDuomoon their way to the Campo Santo; all burials being performed at night and without the town.