XIII.

XIII.NAPLES, POMPEII, SORRENTO.Itproved a very wet morning in Rome on the day we had settled to go to Naples (for it can rain in Rome remarkably well); but we had taken our rooms at a hotel in Naples, and were packed and ready to go, and accordingly left, arriving at the station at half-past eight for the train leaving at 9.20, and were not a bit too soon. The traveller has to hang on for his turn to get his luggage weighed and to purchase his railway tickets; and after these operations were accomplished, and admission was at last accorded to thesalle-d’attente(for none, according to the evil custom which keeps ladies hanging about on their feet, can enter previously), we had but a few minutes to wait in that apartment until the doors were opened and announcement made that passengers might now hurry to the train.For a considerable part of the way the rain fell and heavy clouds hung upon the mountains, so that little could be seen of the scenery in the early part of the journey, which is the most interesting, as the line commands in many parts historical ground. We passed the Alban and Volscian Mountains; the town of Capua, where are interesting Roman remains; Caserta, where there is an immense royalpalace; and many curious old towns resting upon the hills which the railway skirted. It would have been well worth while to have stayed at Capua and Caserta to have seen them, but it is difficult to arrange for doing so without spending a night by the way, or continuing the journey by a night train, because trains do not suit. This being the 26th of March, vegetation was in a very backward state, the trees just beginning to show symptoms of being about to throw out their buds, so that everything looked somewhat dreary. At last we arrived in Naples, after a seven hours’ ride, just in time to settle down before dinner.The following morning we took a cab to drive through and see the town, and, looking to select a good one, I was beset by a host of cabmen, all wanting to be engaged, even after I had engaged one, and told them so positively. There is very little choice among them. The vehicles are all equally shabby, and the drivers all equally dirty. Their fares are very low, which may account for the disreputable appearance of the men and cabs, which are as numerous as bees in a hive. The coachmen will take any amount of trouble to get a hire. If, upon going to a place, say the Museum, they be dismissed, they will hang about for an hour, hoping to get the return fare. But driving is really the only way by which one can see some parts of Naples. The town swarms with people to an extent which, unless seen, can hardly be either realized or credited. In England, every rod may maintain its man, but in Naples, and even all about the Bay of Naples, it would seem as if not merely every square yard, but almost every square foot maintained its man, woman, or child. But how they all live, or even where they all sleep, is a mystery. The main street, the Toledo, a mile long, is so crowded, that one wonders how the carriages can possibly penetrate; and the people are such notorious thieves and such adroit pickpockets, that it is dangerous to attempt to walk on foot. Even in driving,the passenger must be very careful, as a thief will think nothing of abstracting loose articles, even in his very sight. At the railway station the traveller should keep a sharp look-out that the very porter who is taking his portmanteau to a carriage does not quietly run off with it. Knowing these habits, we left the most of our luggage at Rome, and only took with us what was indispensable, as every additional package is in such a case an additional anxiety.The Bay of Naples is naturally the first point of attraction. One hears so much of its transcendent beauty that expectation is highly raised. I thought the accounts of it exaggerated; but then it was not summer, and therefore we could not see it in perfection; while we had just recently come from Mentone, where we had been living for months in sight of lovely bays. The blue waters of the Mediterranean in brilliant sunshine are always charming, and here they are enclosed in a very large bay—for it is about twenty miles each way—with one long arm stretching away and terminated by the island of Ischia, and the other long arm stretching away and terminated by the island of Capri; the outlines of all being picturesque, and all sides being dotted with villages. In the centre of the landward side Vesuvius boldly rises (the eruptions from time to time causing variations in its height, which, however, averages about 4000 feet), with a stream of smoke, betokening its character, constantly ascending from the summit as if from some colossal chimney; while below, a line of houses stretches continuously from Naples, probably fifteen miles, or perhaps even more, indicating how populous is this part of Italy. In the distance, behind Naples and Vesuvius, a range of the Apennines lies.Naples itself, the largest and most populous city in Italy, is, from a little distance, picturesque, resting, somewhat like Genoa, on a half-circle of sloping heights, with a broadmargin to the shore, the houses towards which are lofty, many being five and even six storeys high. In the central and denser parts of the town they are even higher, while in these portions the streets are mere lanes, 15 to 20 feet wide, and irregular; and if they be not absolutely unsafe to visit, must form a very labyrinth of perplexity to the stranger. In the newer parts of the city the streets are spacious and elegant. Every here and there, a jutting prominence or a bold height crowned with some peculiar structure gives character to the scene. The Chiaja is a long strip of land turned into a public garden or park lying in or towards the north end of the town, and fronting the sea. A broad street, the Riviera di Chiaja, flanks it, lined by the trees of the park on the one side, and by hotels and other buildings on the other, and terminated at the north end by Posilipo, a hill perforated by the famous grotto of that name, or tunnel, I presume half natural and half excavated, which affords an access to the other side. Up from the Chiaja, on a height, the Castle of St. Elmo stands, the interior of which our limited time did not afford us opportunity of seeing. Leaving the Chiaja by a handsome drive which has been formed by the shore, we pass the Castel del Ovo, which stands out into the sea, cresting a large rock or small island connected with the land by a mole or breakwater. It is ugly and old, but can scarcely, because it is so, be called picturesque, though at least it is striking or prominent; and I suppose it does or can, with other fortifications, offer some protection to the port; but it was, and perhaps still is, used as a prison, and, in spite of sunshine, is gloomy enough for that. From this point southward, commencing with the broad Strada San Lucia, the harbour lies, in which there is a moderate amount of shipping, but small as compared with that of Genoa. Life abounds about this harbour and the adjoining quays, along which broad streets run, filled with sellers of fish and other commodities, and with crowds of pedestrians and carriages.The road turns up from S. Lucia into the large open space called the Piazza del Plebiscito—one side occupied by a handsome semicircular colonnade, and the other by the royal palace, where the king was at the time of our visit residing, two equestrian statues in the centre of the piazza contributing to its adornment. The Toledo or High Street of Naples issues out of it. Proceeding farther along the harbour, and at its extreme south, we come to the Castel del Carmine, also forming a feature in the landscape, and from it a road leads up to the railway station, which is just outside the inhabited part of Naples. From the harbour, or any point which commands a view, the town looks bright and picturesque, and in rather striking contrast with its dirty population. Ascent of the lighthouse for the sake of the view is recommended.The only church in Naples which we thought at all comparable to those in Rome was the cathedral, which is a large and handsome building. One of its side chapels is that of the famous St. Januarius, where the blood and other relics of the martyr are preserved.The hotels are situated principally on the line of buildings facing the sea from the Chiaja southward to S. Lucia. But some new hotels have been opened on the high ground near the Castle of St. Elmo, thought to be a more healthy locality. This may or may not be, but one requires to be careful as to where he lives in Naples. In fact, the natural air of Naples must be extremely salubrious, to counteract, as it seems to a large extent to do, the evil influences arising from so large a population living upon so comparatively small a portion of the tideless Mediterranean. Were it otherwise, fever would be constantly raging, and Naples depopulated.We spent the forenoon of the following day in the Museum. This is an immense collection of antiquities, principally from Pompeii, and is well worthy of severalvisits, without which, in fact, it cannot be properly studied. Illustrated catalogues can be procured, which are no doubt useful, but are expensive. Our time would only allow of a general examination. The Museum contains thousands of articles of great interest, and very many which show to what a state of perfection art had arrived at the time Pompeii was destroyed. The sculptures of all descriptions and pictures are very numerous, and among many others deserving of special note was the grand group called the Toro Farnese, of masterly power. It is composed of five graceful and pleasing human figures, besides the bull rampant and a dog, and other sculpture, and if cut out of one block of marble, would seem to be a miracle of art. Why it should have been removed from Rome to Naples I am not aware. But the Museum at Naples is very spacious and extensive, and may have afforded better accommodation than any place in Rome. Some of the rooms are filled with articles of domestic use recovered from the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii; and, what is very curious, in one room loaves of bread, grain of various sorts, dates, and other edibles 1800 years old are exhibited. Many of the curious frescoes found upon the walls of Pompeii have been removed to the Museum and built bodily into its walls. The colours of these frescoes are considerably faded, but copying them seems to afford employment to a number of artists, who, however, impart to their copies the supposed original brightness of the pictures, and one seldom sees an original Pompeian fresco possessing that vividness of colouring which representations of them usually manifest. One room is fitted up as a reproduction of a Pompeian bedroom, and gives a greater idea of luxurious comfort than one would imagine possible from the appearance of the rooms, now in ruins, which we afterwards saw in Pompeii itself.The afternoon is the time for seeing the Chiaja, for thenall the private carriages of Naples may be witnessed driving about; and on one occasion we had the good fortune to pass the Princess Margherita, now the Queen of Italy. Girls are on the watch to sell large and beautiful bouquets of flowers at marvellously cheap prices. An aquarium has been built near the centre of the Chiaja gardens, which we visited the morning of the day following, before going to Castellamare. It is not nearly so large as that at Brighton, but it is interesting enough. It contained,inter alia, a good many octopi, which repulsive fish is said to be sold and eaten in Naples, and, in all probability, occasionally appears under some disguised name at the hotel dinners.Naples is a great place for the sale of photographs and articles of bijouterie in lava, and of coral and tortoiseshell. At Mr. Sommer’s Fine Art Establishment near the Chiaja, a large collection of beautiful photographs of almost all places in Italy is to be found. These are very moderate in price—the cheapest in Italy—as well as good, and in number exceed five thousand. I laid in a good stock, and only wish I had taken more. Any of them can be at once procured by reference to the number they bear. They are best kept flat, but if rolling be preferred, they should always be rolled up with the photograph side outwards. Why it is that photographs of a size which cost a shilling at Naples should be charged five shillings or six shillings, or even more, at home, I don’t know. But the consequence is that people buy the Italian photographs by the hundred, whereas at home, if they buy at all, it is by the unit. Our dealers plainly miss the market by their high prices. Mr. Sommer might do well to extend his operations to the towns of France and to Switzerland, where photographs are expensive.Among other shops we also visited Squadrilli’s, which is recommended in Bædeker. Here we found a well-stockedstore of articles in lava and coral, but owing, I suppose, to the thieving which exists in Naples, and from which, no doubt, they have sometimes suffered, we were rather unpleasantly watched by three persons, a circumstance of which others who had been there also complained. The articles, however, seemed to be good, while the prices are fixed, though a discount of five per cent, was allowed for cash. The gold used in Naples for bijouterie is considered to be inferior to the standard quality of England, and even of Rome, which professes to be, like England, of eighteen carats. Squadrilli allowed that their gold was only fourteen carats, and perhaps his estimate might not apply to all his articles. There are many imitations, however, even of this inferior gold, and some articles, possibly ‘job lots,’ are sold in Naples at astonishingly low prices. The articles supposed to be of lava are, I believe, in reality cut out of the limestone rocks of Somma, one of the peaks of Vesuvius.We were anxious to make our stay in Naples as short as possible, as so much is heard of its insalubrity. After the general survey we had thus made of it, we took train to Castellamare, the railway passing Mount Vesuvius on the one side and the coast on the other, so that we were in view of the bay nearly all the way. Castellamare is a convenient halting-place for seeing Pompeii, which, however, may be visited from Naples itself, either by hiring a carriage from Naples,—making a pretty long drive, and, I believe, of little interest, the road being a continuous street of houses,—or by taking the train as far as Torre dell’ Annunciata, and a carriage thence to Pompeii, which is not two miles off. Castellamare is one of those populous unclean towns which lie upon the bay. Friends had said it was a remarkably nice place to stop at, and the Hotel Quisisana, on the height above the town, is a fairly comfortable one, commanding a splendid view of the bay, of Vesuvius, and of Naples beyond. Perhaps we did notremain long enough to acquire a knowledge of its beauties, but we were not taken with the dirty town; while the garden of the hotel, which might have been laid out to great advantage, and thus have helped to reconcile us to the place, was no better than such Italian gardens usually are. I suppose that Nature has been so lavish of her bounties when the sun shines, that the Italians think it unnecessary to supplement her labours. Yet I have sometimes thought that the time of waiters, who between meals in foreign places have often little to do, might, not unprofitably to the hotels, and with some advantage in health to themselves, be occupied in trimming the hotel gardens. Our bedrooms looked towards the bay, and therefore were, I presume, considered more choice; but being a northern or north-western exposure, we found them extremely cold at night. It was, however, intensely interesting to look across to Vesuvius, which I had seen emitting a red light on our second evening at Naples, without being aware, unfortunately, till afterwards that this light was unusual, and that had I watched it for half an hour longer I should have seen it become more intensely bright. People were then in full expectation of an eruption, and even the very day had been predicted, although the premonitory symptoms of streams drying up had not appeared; but expectation was not gratified.We arranged the following morning to drive to Pompeii, which is about three miles distant.Pompeii on being approached seems like a huge mound, somewhat akin in the distance to a fortified place. The excavated town itself is not visible from the road. The visitor is deposited at the door of what appears to be a sort of tavern or place of refreshment, through which, threading one’s way among tables, entrance is had to the excavations. We found the tavern filled with people taking an early dinner, or rather breakfast, rendering theaccess by no means an agreeable one. Here leaving with thecameriereour wraps,—not without some misgivings, fortunately not realized, that we should never see them again,—we passed up a stair, and through a magazine for sale of lava ornaments, etc., the prices asked for which, as usual in show places, were exorbitantly and forbiddingly high. Outside the magazine we paid two francs each for admission and for the assistance of a guide (children being charged only a half-franc each), and procured a little French-speaking guide in smart uniform and side arms, whom we found very obliging and attentive. These guides are necessary, and must be taken, though sometimes respectable people who have been there before are allowed to go without them; perhaps not always with advantage to the ruins, as it is a very common trick with people who should know better, and who might not be expected to do such a thing, to pocket stones which can be of no use whatever to themselves, but the abstraction of which is detrimental to the place whence they are taken. On one occasion in Italy, a lady of a party in which I was—who acknowledged to being in the habit of bringing away a stone from every place to which she had been—quietly pocketed a piece of marble lying on the ground, when the custodier, who was keeping a sharp look-out, went up to her and desired her to replace it. It was a numbered piece, and he would, he said, be responsible for it to the authorities. The practice of chipping stones from a building of note, or taking up loose pieces, cannot be too severely reprehended, and ought sometimes to be punished. The guides at Pompeii are not allowed to receive any gratuity from the visitors, but they make a little by an accorded permission to sell photographs of the ruins.Passing through an old gateway, we were ushered into a museum, the contents of which are not numerous, as the bulk of the articles found is sent to the large Museum of Naples. It contains, however, some things of great interest,particularly the casts of men and women found in Pompeii who had perished in the great overthrow, and whose bodies had been so curiously enveloped with the scoriæ as to form a close-fitting, indurated mould, and a cast from it, when the dust is blown out, reproduces every line of the body or of the clothing of the suffocated person. Some of the casts so taken give a clear representation of the form of the features; and I noticed that the dress of the men seemed to be very similar to what is still worn by those in the vicinity, particularly in the tight-fitting, wrought woollen jacket covering the body. If I was right in this supposition, it is another instance of the manner in which the people cling to ancient habits and modes of dress.We were then taken to the excavations which are being systematically carried on, and our examination commenced with the forum, a large open space, containing the remains of the pillars by which it was surrounded. From these remains and the remains of other public buildings, it is evident that Pompeii was a very elegantly adorned city. It had temples, no less than nine being marked upon the plan, but they are all in ruins; only fragments exist, the pillars and superincumbent building having been almost everywhere thrown down. In some of them, such as the temple of Venus and temple of Isis, a few columns, with their entablature, stand, to indicate the beauty of their construction. Besides temples there have been excavated two theatres and a large amphitheatre, in excellent preservation, capable of accommodating 20,000 persons, and nearly, in length and breadth, as large as that at Nismes; also, as usual in Roman towns, baths, besides other public buildings. But probably the greatest interest attaches to the remains of the private dwellings. It is rarely that private houses exhibit, after a lapse of nearly 2000 years, even in ruins, what they were when in occupation. Here, however, the lava or scoriæ or dust of Vesuvius by hermetical seal closed up these houses, in order that they might be seen by thepeople of a long-distant age. Many of the houses in Pompeii belonged to men of wealth, and they are all laid out, in the better class at least, upon much the same plan, entering upon a square court, open in the centre to the outer air, in the middle of which a marble fountain played. The rooms were built around or beyond, the principal or public rooms being to the back—a mode of design probably suitable to the climate, at least in summer, and admitting, no doubt, of great elegance of arrangement and design, and of which such houses as those of Marcus Holconius, of the Faun, of Sallust, of the poet, of Meleager, and of Cornelius Rufus afford examples,—all containing beautiful fluted pillars and other decorations, sometimes in marble, still standing, while the walls were tastefully decorated with that peculiar description of painting well known as Pompeian. Some of the houses appear to be only one storey high, but stairs indicate a second storey, and it is even supposed that in some cases there may have been a third. But they had no appearance to the street, while the streets themselves are narrow, so much so that it is impossible to see how in many of them even the smallest carriages could pass each other without encroaching on the equally narrow footway ortrottoir(discovery of the remains of it here revealing its use in ancient times); but the large stones or slabs forming the street pavement are in some places marked with a deep rut, indicating a good deal of carriage traffic. The shops on the streets are small, and are sometimes built into the dwellings, so that shop floors then were probably as remunerative as they seem to be now with ourselves, although persons now in similar rank of life in Great Britain would little like to allow a portion of their mansions to be so occupied. As, however, the streets were so confined, there could have been no view from the house itself upon the front facing the street; yet, no doubt, from some windows in the upper apartments behind there might be fine glimpses of the bay and of Vesuvius, as wellas of the surrounding country. At all events, we obtained excellent views from the ruins, especially from the walls. Vesuvius appears close at hand, and one feels astonished at the foolhardiness of people building towns and houses so close under the fiery mountain after the tremendous warnings received in the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum. We were shown at one place in the ‘House of Diomede’ a long vault or cellar, in which the remains were found of seventeen unfortunate persons who had taken refuge there during the awful time when they knew not where to flee, and supposed that the walls of the house would cover them from calamity. We could not look upon such places without thinking what an appalling time it must have been, and what heartrending agonies must then have been endured. Notwithstanding all the elegance of the public portions of the houses, and perhaps even of the private chambers, it seemed as if the actual comfort of the inhabitants could not be great, and especially in the matter of bedroom accommodation, for I imagine the sleeping-rooms were of the smallest dimensions—mere closets, not such as people of the present day in good circumstances would approve.It would, however, be impossible, in small compass, to give any adequate idea of these houses or of their decorations. Books have been written upon the subject, and an excellent recent account of Pompeii, its history, buildings, and antiquities, containing nearly 300 illustrations, has been written by Dr. Thomas H. Dyer. Nothing, indeed, but a visit to Pompeii itself can convey a sufficient idea of the resuscitated city; but a study of Mr. Dyer’s book before going, as well as after a visit, will help materially to an understanding of it. Pompeii is a place of engrossing interest entirely unique, and in some respects it offers, I think, more attractions to a visitor than any other in Italy, and well merits more than one visit. The excavations arestill proceeding, and it will probably be many years before they are completed, as there is still a large piece of ground, probably as much again as has already been opened, on which to operate.Having seen Pompeii, we did not care to stay longer at Castellamare, and next day, taking a carriage with three horses, the bells jingling cheerily all the way, drove to Sorrento. The drive occupied an hour and a half, and is considered to be one of the finest to be had in Italy. The road borders the bay, and passes through several large Italian villages most picturesquely situated, and across a deep ravine, evidently the result of an earthquake, by a beautiful bridge. Sorrento is a long town, and the road through its suburbs is shut in by lofty and most objectionable garden walls. As we drove down the road towards it, from the height to the eastward the place looked very charming, surrounded by hills on every side except the north, which is open to the sea. Turning down a long narrow lane, we arrived at the Tramontano Hotel (kept by an Irish landlady, an active and most obliging woman), where everything is remarkably comfortable, and the accommodation is ample. It is situated on classic ground, Tasso having resided in a house which, or its site, is now part of the hotel. A garden, where, no doubt, Tasso often meditated, encloses the hotel upon the south, while the north windows and terraces command magnificent views of the bay, of the islands, of Naples lying opposite, and of Vesuvius, whose smoke, always ascending, is an excellent indicator of the direction of the wind. The garden extends away to the eastward, where a dependence or additional house is kept for the accommodation of the guests. A large public room, with windows to the bay, was being added to the main house, so that now bothsalonandsalle-à-mangerare large rooms. Having had experience of the cold of northerly chambers at Castellamare, we chosecheerful rooms on the south side overlooking the hotel yard, with all its enlivening bustle, and the garden and green hills behind.Sorrento lies upon a platform or broad level space of land, the seaward side being high perpendicular cliffs, so that one looks sheer down from the hotel windows on the north to the water far below, which is reached from the hotel by a winding tunnel cut into the rock. It is placed, like Mentone, under the guard of a semicircle of hills, although these are both nearer and much lower than those at Mentone; but as the town faces the north, instead of the south as at Mentone, it is rather a summer than a winter residence. We had it very cold there during the night, but in the glowing mid-day sun it was charming to look out upon the water and land, and see everything bathed in an atmosphere of light, while vegetation was now beginning to advance, lending an additional charm to the landscape. We were not, however, altogether without rain. One night was particularly stormy and wet.There are excursions from Sorrento upon the hills which can be accomplished by aid of donkeys, and it is also possible to cross over the hills to Amalfi, though this was not reckoned altogether safe from bandits. Boats can be had for boating, but the main excursions are by steamboat to Capri, and driving to Massa, a picturesque town a few miles westward; the road to it by the coast being a continuation of that from Castellamare, and affording lovely views at every turn. The excursion to Capri is made by steamboat, and every fine morning two rival steamers (a paddle and a screw boat) from Naples approached Sorrento to take excursionists to Capri and its blue grotto. In addition to the fare there and back of 5 francs, innumerable other little charges for boats, etc. make the expense up to 8 francs each. When the sea is stormy, the boats do not go, as it is impossible to enter the grotto when there is the least swell upon the water. This is annoying to unlucky persons who are left on the island, as it sometimes happens in consequence that the boats may not leave Naples for weeks together. I met on board the steamer two American friends who had come from Naples, were to sleep a night at Capri and return the next day, having taken their passage for the day following in a steamer for Genoa. The next day, however, proved stormy, and the steamboats did not make their appearance for several days afterwards, so that our friends must have been kept prisoners on the island and lost their passage besides. We had, however, a very beautiful day for the trip, the steamboat taking about two hours to reach Capri from Sorrento, and it was most enjoyable. The views from the deck are enchanting. When we arrived off the grotto, the vessel was surrounded by a multitude of little boats; and as three persons only are allowed to each, it took a long time for all the visitors to get off. The sea where the steamer stopped was of a most lovely blue colour, perhaps due to some great local saltness of the ocean. On approaching the entrance to the grotto, all were desired to lie down on the bottom of the boat, otherwise, by catching the crest of a wave, we might have broken our heads against the rocks of the entrance, which is very low,—although it might, one would think, be enlarged,—while the boatmen carefully pushed the boat inside. Once we were in, however, there was space enough for several boats to paddle about. We found everything bathed in the blue light of the sea reflected on the walls of the cavern. It is this which gives the name to the grotto. The rocks themselves are just ordinary colour, and do not, as might from the name be supposed, consist, like those of the blue John Cavern of Derbyshire, of actual blue spar.ill337SORRENTO FROM THE WEST.When all had seen the grotto, the steamboats took us to the town of Capri, which, with another on the hill, is picturesque. There are good hotels near the landing-place. A longascent leads to the high town, near which the palace of Tiberius once stood. From the height I had a view of the southern coast of Italy; but the day was hot, and the atmosphere therefore hazy, so that we could not see far. We returned to Sorrento in the afternoon.Sorrento is a great place—in fact, the chief place—for the manufacture of articles of inlaid wood. It is the industry of the town, and everywhere we found workshops for its manufacture, having attached to them shops for its sale, although, I presume, the larger part of the manufacture is for export or transmission elsewhere. As may be supposed, there is considerable diversity of skill among the workmen, and many articles exhibit inferiority; but I soon found out in which shops the best workmanship prevailed, and in particular considered the articles manufactured by M. Grandville were both well finished and wrought in good taste. Garguilo also, who has a more imposing establishment, had some very fine specimens of work. Every visitor buys more or less, principally, doubtless, to take home as gifts to friends, and I did not escape the contagion. Some of the articles are extremely beautiful; and one I secured, which seemed to be one of the finest examples, was so delicately inlaid that at first sight it seemed as if it were a painting on the wood. I saw, however, the process by which the inlaying is effected, which satisfied me with the reality of the inlaying. A picture is drawn on paper, and little pieces, corresponding in colour to the pattern, are cut out of larger coloured pieces with an extremely slender steel saw—almost a thread for fineness. These are glued down upon the pattern so closely that the joinings are invisible, and it is in the comparative skill with which this nice operation is conducted I presume the difference of quality and effect is mainly found. In purchasing these articles, however, one has not to lose sight of the fact that the transaction is taking place inthe South of Italy, and sometimes a considerably higher price is asked than the seller is prepared to take. I had the specimens purchased put in a box, carefully packed, to send from Naples home by sea, and found on entering Naples thatoctroiduty upon it was exacted, and this not according to value, but to weight. The wood shops are among the best in Sorrento, but I was struck with the marvellous likeness there was, in size at least, in the common small shops of Sorrento to what had been shops in Pompeii.We led a quiet life very pleasantly among friends and acquaintances at the hotel in Sorrento for about a fortnight, glad of rest after so much previous sight-seeing; but the hotel was always full, and the constant jingling of horses’ bells, denoting the arrival or departure of carriages, kept it lively, while, among other diversions, we witnessed the Tarantala dancing entertainment, to which I have elsewhere alluded (p. 72). We had at first thought of going to Cava, with a view to taking trips thence to Amalfi and Pæstum; but preferring rest, left that, like many other excursions, to another opportunity, which might never come. We returned to Naples on 11th April, having a glorious day for the return drive to Castellamare. The trees were only budding, so that we did not see things in perfection. As we drove out of the hotel yard, a man, neither clothed in plush and fine linen nor recently washed, jumped up and sat on the luggage behind, an undesirable-looking and unengaged lackey. The driver explained it was to guard the luggage, which sometimes, I believe, is, by the nimble-fingered inhabitants of the bay, quietly abstracted if not well roped. It was only, however, a genteel method of begging for 30 centimes, with which at Castellamare he was well satisfied. The beggars of Sorrento are certainly industrious in their calling. I stayed a few minutes at one place to make a little sketch, and was immediately surrounded by half-a-dozen women, and at least as many children,all wanting copper. One regular beggar, a man, old to appearance, who was constantly sauntering about, stick in hand, amused me much. His address was, as you approached him, arrestively and decisively, ‘Signor!’ You proceeded a yard farther, and it was more decisively, or rather imperatively, ‘Signor!’ You passed him, and it was ‘Signor! Signor!’ (weepingly) ‘povero vecc. he he per amor di Dio,’ a phrase generally employed by the Italian beggars. It is, however, but fair to add, that begging in Italy is not nearly so bad as it once was, for the authorities are setting their face against it. Still, in some places, it is a great annoyance that one cannot walk along the streets of a small town like Sorrento without being assailed by the same everlasting beggar, giving to whom only encourages to ask again.We were anxious upon our return to Naples to have ascended Vesuvius, at least as far as the Observatory, but unfortunately a heavy cloud hung over the mountain, and reluctantly we had to give it up. Instead, we took a drive to Puteoli, or, as it is now called, Pozzuoli, about two hours distant. Our way lay through the grotto of Posilipo, which is lighted up with gas, and is about a third of a mile long, about 21 feet wide, and varies in height from 70 to 25 feet; thence along an uninteresting road till again we reached the sea, when the islands and Puteoli looked very picturesque. One could hardly imagine from its appearance that it was formerly a great Roman port; but it has been subjected to many changes, and bears evidence of the forces below agitating the ground, by which some parts have been alternately submerged and upheaved, and the recurrence of such events would be sufficient of themselves to account for its desertion. Here we drove over the southern termination of the Appian Way, paved with the large old Roman stones; and our coachman pointed out the part of the old Roman pier (now in fragments, like a row of giant stepping-stones lifting their heads above water) at which he alleged theApostle Paul had landed. There are some ruined temples in Puteoli and its neighbourhood, and the ruins of a large amphitheatre, which the guide said had held 45,000, but, as is more credibly stated by others, 25,000 spectators, for it is not so large or so imposing as that at Nismes, while the measurements are considerably less,—Nismes exceeding it in length by 75 feet, and in breadth by 120 feet. Chambers underneath were discovered in 1838, and are very interesting. They contained dens for the confinement of the wild beasts, and rooms where the gladiators were trained to fight. We had, previous to entering Puteoli, taken a side road to Solfatara. This is a scarcely extinct crater, supposed to have a direct communication underground with Vesuvius, twelve miles distant. However, there has been no eruption since 1198, when it sent forth a current of lava. A man who appeared as guide threw a heavy stone upon the probably thin crust of sulphurous matter constituting the ground over which we were treading; the reverberation from the fall indicated that it was hollow below, and in all likelihood a slender protection from a fiery furnace which it might not be safe to expose to the air and light of day. And as Solfatara is quiescent when Vesuvius is active, and active when Vesuvius is quiescent, which it then was, the thought, as we were intruding upon the domains of these angry forces of nature, that some sudden impulse might burst the earthy covering and blow us all up into the air, like Paul Pry peering about the steamboat when the boiler burst, was not comfortable. The guide took us to a hole from which sulphurous fumes were issuing, and for a few coppers entered it at some risk of suffocation, and by means of a long stick pulled out some pieces of hot sulphur from the boiling natural caldron, which we carried off as souvenirs of our visit to a place which some day may become the scene of a terrible disaster.Taking a different route on returning, we passed thesupposed tomb of Virgil; and crossing over the hill, came again in sight at some distance of Naples, and the continuous stretch of houses along the coast to the southward. Altogether it was a very interesting drive. Had we had time for it, we should have gone farther, as far as to Baiæ, which is a few miles beyond Puteoli.As illustrative of the method of selling and clutching at a profit, however small, I may here mention that, going out with a friend from the hotel, we were waylaid by boys offering walking-sticks for sale. The first boy asked 2 francs for a cane, my friend offered 1 franc, and it was at once taken. Thereupon another with much better canes came up. My friend picked out five of the best, for which he was asked 15 francs, and they were really very cheap at the money. He offered 5 francs and then 6, and to throw in the stick he had just bought of the other boy. The offer was at once closed with, so that he got for 7 francs five beautiful canes, which, judging from prices asked in the shops, were worth 20 francs at least.We had still a good deal to see in Naples; but, not feeling very well, we were anxious to leave a place the reputation of which for salubrity is by no means assuring, and departed for Rome by a morning train, leaving at 7 o’clock and arriving before 2p.m.XIV.FLORENCE, BOLOGNA.FLORENCE.Westayed in Rome until 27th April, when we left for Florence. We had intended going round by the attractive town of Perugia, but the morning of the 26th was wet, and, delaying our departure for a day, we gave up Perugia, partly because to have gone upon a Friday would have involved spending a Sunday there. The latter part of our journey was interesting. On arriving at the outskirts of the town the railway circumnavigates it, so that we had an opportunity from the very first of seeing the cathedral dome and campanile, and the other towers and spires of Florence, which lies beautifully situated in a luxuriantly verdant valley, enclosed by the Apennines and other hills, and intersected by the river Arno, which, seeing for the first time in the soft moonlight in the course of the evening, looked so lovely.The Lung’ Arno, or bank of the river, where most of the principal hotels are placed, is considered the best situation, at least for winter residence. Some of the hotels are unpleasantly near a waterfall or wear stretching across the river, the incessant din of which is troublesome at night. We spent a few nights at one of the hotels there, andafterwards a fortnight at the Pension Molini Barbensi[39], on the left bank of the river, where we found pleasant society and some former travelling acquaintances. The house is a good one, and the rooms are large, but a very little expenditure on sanitary arrangements would improve it as a residence. Living seems not to be expensive at Florence, and lodgings can be procured at a moderate rate.Florence lies upon the same river as Pisa, but I suppose fifty or sixty miles farther up, and the town bears some resemblance to it, but is far more picturesque and far more lively and populous. In fact, Pisa is quite a dull, quiet, dead-alive town beside it. The population of Florence, at present about 170,000, is four times as great as that of Pisa, and it has been a royal town as well as a provincial capital. The river is crossed by six bridges (three, or rather four of them, of very old date) connecting the north and south portions of the city, which, however, lies mainly upon the north shore. Of these bridges (all strongly buttressed against the force of the river, which no doubt occasionally descends in floods with great power), the Ponte Vecchio is peculiar and picturesque, and a remnant of old times, being covered on each side with houses, and on one side, on the top floor, by the long gallery which connects the Uffizi and Pitti Palaces. These houses on the bridge are very curious. Next the street they present to view on both sides small booths or stalls, principally occupied by goldsmiths or jewellers, which very likely much resemble what the shops of Old London were, but at the present day do not, for jewellers’ wares, inspire confidence. On the other or river sides, all manner of chambers in or on the wall project, jut out, and overhang the river, very perilous to behold, and suggestive ofoubliettesthrough which murdered travellers on the bridge might be quietly dropped into the river below, but conferring a quaintness of appearance precious in the sight of the artist. Equally striking in effect is an adjoining range of buildings on the left bank—also flanking the river, and with their projecting chambers overhanging it. In the centre of the bridge large arched openings enable the passer-by to look up and down the river, and take in the prospect beyond.ill345PONTE VECCHIO,—FLORENCE.Nearly all along both sides of the Arno (protected by parapet walls) a wide street runs, and the buildings lining it are some of them stately and handsome, others are old or massive or peculiar, while the line is diversified here and there by a spire or a curious tower. The remarkable lofty old tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, and the dome and campanile of the cathedral,—all such notable objects in the pictures of Florence,—are prominent from almost every part, but especially from the south side of the river. There are, however, certain points of view from which Florence can be commanded. One of these is the terrace of the church of San Miniato, which stands upon a hill to the south-east, and is reached by a very delightful winding road bordered by villas, which were all at the time of our visit looking very charming in their new drapery of spring foliage. The church is an old one, finely decorated with marble and mosaics and marble pillars, and possessing a large crypt below. In itself it is well worth seeing, but it is principally visited for the sake of the prospect. Looking down from the terrace in front, Florence, with dome and towers, is seen lying away below very compactly in the centre of a long, large, flat plain, cut in two by the river, and surrounded by hills. It has here a fresher and cleaner look than most Italian towns. Immediately below San Miniato the piazza named after Michael Angelo lies, adorned in the centre by that artist’s famous colossal statue of David.The smart terraces of this nicely laid-out piazza command views similar to those from San Miniato, but from a lower elevation. A different winding road, as pleasant as the other, conducts down to the town.Another fine drive is to the very ancient town of Fiesole, which stands on a hill upon the north side, and is about three miles out of town. There is here a curious old church or cathedral, with pillars said to be of the first century. Ascending a hill a little higher, and probably 1000 feet above the sea, the view from the top is more commanding than that of San Miniato, and one sees the Arno winding its way for a long distance down the valley, and the Carrara Mountains in the distance. These and other drives about the suburbs of Florence give the impression of a very charming place for a spring residence; but Florence is hot in summer and often very cold in winter time, fierce winds blowing from the hills, which I suppose are frequently covered with snow. The older portions of the city are similar to most Italian towns, full of narrow, tortuous streets; but adjoining the river and in the newer portions, and in the outskirts, the streets are regular and comparatively wide, with piazzas or open spaces in several parts. There are wide, handsome boulevards orvialesencircling the city. In the Piazza Cavour there is a graceful triumphal arch akin to that in the Tuileries of Paris. At the west end, and adjoining the Arno, a large public park extends, called the Cascine, in which are long avenues bordered by trees, affording room for delightful drives and walks, one portion being also laid out as a racecourse. In the quarter south of the Arno the Boboli Gardens attached to the Royal Pitti Palace are also extensive, but open to the public only on Sundays and Thursdays.Florence, historically, is a place of great interest, and is associated with many great names. It is the birthplaceof, among others, Dante, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Galileo, Michael Angelo Buonarotti, Cimabue, Fra Angelico, Leonardo da Vinci, Carlo Dolci, and others eminent in art. The houses of some of these celebrities are pointed out.I can imagine that to those who spend a winter in Florence it must be exceedingly interesting to study the history of the place, and read on the spot such entertaining books as the remarkable life of that most remarkable man, Benvenuto Cellini, giving, as it does, such an insight into Italian life in the sixteenth century. Machiavelli, who died in 1527, brings his history down only to the year 1492; but after reading Trollope’s history, in four vols., Napier’s in six (leaving off at the year 1824) will afford for a whole winter a sufficiently toughpièce de résistance, the perusal whereof one’s physician would no doubt recommend should be diversified occasionally by a chapter in Mrs. Oliphant’sMakers of Florence, or by George Eliot’sRomola, which it is to be hoped was not drawn from the life.Florence, although in itself a more desirable place of residence than Rome, has no Roman ruins. It possesses, however, very many objects of great interest. There are within it about ninety churches, not a few of which are attractive.The cathedral, commenced about six hundred years ago, and in its façade not yet finished, is immense, being 556 feet long by 342 feet wide. The spirit in which it was originated was lofty, the Florentine Republic desiring ‘that an edifice should be constructed so magnificent in its height and beauty that it shall surpass everything of the kind produced in the time of their greatest power by the Greeks and Romans.’ It is, at least in external covering, composed of marble—white, black, and green—with many sculptures and carvings in the marble, especially about the doorways. The stones are laid on a species of panelling consisting of upright parallelograms broken by large, formal,circular openings. Though it be somewhat stiff in pattern, and may be objected to as piebald, a certain richness of effect is produced. But the interior is not correspondent with the exterior; it is vast, but too bare and empty, and dark and dingy—perhaps, therefore, the more sublime! Looking up from below into the magnificent dome, it seems an enormous height to the lantern; as it no doubt is, being 352 feet—so high, in fact, that the dome itself is higher than that of St. Peter’s, although the highest pinnacle is not. In design and general effect, as a whole, the cathedral will not compare with the great temple of Rome. The campanile or bell tower which adjoins, but is separated from it, is of marvellous beauty, and stands nearly 300 feet high. It is a perpendicular square tower, built of every kind of coloured marble, adorned by statuary and covered with rich alto-relievos (of which photographs can be procured); also by the graceful windows, very charmingly decorated in a species of suitable tracery. There is a completeness about this tower, even though it lacks the spire with which Giotto intended it to be crowned, combined with an exuberant affluence of decoration, which renders it a delightful object of contemplation, or rather, I should say, a choice object of study.On the side of the piazza opposite to the west front the baptistery stands, an octagonal building 94 feet in diameter, and in one of the entrances the celebrated bronze gates are placed. We often availed ourselves of opportunities to examine these beautiful embodiments in bronze of Scripture subjects. Being exposed to the street, they are laden with dust, which to a certain extent reduces their apparent sharpness. Over this entrance gate there is a representation of the baptism of Jesus in three sculptured figures—our Lord, John the Baptist, and an attendant angel. Inside the baptistery, besides its oriental granite columns and its mosaics, there is nothing very remarkable.On the south side of the cathedral, in the piazza, we found the little church of the Misericordia, belonging to that peculiar body of monks who, dressed in long black cloaks, with black masks over their faces pierced by eyeholes, are to be occasionally seen going about Florence and elsewhere in procession with the dead, which they bury, taking thus the place of the relations, who, in some parts of Italy, seem to abandon their friends when they die, and appear regardless of what becomes of their remains. We saw the chapel upon Ascension Day, which was a great holiday, or, to speak more exactly,holyday in Florence. On that occasion it was, like other churches, crammed to the door with a changing audience, and, after pushing our way in, we were as glad to push our way out again.The churches of Santa Croce, S.S. Annunciata, Santa Maria Novella, and San Lorenzo are among the finest. They contain beautiful marble monuments, altar paintings, and other decorations which it would be endless to mention. The large church of Santa Croce has a fine white and black marble façade—rather straight and angular, however, in its lines. It measures nearly 500 feet long, and the interior, besides being adorned, as usual, with pictures, is the great receptacle of monuments to illustrious Florentine men, such as Michael Angelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli. The cloisters adjoining the church are well worthy of a visit. Most of the important churches in Florence have the advantage of a large open piazza in front. The vacant space surrounding the cathedral, unfortunately, is comparatively insignificant, and it were well if it could be enlarged. That in front of Santa Croce is large, and is adorned by a colossal marble statue of Dante in classic robe, attended by an eagle and guarded by four lions placed at the corners of a suitable pedestal.From the church of San Lorenzo, founded in the fourth century, and one of the oldest churches in Italy, we wereconducted by a touting guide to the adjacent chapel of the Medici,—the princes of Florence,—and the tombs of these princes, erected at a cost of nearly £900,000. The chapel contains Michael Angelo’s masterpieces in sculpture—Lorenzo de Medici as a warrior resting, but ready, while Day and Night personified recline below, and on the opposite side Julian de Medici sits pondering over recumbent Dawn and Twilight. Opinions, however, have differed as to which is Lorenzo and which is Julian, and I am afraid the visitor has, like the little boy, to ‘take his choice.’The monastery, formerly of the Silvestrine, afterwards the Dominican monks, now the Museum of San Marco, is close to the church of San Marco. Here are to be seen a great many paintings by the pure-minded Fra (Giovanni) Angelico, who resided in the monastery during the first half of the fifteenth century. All his works, wrought out in prayer, are distinguished by the beautiful though smooth painting of the faces, many of which, here and elsewhere in Florence, are angelic, or, as we might more correctly designate them, of a saintly, soft beauty, and composed, devout inexpressiveness of any passion, but peculiar both in attire and employment. It would be a mistake, however, to set down all Angelo’s faces as of this description, as in some of his paintings there is great diversity of contour and of expression, although the drawing is often singular and in the pre-Raphaelite style. I suppose it is generally correct, although not always. In one instance I noticed that a neck seemed to be a linked sweetness rather long drawn out. There is likewise shown in this museum, which is in reality a range of monkish cells, the little cell in which Savonarola, the illustrious, eloquent prior of the order, lived,—a man of great force of character, a precursor of Luther, fearless as Knox, and a saviour of Florence, whose people, when they burnt him at the stake, put to death theirgreatest benefactor. In a large room were exhibited an immense collection of the flags, banners, and colours of all the towns and corporations of Italy which were represented at the Dante festival in 1865.On the south side of the river, with the exception of Minesota, the churches do not appear to be so fine; but there is one, the church of San Spirito, which is large and attractive, and contains no less than thirty-eight chapels encircling it—by far the largest number of side chapels attached to a church I have seen anywhere.The visitor, however, is at first most attracted by the Piazza della Signoria, which—the centre of business—is a large open space, wherein, or in its neighbourhood, some of the most important buildings are congregated. On the south side of this piazza there is a lofty, covered, arcaded hall, called the Loggia dei Lanzi, open on two sides to the street by arches resting upon high ornamental pillars. Here are arranged some of the most beautiful modern statues in Florence, including the Rape of the Sabines in marble, by Giovanni da Bologna—a spirited work, which, like some of the others, is constantly being copied on a small scale in marble and alabaster, for sale in the shops; and Perseus, a bronze statue by Benvenuto Cellini, a master of whose works there are various specimens to be seen in Florence. Both these stand in line with the front of the Loggia. Behind them are several other groups, including the Rape of Polyxena, Hercules slaying the Centaur, and one supposed to represent Ajax dragging along the body of Patroclus or of Achilles, all in fine powerful action. Tall, massive buildings have been erected on another side of the square, and opposite them, sentinelled by statues, the Palazzo Vecchio rises grandly but grimly, with its conspicuous campanile towering over everything around. This palace is well worthy of a visit. Immediately within the doorway we found, in contrast with the exterior, a graceful entrance court, encircledby an arcade supported by rows of columns florid in arabesques, each differing from the others, and a small fountain in the centre giving life to the whole. Ascending a long stair, we were ushered into an enormous hall, ornamented by six huge fresco paintings representing events in the history of Italy. On a floor above we were shown a chapel and several small rooms, in one of which there was a model of the proposed façade of the cathedral. I suspect it will be a long time before the façade itself be an accomplished fact. It appears strange that it should be allowed to remain in its present condition, a blemish upon the building, and a reflection upon the spirit in which the erection was commenced.The house of Michael Angelo is not far from the Piazza. It has been converted into a museum, and contains, besides a series of paintings representative of events in his life, with some of his drawings and models in wax, and a small collection of works of art, a closet or studio in which he wrought, and a portrait and statue of this extraordinary artist and fiery independent man, conscious of a genius as versatile as it was unrivalled. The high estimate in which he has been held by those qualified to judge may be seen by referring to Sir Joshua Reynolds’Discourses.[40]In another street an inscription upon a stone in the wall denotes a house in which Benvenuto Cellini at one time lived.But the greatest sources of attraction in Florence are the Uffizi and Pitti Galleries. These are open free to the public on Sundays and Thursdays—on other days on payment of a franc. The Uffizi Gallery occupies the upperfloor of the three sides of a long narrow street or court orcul de sac, I believe 450 feet long—the fourth being open to the Piazza della Signoria. The building has a handsome elevation, scarcely visible in the narrow street, and is adorned by nearly thirty marble statues of celebrated Tuscans, such as Dante, Petrarch, Michael Angelo, Lorenzo il Magnifico, evidencing the wealth of Florence in illustrious men. The gallery itself is reached by a long staircase, and through vestibules embellished by busts and statues. On entering we find ourselves in a long corridor, which is carried round the whole length of the three sides of the building; in fact, making three long galleries, not particularly high, though high enough for the purpose, and lighted from the top and by windows looking into the court. In these corridors, besides a good many pictures interspersed upon the walls, the greater part of the sculpture of the collection is assembled—embracing some choice specimens of ancient art, but in number very small compared with the vast treasures of the Vatican. Doors open all round into suites of rooms containing an immense assemblage of paintings, principally Italian, and among them many of the choicest works of the great masters. Besides the many chambers devoted to works of art of various nations, among which Britain seems to be nowhere and Italy to predominate, there are some small rooms containing collections of gems, medals, and bronzes. Two of the larger galleries exhibit several hundred portraits of artists, one of the most pleasingly beautiful among them being a sweet likeness by Mme. Le Brun of herself, a very favourite subject of copy, and with herself a not uncommon subject of her brush, as may be noticed in the Louvre. A very large room is likewise set apart mainly for the exhibition of seventeen most painfully-expressive statues of the famous Niobe group. But of all the rooms in this great gathering of art, the Tribune is the one which displays the choicest specimens. It is a comparatively small room, but is said to have cost £20,000in its construction. Here are chef-d’œuvres of Raphael, Titian, Guido Reni, Correggio, and various others; while the chamber also contains the famous Venus de Medici, the Wrestlers, the Dancing Faun, the Whetter—all masterpieces of ancient sculpture.Descending by a stair, the visitor proceeds by an almost interminably long corridor, which stretches out to the Ponte Vecchio, and across that bridge away to the Pitti Palace on the south side of the Arno—I suppose scarcely less than half a mile between the two places. This corridor, being lined with engravings, with drawings of the masters, and with tapestries,—a collection of things in themselves valuable,—would take a long time to examine, but in presence of so much else more attractive, scarcely succeeds in alluring the passing visitor to any lengthened scrutiny. Away and away it stretches, till after a weary walk it comes to a termination, and ascending by another stair into the Pitti Palace, we find ourselves in a collection of upwards of five hundred paintings and a few sculptures, occupying about fifteen different beautiful large rooms. It may truly be said there is hardly a painting in these rooms which is not good, while there are among them some of the choicest works of the great masters, as, for example,—for it is but one of very many which might be named,—Raphael’s Madonna della Sedia, the beauty of which painting is something wonderful. No engraving and no copy that I have seen approaches the lovely expressiveness of the original. I was several times in these galleries, in which one could spend many days with the greatest enjoyment. But to endeavour to write a description would be not merely fruitlessly to seek to realize the works, but would be to attempt a disquisition on the great in art, which, even with capacity for the undertaking, would here be out of place. I suppose there is not an Italian painter of eminence who is not represented in the gallery, though beyond native art I think the only other nations whoseartists’ works appear are the Dutch and Spanish. Photographs and engravings can be procured of many of the pictures in the shops.At all times artists are engaged, in both the Uffizi and Pitti Galleries, making copies of the more celebrated or most attractive pictures—occasionally two upon the same picture; and they do proceed with most wonderful patience and infinite pains, copying to the minutest hair, and laying on coat after coat with the greatest delicacy, some of them attaining to great excellence. Apermessois necessary to copy, and for some of the more celebrated paintings the artists, I was told, had sometimes to wait their turn for years. When they have, after elaborate painstaking, made a good copy, I fancy they manufacture other copies from it. I was fortunate enough, among others, to secure a copy of the lovely Madonna del Cordellina by Raphael, so perfect that it might almost vie with the original. It was obviously a copy direct from, and inspired by, the original. Beside it stood in the same shop another copy, but oh! how different! I believe that some of the copiers attach themselves more particularly to given masters,—for example, one in general copies Titians, another Murillos, another Raphaels. To protect against the abstraction of pictures from the galleries, no one is allowed to take a picture, not even a copy, out of Italy without apermesso. I bought a small copy of a Titian in the galleries, and the artist (Adolphe Boschi) accompanied me with it to the town, because, he said, they would not have allowed me to pass with it myself.There is one little inconvenience attendant upon the extreme length of the galleries. Upon occasion of my first visit, I had unfortunately taken an umbrella, which I was obliged to leave at the door of the Uffizi Gallery. After wandering to the extreme end of the Pitti Gallery, I had to retrace all my steps to regain this umbrella. It is better, therefore, if anything must be left at the door, toconfine a visit to one or other of the palaces, and there is abundance in either to engage a whole forenoon.Not far from the Piazza della Signoria is what is called the National Museum, contained in the old Palazzo del Podesta, rich, but severely rich, in its architecture. The ground floor is occupied with ancient and modern armour and arms. Above there is a gallery of statues, some of them by Michael Angelo, a room full of majolica, another of ivory carvings, two of bronzes, two of tapestry, and two of sculpture; but the collection, though interesting, looks small after experiencing the extent of the Uffizi and Pitti Galleries, and seems hardly deserving to be dignified with the name of National.The Corsini Palace, on the Lung Arno, is open three days in the week to the public, and contains in twelve rooms a large collection of paintings, many of which are by the great masters.The Academia delle Belle Arti contains a large collection of pre-Raphaelites, commencing with Cimabue, and comprising among others some fine Peruginos. It is accordingly interesting. In an upper floor several rooms exhibit paintings by modern Italian artists, principally battlepieces. I paid a visit also to the rooms of the Association for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts, which seems to be founded somewhat on the same principles as similar associations in Great Britain; but from such opportunities as I have had of forming an opinion, I cannot say that the mantle of their great predecessors—whose works are constantly before them, and might be thought calculated to inspire—has fallen upon the modern Florentine artists.Florence, besides being a great place for the sale of copies of paintings, and for the manufacture of the well-known massive and tastefully-decorated picture-frames, all carved out of the solid wood, upon which the gilding islaid without any mixture of composition, is the place of all others for the manufacture and sale of marble and alabaster sculpture, and of the beautiful Florentine mosaic jewellery. It is filled with shops for the sale of these various articles, which are to be had at moderate prices, and strangers seldom leave without more or less extensively making purchases.The streets of Florence are always full of life. Occasionally of an evening a body of men, perhaps twenty or thirty, would form themselves in a ring, and with deep, rich, melodious voices sing Italian songs. The power of voice or strength of lungs which the Italians sometimes possess is indeed often exhibited in a surprising manner. All of a sudden, walking along a street, it may be meditatively, a vendor of small wares will abruptly at your very ear, and without apparent effort, discharge a sharp, stentorian cry, piercing and startling as with the shock of a nine-pounder, and nearly knocking you down breathless and affrighted. The markets, too, are noisy,—bargain-making being a serious operation, in which success is supposed to attend the most vociferous and energetic,—but sometimes they are more quietly conducted. Having once penetrated them, and found myself in the press of a great crowd in very narrow passages, and in odious proximity to heaps of most unpleasant-looking fish, it was with no little satisfaction I made my escape as soon as escape was practicable.There are many other places in Florence to be seen besides those I have specially mentioned. We did see a good deal in the time we were there, but not all by any means, and what we did see was in a very general way. We remained not quite three weeks, and could with pleasure have stayed much longer. It is a place which, like Rome, though not to the same extent, requires a long stay, and is full of objects meriting careful study and worthyof repeated examination. It is not, however, without its drawbacks, chief among them being the not uncommon practice in Italian towns of making air-holes from the drains to the streets, from which unsavoury whiffs occasionally come, not pleasant to contemplate. The authorities plainly want in sanitary arrangements some teaching.BOLOGNA.We left Florence for Bologna by train at 7.50A.M.As we were about to enter a railway carriage, a pleasant-looking English lady looked out and cried to us deterringly, ‘This is not a smoking carriage.’ ‘Thank you, madam,’ I replied; ‘that is just what we want.’ So, as the two parties filled the compartment, we were not troubled with any selfish smoker, and, as we were all English, with no needless exclusion of the views by lowering the blinds. We reached Bologna at noon. The railway passes through many tunnels, and in some places at a great elevation. The views from it are fine.Bologna is a singular old university town, very compact within the walls, so as to accommodate its population of 109,000. From the twelve or thirteen gates in the walls, leading streets converge to the centre, constructed with arcades at the sides, under which the pavements and shops are placed. The object of the arcading is probably to afford shelter from the snow in winter and the rain in summer. The town itself is dull, and the shops entering from the arcades are dark and second-rate. Photographs of Bologna can be procured at Florence, and perhaps in some as yet undiscovered region in Bologna itself. The Hotel Brun (the principal one) is an old-fashioned house. Like many of the Italian hotels, thesalonsare entered direct from the court-yard.As soon as possible, as we were only to stay one night, we went out for a drive of some hours, and were taken first to the two leaning towers, which stand together. These are long, lanky, and square, dark with age and long exposure to the weather, often, I suspect, of a humid character. One of them—theTorre Asinelli—said by Bædeker to be 272, and in other authorities 320 feet high, was originally 476 feet, or 40 feet higher than the top of the cross of St. Peter’s. It was shortened in 1416 after an earthquake. It now lies 3 ft. 5 in. off the perpendicular. The other, that of Garisenda, is, according to Bædeker, 138 feet high, and upwards of 8 feet out of the perpendicular, and by no means assuring to look at. They are neither of them imposing architecturally, although noted features viewed from outside the city. From this point we went to the Etruscan Museum, in which a variety of antiquities are exhibited, and, among other things, several skeletons of an old date discovered in neighbouring excavations. Under the same roof there is also a large library, comprising upwards of 100,000 volumes. I believe the museum and library are connected with the University, 760 years old. Close by is the large church of San Petronio, 384 feet long by 154 feet wide, intended to have been a vast deal larger. Here Charles v. was crowned emperor in 1530. There are various other large churches interesting to see, but, after those in Rome and Florence, they have, with all their grandeur, rather a provincial look. We then drove beyond the walls to the Villa Reale, one of the royal palaces. It stands upon a height, and commands admirable views of the town, out of which rise a good many towers, domes, and spires, relieving its otherwise spiritless level. One also sees far into the surrounding country, which, for the most part, is very flat. The villa contains some long corridors, one of them 500 feet long, adorned by statues. The church of the monastery is entered from the galleries.From this we drove (still outside the walls) to the Campo Santo, which is much larger, is more ramified, and is older than that at Genoa, but it is by no means equal to it either in arrangement or in monuments. Some of the monuments are good, but many are paltry. On our way back to town we entered the churches of San Domenico and San Pietro, both large, and containing greater objects of interest than San Petronio.Cab fares in Bologna are moderate. I paid the cabman half a franc more than his fare, and, wonderful to say, he thanked me. It was the first and only time in Italy. The usual course is to take all that is offered and beg for more. Do the cabmen of Bologna graduate at the University?Rain fell heavily the following morning, and as we were to leave for Venice at twelve o’clock, we had not much time, but I could scarcely leave Bologna without taking a hurried glimpse of the Academia delle Belle Arti. An hour in this large gallery was, of course, far too brief a space for seeing its contents, and in the galleries there are many great paintings of more or less merit; among others, Raphael’s celebrated and beautiful picture of St. Cecilia listening to heavenly music, in which, however (such are the exigencies of art), six solid angels, securely seated on a cloud, obtain their words and their time, somewhat inconveniently, from two stout music-books, perhaps purchased in the Via outside—a profane remark; but irreverent thoughts will intrude even in the presence of the most wonderful works. It was a change to pass from the well-favoured countenance of St. Cecilia to Guido Reni’s Crucifixion. There are indeed two Crucifixions by Guido, but the smaller one seems to me the grander effort of genius. The effect of the darkness in the painting is truly sublime.

XIII.NAPLES, POMPEII, SORRENTO.Itproved a very wet morning in Rome on the day we had settled to go to Naples (for it can rain in Rome remarkably well); but we had taken our rooms at a hotel in Naples, and were packed and ready to go, and accordingly left, arriving at the station at half-past eight for the train leaving at 9.20, and were not a bit too soon. The traveller has to hang on for his turn to get his luggage weighed and to purchase his railway tickets; and after these operations were accomplished, and admission was at last accorded to thesalle-d’attente(for none, according to the evil custom which keeps ladies hanging about on their feet, can enter previously), we had but a few minutes to wait in that apartment until the doors were opened and announcement made that passengers might now hurry to the train.For a considerable part of the way the rain fell and heavy clouds hung upon the mountains, so that little could be seen of the scenery in the early part of the journey, which is the most interesting, as the line commands in many parts historical ground. We passed the Alban and Volscian Mountains; the town of Capua, where are interesting Roman remains; Caserta, where there is an immense royalpalace; and many curious old towns resting upon the hills which the railway skirted. It would have been well worth while to have stayed at Capua and Caserta to have seen them, but it is difficult to arrange for doing so without spending a night by the way, or continuing the journey by a night train, because trains do not suit. This being the 26th of March, vegetation was in a very backward state, the trees just beginning to show symptoms of being about to throw out their buds, so that everything looked somewhat dreary. At last we arrived in Naples, after a seven hours’ ride, just in time to settle down before dinner.The following morning we took a cab to drive through and see the town, and, looking to select a good one, I was beset by a host of cabmen, all wanting to be engaged, even after I had engaged one, and told them so positively. There is very little choice among them. The vehicles are all equally shabby, and the drivers all equally dirty. Their fares are very low, which may account for the disreputable appearance of the men and cabs, which are as numerous as bees in a hive. The coachmen will take any amount of trouble to get a hire. If, upon going to a place, say the Museum, they be dismissed, they will hang about for an hour, hoping to get the return fare. But driving is really the only way by which one can see some parts of Naples. The town swarms with people to an extent which, unless seen, can hardly be either realized or credited. In England, every rod may maintain its man, but in Naples, and even all about the Bay of Naples, it would seem as if not merely every square yard, but almost every square foot maintained its man, woman, or child. But how they all live, or even where they all sleep, is a mystery. The main street, the Toledo, a mile long, is so crowded, that one wonders how the carriages can possibly penetrate; and the people are such notorious thieves and such adroit pickpockets, that it is dangerous to attempt to walk on foot. Even in driving,the passenger must be very careful, as a thief will think nothing of abstracting loose articles, even in his very sight. At the railway station the traveller should keep a sharp look-out that the very porter who is taking his portmanteau to a carriage does not quietly run off with it. Knowing these habits, we left the most of our luggage at Rome, and only took with us what was indispensable, as every additional package is in such a case an additional anxiety.The Bay of Naples is naturally the first point of attraction. One hears so much of its transcendent beauty that expectation is highly raised. I thought the accounts of it exaggerated; but then it was not summer, and therefore we could not see it in perfection; while we had just recently come from Mentone, where we had been living for months in sight of lovely bays. The blue waters of the Mediterranean in brilliant sunshine are always charming, and here they are enclosed in a very large bay—for it is about twenty miles each way—with one long arm stretching away and terminated by the island of Ischia, and the other long arm stretching away and terminated by the island of Capri; the outlines of all being picturesque, and all sides being dotted with villages. In the centre of the landward side Vesuvius boldly rises (the eruptions from time to time causing variations in its height, which, however, averages about 4000 feet), with a stream of smoke, betokening its character, constantly ascending from the summit as if from some colossal chimney; while below, a line of houses stretches continuously from Naples, probably fifteen miles, or perhaps even more, indicating how populous is this part of Italy. In the distance, behind Naples and Vesuvius, a range of the Apennines lies.Naples itself, the largest and most populous city in Italy, is, from a little distance, picturesque, resting, somewhat like Genoa, on a half-circle of sloping heights, with a broadmargin to the shore, the houses towards which are lofty, many being five and even six storeys high. In the central and denser parts of the town they are even higher, while in these portions the streets are mere lanes, 15 to 20 feet wide, and irregular; and if they be not absolutely unsafe to visit, must form a very labyrinth of perplexity to the stranger. In the newer parts of the city the streets are spacious and elegant. Every here and there, a jutting prominence or a bold height crowned with some peculiar structure gives character to the scene. The Chiaja is a long strip of land turned into a public garden or park lying in or towards the north end of the town, and fronting the sea. A broad street, the Riviera di Chiaja, flanks it, lined by the trees of the park on the one side, and by hotels and other buildings on the other, and terminated at the north end by Posilipo, a hill perforated by the famous grotto of that name, or tunnel, I presume half natural and half excavated, which affords an access to the other side. Up from the Chiaja, on a height, the Castle of St. Elmo stands, the interior of which our limited time did not afford us opportunity of seeing. Leaving the Chiaja by a handsome drive which has been formed by the shore, we pass the Castel del Ovo, which stands out into the sea, cresting a large rock or small island connected with the land by a mole or breakwater. It is ugly and old, but can scarcely, because it is so, be called picturesque, though at least it is striking or prominent; and I suppose it does or can, with other fortifications, offer some protection to the port; but it was, and perhaps still is, used as a prison, and, in spite of sunshine, is gloomy enough for that. From this point southward, commencing with the broad Strada San Lucia, the harbour lies, in which there is a moderate amount of shipping, but small as compared with that of Genoa. Life abounds about this harbour and the adjoining quays, along which broad streets run, filled with sellers of fish and other commodities, and with crowds of pedestrians and carriages.The road turns up from S. Lucia into the large open space called the Piazza del Plebiscito—one side occupied by a handsome semicircular colonnade, and the other by the royal palace, where the king was at the time of our visit residing, two equestrian statues in the centre of the piazza contributing to its adornment. The Toledo or High Street of Naples issues out of it. Proceeding farther along the harbour, and at its extreme south, we come to the Castel del Carmine, also forming a feature in the landscape, and from it a road leads up to the railway station, which is just outside the inhabited part of Naples. From the harbour, or any point which commands a view, the town looks bright and picturesque, and in rather striking contrast with its dirty population. Ascent of the lighthouse for the sake of the view is recommended.The only church in Naples which we thought at all comparable to those in Rome was the cathedral, which is a large and handsome building. One of its side chapels is that of the famous St. Januarius, where the blood and other relics of the martyr are preserved.The hotels are situated principally on the line of buildings facing the sea from the Chiaja southward to S. Lucia. But some new hotels have been opened on the high ground near the Castle of St. Elmo, thought to be a more healthy locality. This may or may not be, but one requires to be careful as to where he lives in Naples. In fact, the natural air of Naples must be extremely salubrious, to counteract, as it seems to a large extent to do, the evil influences arising from so large a population living upon so comparatively small a portion of the tideless Mediterranean. Were it otherwise, fever would be constantly raging, and Naples depopulated.We spent the forenoon of the following day in the Museum. This is an immense collection of antiquities, principally from Pompeii, and is well worthy of severalvisits, without which, in fact, it cannot be properly studied. Illustrated catalogues can be procured, which are no doubt useful, but are expensive. Our time would only allow of a general examination. The Museum contains thousands of articles of great interest, and very many which show to what a state of perfection art had arrived at the time Pompeii was destroyed. The sculptures of all descriptions and pictures are very numerous, and among many others deserving of special note was the grand group called the Toro Farnese, of masterly power. It is composed of five graceful and pleasing human figures, besides the bull rampant and a dog, and other sculpture, and if cut out of one block of marble, would seem to be a miracle of art. Why it should have been removed from Rome to Naples I am not aware. But the Museum at Naples is very spacious and extensive, and may have afforded better accommodation than any place in Rome. Some of the rooms are filled with articles of domestic use recovered from the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii; and, what is very curious, in one room loaves of bread, grain of various sorts, dates, and other edibles 1800 years old are exhibited. Many of the curious frescoes found upon the walls of Pompeii have been removed to the Museum and built bodily into its walls. The colours of these frescoes are considerably faded, but copying them seems to afford employment to a number of artists, who, however, impart to their copies the supposed original brightness of the pictures, and one seldom sees an original Pompeian fresco possessing that vividness of colouring which representations of them usually manifest. One room is fitted up as a reproduction of a Pompeian bedroom, and gives a greater idea of luxurious comfort than one would imagine possible from the appearance of the rooms, now in ruins, which we afterwards saw in Pompeii itself.The afternoon is the time for seeing the Chiaja, for thenall the private carriages of Naples may be witnessed driving about; and on one occasion we had the good fortune to pass the Princess Margherita, now the Queen of Italy. Girls are on the watch to sell large and beautiful bouquets of flowers at marvellously cheap prices. An aquarium has been built near the centre of the Chiaja gardens, which we visited the morning of the day following, before going to Castellamare. It is not nearly so large as that at Brighton, but it is interesting enough. It contained,inter alia, a good many octopi, which repulsive fish is said to be sold and eaten in Naples, and, in all probability, occasionally appears under some disguised name at the hotel dinners.Naples is a great place for the sale of photographs and articles of bijouterie in lava, and of coral and tortoiseshell. At Mr. Sommer’s Fine Art Establishment near the Chiaja, a large collection of beautiful photographs of almost all places in Italy is to be found. These are very moderate in price—the cheapest in Italy—as well as good, and in number exceed five thousand. I laid in a good stock, and only wish I had taken more. Any of them can be at once procured by reference to the number they bear. They are best kept flat, but if rolling be preferred, they should always be rolled up with the photograph side outwards. Why it is that photographs of a size which cost a shilling at Naples should be charged five shillings or six shillings, or even more, at home, I don’t know. But the consequence is that people buy the Italian photographs by the hundred, whereas at home, if they buy at all, it is by the unit. Our dealers plainly miss the market by their high prices. Mr. Sommer might do well to extend his operations to the towns of France and to Switzerland, where photographs are expensive.Among other shops we also visited Squadrilli’s, which is recommended in Bædeker. Here we found a well-stockedstore of articles in lava and coral, but owing, I suppose, to the thieving which exists in Naples, and from which, no doubt, they have sometimes suffered, we were rather unpleasantly watched by three persons, a circumstance of which others who had been there also complained. The articles, however, seemed to be good, while the prices are fixed, though a discount of five per cent, was allowed for cash. The gold used in Naples for bijouterie is considered to be inferior to the standard quality of England, and even of Rome, which professes to be, like England, of eighteen carats. Squadrilli allowed that their gold was only fourteen carats, and perhaps his estimate might not apply to all his articles. There are many imitations, however, even of this inferior gold, and some articles, possibly ‘job lots,’ are sold in Naples at astonishingly low prices. The articles supposed to be of lava are, I believe, in reality cut out of the limestone rocks of Somma, one of the peaks of Vesuvius.We were anxious to make our stay in Naples as short as possible, as so much is heard of its insalubrity. After the general survey we had thus made of it, we took train to Castellamare, the railway passing Mount Vesuvius on the one side and the coast on the other, so that we were in view of the bay nearly all the way. Castellamare is a convenient halting-place for seeing Pompeii, which, however, may be visited from Naples itself, either by hiring a carriage from Naples,—making a pretty long drive, and, I believe, of little interest, the road being a continuous street of houses,—or by taking the train as far as Torre dell’ Annunciata, and a carriage thence to Pompeii, which is not two miles off. Castellamare is one of those populous unclean towns which lie upon the bay. Friends had said it was a remarkably nice place to stop at, and the Hotel Quisisana, on the height above the town, is a fairly comfortable one, commanding a splendid view of the bay, of Vesuvius, and of Naples beyond. Perhaps we did notremain long enough to acquire a knowledge of its beauties, but we were not taken with the dirty town; while the garden of the hotel, which might have been laid out to great advantage, and thus have helped to reconcile us to the place, was no better than such Italian gardens usually are. I suppose that Nature has been so lavish of her bounties when the sun shines, that the Italians think it unnecessary to supplement her labours. Yet I have sometimes thought that the time of waiters, who between meals in foreign places have often little to do, might, not unprofitably to the hotels, and with some advantage in health to themselves, be occupied in trimming the hotel gardens. Our bedrooms looked towards the bay, and therefore were, I presume, considered more choice; but being a northern or north-western exposure, we found them extremely cold at night. It was, however, intensely interesting to look across to Vesuvius, which I had seen emitting a red light on our second evening at Naples, without being aware, unfortunately, till afterwards that this light was unusual, and that had I watched it for half an hour longer I should have seen it become more intensely bright. People were then in full expectation of an eruption, and even the very day had been predicted, although the premonitory symptoms of streams drying up had not appeared; but expectation was not gratified.We arranged the following morning to drive to Pompeii, which is about three miles distant.Pompeii on being approached seems like a huge mound, somewhat akin in the distance to a fortified place. The excavated town itself is not visible from the road. The visitor is deposited at the door of what appears to be a sort of tavern or place of refreshment, through which, threading one’s way among tables, entrance is had to the excavations. We found the tavern filled with people taking an early dinner, or rather breakfast, rendering theaccess by no means an agreeable one. Here leaving with thecameriereour wraps,—not without some misgivings, fortunately not realized, that we should never see them again,—we passed up a stair, and through a magazine for sale of lava ornaments, etc., the prices asked for which, as usual in show places, were exorbitantly and forbiddingly high. Outside the magazine we paid two francs each for admission and for the assistance of a guide (children being charged only a half-franc each), and procured a little French-speaking guide in smart uniform and side arms, whom we found very obliging and attentive. These guides are necessary, and must be taken, though sometimes respectable people who have been there before are allowed to go without them; perhaps not always with advantage to the ruins, as it is a very common trick with people who should know better, and who might not be expected to do such a thing, to pocket stones which can be of no use whatever to themselves, but the abstraction of which is detrimental to the place whence they are taken. On one occasion in Italy, a lady of a party in which I was—who acknowledged to being in the habit of bringing away a stone from every place to which she had been—quietly pocketed a piece of marble lying on the ground, when the custodier, who was keeping a sharp look-out, went up to her and desired her to replace it. It was a numbered piece, and he would, he said, be responsible for it to the authorities. The practice of chipping stones from a building of note, or taking up loose pieces, cannot be too severely reprehended, and ought sometimes to be punished. The guides at Pompeii are not allowed to receive any gratuity from the visitors, but they make a little by an accorded permission to sell photographs of the ruins.Passing through an old gateway, we were ushered into a museum, the contents of which are not numerous, as the bulk of the articles found is sent to the large Museum of Naples. It contains, however, some things of great interest,particularly the casts of men and women found in Pompeii who had perished in the great overthrow, and whose bodies had been so curiously enveloped with the scoriæ as to form a close-fitting, indurated mould, and a cast from it, when the dust is blown out, reproduces every line of the body or of the clothing of the suffocated person. Some of the casts so taken give a clear representation of the form of the features; and I noticed that the dress of the men seemed to be very similar to what is still worn by those in the vicinity, particularly in the tight-fitting, wrought woollen jacket covering the body. If I was right in this supposition, it is another instance of the manner in which the people cling to ancient habits and modes of dress.We were then taken to the excavations which are being systematically carried on, and our examination commenced with the forum, a large open space, containing the remains of the pillars by which it was surrounded. From these remains and the remains of other public buildings, it is evident that Pompeii was a very elegantly adorned city. It had temples, no less than nine being marked upon the plan, but they are all in ruins; only fragments exist, the pillars and superincumbent building having been almost everywhere thrown down. In some of them, such as the temple of Venus and temple of Isis, a few columns, with their entablature, stand, to indicate the beauty of their construction. Besides temples there have been excavated two theatres and a large amphitheatre, in excellent preservation, capable of accommodating 20,000 persons, and nearly, in length and breadth, as large as that at Nismes; also, as usual in Roman towns, baths, besides other public buildings. But probably the greatest interest attaches to the remains of the private dwellings. It is rarely that private houses exhibit, after a lapse of nearly 2000 years, even in ruins, what they were when in occupation. Here, however, the lava or scoriæ or dust of Vesuvius by hermetical seal closed up these houses, in order that they might be seen by thepeople of a long-distant age. Many of the houses in Pompeii belonged to men of wealth, and they are all laid out, in the better class at least, upon much the same plan, entering upon a square court, open in the centre to the outer air, in the middle of which a marble fountain played. The rooms were built around or beyond, the principal or public rooms being to the back—a mode of design probably suitable to the climate, at least in summer, and admitting, no doubt, of great elegance of arrangement and design, and of which such houses as those of Marcus Holconius, of the Faun, of Sallust, of the poet, of Meleager, and of Cornelius Rufus afford examples,—all containing beautiful fluted pillars and other decorations, sometimes in marble, still standing, while the walls were tastefully decorated with that peculiar description of painting well known as Pompeian. Some of the houses appear to be only one storey high, but stairs indicate a second storey, and it is even supposed that in some cases there may have been a third. But they had no appearance to the street, while the streets themselves are narrow, so much so that it is impossible to see how in many of them even the smallest carriages could pass each other without encroaching on the equally narrow footway ortrottoir(discovery of the remains of it here revealing its use in ancient times); but the large stones or slabs forming the street pavement are in some places marked with a deep rut, indicating a good deal of carriage traffic. The shops on the streets are small, and are sometimes built into the dwellings, so that shop floors then were probably as remunerative as they seem to be now with ourselves, although persons now in similar rank of life in Great Britain would little like to allow a portion of their mansions to be so occupied. As, however, the streets were so confined, there could have been no view from the house itself upon the front facing the street; yet, no doubt, from some windows in the upper apartments behind there might be fine glimpses of the bay and of Vesuvius, as wellas of the surrounding country. At all events, we obtained excellent views from the ruins, especially from the walls. Vesuvius appears close at hand, and one feels astonished at the foolhardiness of people building towns and houses so close under the fiery mountain after the tremendous warnings received in the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum. We were shown at one place in the ‘House of Diomede’ a long vault or cellar, in which the remains were found of seventeen unfortunate persons who had taken refuge there during the awful time when they knew not where to flee, and supposed that the walls of the house would cover them from calamity. We could not look upon such places without thinking what an appalling time it must have been, and what heartrending agonies must then have been endured. Notwithstanding all the elegance of the public portions of the houses, and perhaps even of the private chambers, it seemed as if the actual comfort of the inhabitants could not be great, and especially in the matter of bedroom accommodation, for I imagine the sleeping-rooms were of the smallest dimensions—mere closets, not such as people of the present day in good circumstances would approve.It would, however, be impossible, in small compass, to give any adequate idea of these houses or of their decorations. Books have been written upon the subject, and an excellent recent account of Pompeii, its history, buildings, and antiquities, containing nearly 300 illustrations, has been written by Dr. Thomas H. Dyer. Nothing, indeed, but a visit to Pompeii itself can convey a sufficient idea of the resuscitated city; but a study of Mr. Dyer’s book before going, as well as after a visit, will help materially to an understanding of it. Pompeii is a place of engrossing interest entirely unique, and in some respects it offers, I think, more attractions to a visitor than any other in Italy, and well merits more than one visit. The excavations arestill proceeding, and it will probably be many years before they are completed, as there is still a large piece of ground, probably as much again as has already been opened, on which to operate.Having seen Pompeii, we did not care to stay longer at Castellamare, and next day, taking a carriage with three horses, the bells jingling cheerily all the way, drove to Sorrento. The drive occupied an hour and a half, and is considered to be one of the finest to be had in Italy. The road borders the bay, and passes through several large Italian villages most picturesquely situated, and across a deep ravine, evidently the result of an earthquake, by a beautiful bridge. Sorrento is a long town, and the road through its suburbs is shut in by lofty and most objectionable garden walls. As we drove down the road towards it, from the height to the eastward the place looked very charming, surrounded by hills on every side except the north, which is open to the sea. Turning down a long narrow lane, we arrived at the Tramontano Hotel (kept by an Irish landlady, an active and most obliging woman), where everything is remarkably comfortable, and the accommodation is ample. It is situated on classic ground, Tasso having resided in a house which, or its site, is now part of the hotel. A garden, where, no doubt, Tasso often meditated, encloses the hotel upon the south, while the north windows and terraces command magnificent views of the bay, of the islands, of Naples lying opposite, and of Vesuvius, whose smoke, always ascending, is an excellent indicator of the direction of the wind. The garden extends away to the eastward, where a dependence or additional house is kept for the accommodation of the guests. A large public room, with windows to the bay, was being added to the main house, so that now bothsalonandsalle-à-mangerare large rooms. Having had experience of the cold of northerly chambers at Castellamare, we chosecheerful rooms on the south side overlooking the hotel yard, with all its enlivening bustle, and the garden and green hills behind.Sorrento lies upon a platform or broad level space of land, the seaward side being high perpendicular cliffs, so that one looks sheer down from the hotel windows on the north to the water far below, which is reached from the hotel by a winding tunnel cut into the rock. It is placed, like Mentone, under the guard of a semicircle of hills, although these are both nearer and much lower than those at Mentone; but as the town faces the north, instead of the south as at Mentone, it is rather a summer than a winter residence. We had it very cold there during the night, but in the glowing mid-day sun it was charming to look out upon the water and land, and see everything bathed in an atmosphere of light, while vegetation was now beginning to advance, lending an additional charm to the landscape. We were not, however, altogether without rain. One night was particularly stormy and wet.There are excursions from Sorrento upon the hills which can be accomplished by aid of donkeys, and it is also possible to cross over the hills to Amalfi, though this was not reckoned altogether safe from bandits. Boats can be had for boating, but the main excursions are by steamboat to Capri, and driving to Massa, a picturesque town a few miles westward; the road to it by the coast being a continuation of that from Castellamare, and affording lovely views at every turn. The excursion to Capri is made by steamboat, and every fine morning two rival steamers (a paddle and a screw boat) from Naples approached Sorrento to take excursionists to Capri and its blue grotto. In addition to the fare there and back of 5 francs, innumerable other little charges for boats, etc. make the expense up to 8 francs each. When the sea is stormy, the boats do not go, as it is impossible to enter the grotto when there is the least swell upon the water. This is annoying to unlucky persons who are left on the island, as it sometimes happens in consequence that the boats may not leave Naples for weeks together. I met on board the steamer two American friends who had come from Naples, were to sleep a night at Capri and return the next day, having taken their passage for the day following in a steamer for Genoa. The next day, however, proved stormy, and the steamboats did not make their appearance for several days afterwards, so that our friends must have been kept prisoners on the island and lost their passage besides. We had, however, a very beautiful day for the trip, the steamboat taking about two hours to reach Capri from Sorrento, and it was most enjoyable. The views from the deck are enchanting. When we arrived off the grotto, the vessel was surrounded by a multitude of little boats; and as three persons only are allowed to each, it took a long time for all the visitors to get off. The sea where the steamer stopped was of a most lovely blue colour, perhaps due to some great local saltness of the ocean. On approaching the entrance to the grotto, all were desired to lie down on the bottom of the boat, otherwise, by catching the crest of a wave, we might have broken our heads against the rocks of the entrance, which is very low,—although it might, one would think, be enlarged,—while the boatmen carefully pushed the boat inside. Once we were in, however, there was space enough for several boats to paddle about. We found everything bathed in the blue light of the sea reflected on the walls of the cavern. It is this which gives the name to the grotto. The rocks themselves are just ordinary colour, and do not, as might from the name be supposed, consist, like those of the blue John Cavern of Derbyshire, of actual blue spar.ill337SORRENTO FROM THE WEST.When all had seen the grotto, the steamboats took us to the town of Capri, which, with another on the hill, is picturesque. There are good hotels near the landing-place. A longascent leads to the high town, near which the palace of Tiberius once stood. From the height I had a view of the southern coast of Italy; but the day was hot, and the atmosphere therefore hazy, so that we could not see far. We returned to Sorrento in the afternoon.Sorrento is a great place—in fact, the chief place—for the manufacture of articles of inlaid wood. It is the industry of the town, and everywhere we found workshops for its manufacture, having attached to them shops for its sale, although, I presume, the larger part of the manufacture is for export or transmission elsewhere. As may be supposed, there is considerable diversity of skill among the workmen, and many articles exhibit inferiority; but I soon found out in which shops the best workmanship prevailed, and in particular considered the articles manufactured by M. Grandville were both well finished and wrought in good taste. Garguilo also, who has a more imposing establishment, had some very fine specimens of work. Every visitor buys more or less, principally, doubtless, to take home as gifts to friends, and I did not escape the contagion. Some of the articles are extremely beautiful; and one I secured, which seemed to be one of the finest examples, was so delicately inlaid that at first sight it seemed as if it were a painting on the wood. I saw, however, the process by which the inlaying is effected, which satisfied me with the reality of the inlaying. A picture is drawn on paper, and little pieces, corresponding in colour to the pattern, are cut out of larger coloured pieces with an extremely slender steel saw—almost a thread for fineness. These are glued down upon the pattern so closely that the joinings are invisible, and it is in the comparative skill with which this nice operation is conducted I presume the difference of quality and effect is mainly found. In purchasing these articles, however, one has not to lose sight of the fact that the transaction is taking place inthe South of Italy, and sometimes a considerably higher price is asked than the seller is prepared to take. I had the specimens purchased put in a box, carefully packed, to send from Naples home by sea, and found on entering Naples thatoctroiduty upon it was exacted, and this not according to value, but to weight. The wood shops are among the best in Sorrento, but I was struck with the marvellous likeness there was, in size at least, in the common small shops of Sorrento to what had been shops in Pompeii.We led a quiet life very pleasantly among friends and acquaintances at the hotel in Sorrento for about a fortnight, glad of rest after so much previous sight-seeing; but the hotel was always full, and the constant jingling of horses’ bells, denoting the arrival or departure of carriages, kept it lively, while, among other diversions, we witnessed the Tarantala dancing entertainment, to which I have elsewhere alluded (p. 72). We had at first thought of going to Cava, with a view to taking trips thence to Amalfi and Pæstum; but preferring rest, left that, like many other excursions, to another opportunity, which might never come. We returned to Naples on 11th April, having a glorious day for the return drive to Castellamare. The trees were only budding, so that we did not see things in perfection. As we drove out of the hotel yard, a man, neither clothed in plush and fine linen nor recently washed, jumped up and sat on the luggage behind, an undesirable-looking and unengaged lackey. The driver explained it was to guard the luggage, which sometimes, I believe, is, by the nimble-fingered inhabitants of the bay, quietly abstracted if not well roped. It was only, however, a genteel method of begging for 30 centimes, with which at Castellamare he was well satisfied. The beggars of Sorrento are certainly industrious in their calling. I stayed a few minutes at one place to make a little sketch, and was immediately surrounded by half-a-dozen women, and at least as many children,all wanting copper. One regular beggar, a man, old to appearance, who was constantly sauntering about, stick in hand, amused me much. His address was, as you approached him, arrestively and decisively, ‘Signor!’ You proceeded a yard farther, and it was more decisively, or rather imperatively, ‘Signor!’ You passed him, and it was ‘Signor! Signor!’ (weepingly) ‘povero vecc. he he per amor di Dio,’ a phrase generally employed by the Italian beggars. It is, however, but fair to add, that begging in Italy is not nearly so bad as it once was, for the authorities are setting their face against it. Still, in some places, it is a great annoyance that one cannot walk along the streets of a small town like Sorrento without being assailed by the same everlasting beggar, giving to whom only encourages to ask again.We were anxious upon our return to Naples to have ascended Vesuvius, at least as far as the Observatory, but unfortunately a heavy cloud hung over the mountain, and reluctantly we had to give it up. Instead, we took a drive to Puteoli, or, as it is now called, Pozzuoli, about two hours distant. Our way lay through the grotto of Posilipo, which is lighted up with gas, and is about a third of a mile long, about 21 feet wide, and varies in height from 70 to 25 feet; thence along an uninteresting road till again we reached the sea, when the islands and Puteoli looked very picturesque. One could hardly imagine from its appearance that it was formerly a great Roman port; but it has been subjected to many changes, and bears evidence of the forces below agitating the ground, by which some parts have been alternately submerged and upheaved, and the recurrence of such events would be sufficient of themselves to account for its desertion. Here we drove over the southern termination of the Appian Way, paved with the large old Roman stones; and our coachman pointed out the part of the old Roman pier (now in fragments, like a row of giant stepping-stones lifting their heads above water) at which he alleged theApostle Paul had landed. There are some ruined temples in Puteoli and its neighbourhood, and the ruins of a large amphitheatre, which the guide said had held 45,000, but, as is more credibly stated by others, 25,000 spectators, for it is not so large or so imposing as that at Nismes, while the measurements are considerably less,—Nismes exceeding it in length by 75 feet, and in breadth by 120 feet. Chambers underneath were discovered in 1838, and are very interesting. They contained dens for the confinement of the wild beasts, and rooms where the gladiators were trained to fight. We had, previous to entering Puteoli, taken a side road to Solfatara. This is a scarcely extinct crater, supposed to have a direct communication underground with Vesuvius, twelve miles distant. However, there has been no eruption since 1198, when it sent forth a current of lava. A man who appeared as guide threw a heavy stone upon the probably thin crust of sulphurous matter constituting the ground over which we were treading; the reverberation from the fall indicated that it was hollow below, and in all likelihood a slender protection from a fiery furnace which it might not be safe to expose to the air and light of day. And as Solfatara is quiescent when Vesuvius is active, and active when Vesuvius is quiescent, which it then was, the thought, as we were intruding upon the domains of these angry forces of nature, that some sudden impulse might burst the earthy covering and blow us all up into the air, like Paul Pry peering about the steamboat when the boiler burst, was not comfortable. The guide took us to a hole from which sulphurous fumes were issuing, and for a few coppers entered it at some risk of suffocation, and by means of a long stick pulled out some pieces of hot sulphur from the boiling natural caldron, which we carried off as souvenirs of our visit to a place which some day may become the scene of a terrible disaster.Taking a different route on returning, we passed thesupposed tomb of Virgil; and crossing over the hill, came again in sight at some distance of Naples, and the continuous stretch of houses along the coast to the southward. Altogether it was a very interesting drive. Had we had time for it, we should have gone farther, as far as to Baiæ, which is a few miles beyond Puteoli.As illustrative of the method of selling and clutching at a profit, however small, I may here mention that, going out with a friend from the hotel, we were waylaid by boys offering walking-sticks for sale. The first boy asked 2 francs for a cane, my friend offered 1 franc, and it was at once taken. Thereupon another with much better canes came up. My friend picked out five of the best, for which he was asked 15 francs, and they were really very cheap at the money. He offered 5 francs and then 6, and to throw in the stick he had just bought of the other boy. The offer was at once closed with, so that he got for 7 francs five beautiful canes, which, judging from prices asked in the shops, were worth 20 francs at least.We had still a good deal to see in Naples; but, not feeling very well, we were anxious to leave a place the reputation of which for salubrity is by no means assuring, and departed for Rome by a morning train, leaving at 7 o’clock and arriving before 2p.m.

NAPLES, POMPEII, SORRENTO.

Itproved a very wet morning in Rome on the day we had settled to go to Naples (for it can rain in Rome remarkably well); but we had taken our rooms at a hotel in Naples, and were packed and ready to go, and accordingly left, arriving at the station at half-past eight for the train leaving at 9.20, and were not a bit too soon. The traveller has to hang on for his turn to get his luggage weighed and to purchase his railway tickets; and after these operations were accomplished, and admission was at last accorded to thesalle-d’attente(for none, according to the evil custom which keeps ladies hanging about on their feet, can enter previously), we had but a few minutes to wait in that apartment until the doors were opened and announcement made that passengers might now hurry to the train.

For a considerable part of the way the rain fell and heavy clouds hung upon the mountains, so that little could be seen of the scenery in the early part of the journey, which is the most interesting, as the line commands in many parts historical ground. We passed the Alban and Volscian Mountains; the town of Capua, where are interesting Roman remains; Caserta, where there is an immense royalpalace; and many curious old towns resting upon the hills which the railway skirted. It would have been well worth while to have stayed at Capua and Caserta to have seen them, but it is difficult to arrange for doing so without spending a night by the way, or continuing the journey by a night train, because trains do not suit. This being the 26th of March, vegetation was in a very backward state, the trees just beginning to show symptoms of being about to throw out their buds, so that everything looked somewhat dreary. At last we arrived in Naples, after a seven hours’ ride, just in time to settle down before dinner.

The following morning we took a cab to drive through and see the town, and, looking to select a good one, I was beset by a host of cabmen, all wanting to be engaged, even after I had engaged one, and told them so positively. There is very little choice among them. The vehicles are all equally shabby, and the drivers all equally dirty. Their fares are very low, which may account for the disreputable appearance of the men and cabs, which are as numerous as bees in a hive. The coachmen will take any amount of trouble to get a hire. If, upon going to a place, say the Museum, they be dismissed, they will hang about for an hour, hoping to get the return fare. But driving is really the only way by which one can see some parts of Naples. The town swarms with people to an extent which, unless seen, can hardly be either realized or credited. In England, every rod may maintain its man, but in Naples, and even all about the Bay of Naples, it would seem as if not merely every square yard, but almost every square foot maintained its man, woman, or child. But how they all live, or even where they all sleep, is a mystery. The main street, the Toledo, a mile long, is so crowded, that one wonders how the carriages can possibly penetrate; and the people are such notorious thieves and such adroit pickpockets, that it is dangerous to attempt to walk on foot. Even in driving,the passenger must be very careful, as a thief will think nothing of abstracting loose articles, even in his very sight. At the railway station the traveller should keep a sharp look-out that the very porter who is taking his portmanteau to a carriage does not quietly run off with it. Knowing these habits, we left the most of our luggage at Rome, and only took with us what was indispensable, as every additional package is in such a case an additional anxiety.

The Bay of Naples is naturally the first point of attraction. One hears so much of its transcendent beauty that expectation is highly raised. I thought the accounts of it exaggerated; but then it was not summer, and therefore we could not see it in perfection; while we had just recently come from Mentone, where we had been living for months in sight of lovely bays. The blue waters of the Mediterranean in brilliant sunshine are always charming, and here they are enclosed in a very large bay—for it is about twenty miles each way—with one long arm stretching away and terminated by the island of Ischia, and the other long arm stretching away and terminated by the island of Capri; the outlines of all being picturesque, and all sides being dotted with villages. In the centre of the landward side Vesuvius boldly rises (the eruptions from time to time causing variations in its height, which, however, averages about 4000 feet), with a stream of smoke, betokening its character, constantly ascending from the summit as if from some colossal chimney; while below, a line of houses stretches continuously from Naples, probably fifteen miles, or perhaps even more, indicating how populous is this part of Italy. In the distance, behind Naples and Vesuvius, a range of the Apennines lies.

Naples itself, the largest and most populous city in Italy, is, from a little distance, picturesque, resting, somewhat like Genoa, on a half-circle of sloping heights, with a broadmargin to the shore, the houses towards which are lofty, many being five and even six storeys high. In the central and denser parts of the town they are even higher, while in these portions the streets are mere lanes, 15 to 20 feet wide, and irregular; and if they be not absolutely unsafe to visit, must form a very labyrinth of perplexity to the stranger. In the newer parts of the city the streets are spacious and elegant. Every here and there, a jutting prominence or a bold height crowned with some peculiar structure gives character to the scene. The Chiaja is a long strip of land turned into a public garden or park lying in or towards the north end of the town, and fronting the sea. A broad street, the Riviera di Chiaja, flanks it, lined by the trees of the park on the one side, and by hotels and other buildings on the other, and terminated at the north end by Posilipo, a hill perforated by the famous grotto of that name, or tunnel, I presume half natural and half excavated, which affords an access to the other side. Up from the Chiaja, on a height, the Castle of St. Elmo stands, the interior of which our limited time did not afford us opportunity of seeing. Leaving the Chiaja by a handsome drive which has been formed by the shore, we pass the Castel del Ovo, which stands out into the sea, cresting a large rock or small island connected with the land by a mole or breakwater. It is ugly and old, but can scarcely, because it is so, be called picturesque, though at least it is striking or prominent; and I suppose it does or can, with other fortifications, offer some protection to the port; but it was, and perhaps still is, used as a prison, and, in spite of sunshine, is gloomy enough for that. From this point southward, commencing with the broad Strada San Lucia, the harbour lies, in which there is a moderate amount of shipping, but small as compared with that of Genoa. Life abounds about this harbour and the adjoining quays, along which broad streets run, filled with sellers of fish and other commodities, and with crowds of pedestrians and carriages.The road turns up from S. Lucia into the large open space called the Piazza del Plebiscito—one side occupied by a handsome semicircular colonnade, and the other by the royal palace, where the king was at the time of our visit residing, two equestrian statues in the centre of the piazza contributing to its adornment. The Toledo or High Street of Naples issues out of it. Proceeding farther along the harbour, and at its extreme south, we come to the Castel del Carmine, also forming a feature in the landscape, and from it a road leads up to the railway station, which is just outside the inhabited part of Naples. From the harbour, or any point which commands a view, the town looks bright and picturesque, and in rather striking contrast with its dirty population. Ascent of the lighthouse for the sake of the view is recommended.

The only church in Naples which we thought at all comparable to those in Rome was the cathedral, which is a large and handsome building. One of its side chapels is that of the famous St. Januarius, where the blood and other relics of the martyr are preserved.

The hotels are situated principally on the line of buildings facing the sea from the Chiaja southward to S. Lucia. But some new hotels have been opened on the high ground near the Castle of St. Elmo, thought to be a more healthy locality. This may or may not be, but one requires to be careful as to where he lives in Naples. In fact, the natural air of Naples must be extremely salubrious, to counteract, as it seems to a large extent to do, the evil influences arising from so large a population living upon so comparatively small a portion of the tideless Mediterranean. Were it otherwise, fever would be constantly raging, and Naples depopulated.

We spent the forenoon of the following day in the Museum. This is an immense collection of antiquities, principally from Pompeii, and is well worthy of severalvisits, without which, in fact, it cannot be properly studied. Illustrated catalogues can be procured, which are no doubt useful, but are expensive. Our time would only allow of a general examination. The Museum contains thousands of articles of great interest, and very many which show to what a state of perfection art had arrived at the time Pompeii was destroyed. The sculptures of all descriptions and pictures are very numerous, and among many others deserving of special note was the grand group called the Toro Farnese, of masterly power. It is composed of five graceful and pleasing human figures, besides the bull rampant and a dog, and other sculpture, and if cut out of one block of marble, would seem to be a miracle of art. Why it should have been removed from Rome to Naples I am not aware. But the Museum at Naples is very spacious and extensive, and may have afforded better accommodation than any place in Rome. Some of the rooms are filled with articles of domestic use recovered from the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii; and, what is very curious, in one room loaves of bread, grain of various sorts, dates, and other edibles 1800 years old are exhibited. Many of the curious frescoes found upon the walls of Pompeii have been removed to the Museum and built bodily into its walls. The colours of these frescoes are considerably faded, but copying them seems to afford employment to a number of artists, who, however, impart to their copies the supposed original brightness of the pictures, and one seldom sees an original Pompeian fresco possessing that vividness of colouring which representations of them usually manifest. One room is fitted up as a reproduction of a Pompeian bedroom, and gives a greater idea of luxurious comfort than one would imagine possible from the appearance of the rooms, now in ruins, which we afterwards saw in Pompeii itself.

The afternoon is the time for seeing the Chiaja, for thenall the private carriages of Naples may be witnessed driving about; and on one occasion we had the good fortune to pass the Princess Margherita, now the Queen of Italy. Girls are on the watch to sell large and beautiful bouquets of flowers at marvellously cheap prices. An aquarium has been built near the centre of the Chiaja gardens, which we visited the morning of the day following, before going to Castellamare. It is not nearly so large as that at Brighton, but it is interesting enough. It contained,inter alia, a good many octopi, which repulsive fish is said to be sold and eaten in Naples, and, in all probability, occasionally appears under some disguised name at the hotel dinners.

Naples is a great place for the sale of photographs and articles of bijouterie in lava, and of coral and tortoiseshell. At Mr. Sommer’s Fine Art Establishment near the Chiaja, a large collection of beautiful photographs of almost all places in Italy is to be found. These are very moderate in price—the cheapest in Italy—as well as good, and in number exceed five thousand. I laid in a good stock, and only wish I had taken more. Any of them can be at once procured by reference to the number they bear. They are best kept flat, but if rolling be preferred, they should always be rolled up with the photograph side outwards. Why it is that photographs of a size which cost a shilling at Naples should be charged five shillings or six shillings, or even more, at home, I don’t know. But the consequence is that people buy the Italian photographs by the hundred, whereas at home, if they buy at all, it is by the unit. Our dealers plainly miss the market by their high prices. Mr. Sommer might do well to extend his operations to the towns of France and to Switzerland, where photographs are expensive.

Among other shops we also visited Squadrilli’s, which is recommended in Bædeker. Here we found a well-stockedstore of articles in lava and coral, but owing, I suppose, to the thieving which exists in Naples, and from which, no doubt, they have sometimes suffered, we were rather unpleasantly watched by three persons, a circumstance of which others who had been there also complained. The articles, however, seemed to be good, while the prices are fixed, though a discount of five per cent, was allowed for cash. The gold used in Naples for bijouterie is considered to be inferior to the standard quality of England, and even of Rome, which professes to be, like England, of eighteen carats. Squadrilli allowed that their gold was only fourteen carats, and perhaps his estimate might not apply to all his articles. There are many imitations, however, even of this inferior gold, and some articles, possibly ‘job lots,’ are sold in Naples at astonishingly low prices. The articles supposed to be of lava are, I believe, in reality cut out of the limestone rocks of Somma, one of the peaks of Vesuvius.

We were anxious to make our stay in Naples as short as possible, as so much is heard of its insalubrity. After the general survey we had thus made of it, we took train to Castellamare, the railway passing Mount Vesuvius on the one side and the coast on the other, so that we were in view of the bay nearly all the way. Castellamare is a convenient halting-place for seeing Pompeii, which, however, may be visited from Naples itself, either by hiring a carriage from Naples,—making a pretty long drive, and, I believe, of little interest, the road being a continuous street of houses,—or by taking the train as far as Torre dell’ Annunciata, and a carriage thence to Pompeii, which is not two miles off. Castellamare is one of those populous unclean towns which lie upon the bay. Friends had said it was a remarkably nice place to stop at, and the Hotel Quisisana, on the height above the town, is a fairly comfortable one, commanding a splendid view of the bay, of Vesuvius, and of Naples beyond. Perhaps we did notremain long enough to acquire a knowledge of its beauties, but we were not taken with the dirty town; while the garden of the hotel, which might have been laid out to great advantage, and thus have helped to reconcile us to the place, was no better than such Italian gardens usually are. I suppose that Nature has been so lavish of her bounties when the sun shines, that the Italians think it unnecessary to supplement her labours. Yet I have sometimes thought that the time of waiters, who between meals in foreign places have often little to do, might, not unprofitably to the hotels, and with some advantage in health to themselves, be occupied in trimming the hotel gardens. Our bedrooms looked towards the bay, and therefore were, I presume, considered more choice; but being a northern or north-western exposure, we found them extremely cold at night. It was, however, intensely interesting to look across to Vesuvius, which I had seen emitting a red light on our second evening at Naples, without being aware, unfortunately, till afterwards that this light was unusual, and that had I watched it for half an hour longer I should have seen it become more intensely bright. People were then in full expectation of an eruption, and even the very day had been predicted, although the premonitory symptoms of streams drying up had not appeared; but expectation was not gratified.

We arranged the following morning to drive to Pompeii, which is about three miles distant.

Pompeii on being approached seems like a huge mound, somewhat akin in the distance to a fortified place. The excavated town itself is not visible from the road. The visitor is deposited at the door of what appears to be a sort of tavern or place of refreshment, through which, threading one’s way among tables, entrance is had to the excavations. We found the tavern filled with people taking an early dinner, or rather breakfast, rendering theaccess by no means an agreeable one. Here leaving with thecameriereour wraps,—not without some misgivings, fortunately not realized, that we should never see them again,—we passed up a stair, and through a magazine for sale of lava ornaments, etc., the prices asked for which, as usual in show places, were exorbitantly and forbiddingly high. Outside the magazine we paid two francs each for admission and for the assistance of a guide (children being charged only a half-franc each), and procured a little French-speaking guide in smart uniform and side arms, whom we found very obliging and attentive. These guides are necessary, and must be taken, though sometimes respectable people who have been there before are allowed to go without them; perhaps not always with advantage to the ruins, as it is a very common trick with people who should know better, and who might not be expected to do such a thing, to pocket stones which can be of no use whatever to themselves, but the abstraction of which is detrimental to the place whence they are taken. On one occasion in Italy, a lady of a party in which I was—who acknowledged to being in the habit of bringing away a stone from every place to which she had been—quietly pocketed a piece of marble lying on the ground, when the custodier, who was keeping a sharp look-out, went up to her and desired her to replace it. It was a numbered piece, and he would, he said, be responsible for it to the authorities. The practice of chipping stones from a building of note, or taking up loose pieces, cannot be too severely reprehended, and ought sometimes to be punished. The guides at Pompeii are not allowed to receive any gratuity from the visitors, but they make a little by an accorded permission to sell photographs of the ruins.

Passing through an old gateway, we were ushered into a museum, the contents of which are not numerous, as the bulk of the articles found is sent to the large Museum of Naples. It contains, however, some things of great interest,particularly the casts of men and women found in Pompeii who had perished in the great overthrow, and whose bodies had been so curiously enveloped with the scoriæ as to form a close-fitting, indurated mould, and a cast from it, when the dust is blown out, reproduces every line of the body or of the clothing of the suffocated person. Some of the casts so taken give a clear representation of the form of the features; and I noticed that the dress of the men seemed to be very similar to what is still worn by those in the vicinity, particularly in the tight-fitting, wrought woollen jacket covering the body. If I was right in this supposition, it is another instance of the manner in which the people cling to ancient habits and modes of dress.

We were then taken to the excavations which are being systematically carried on, and our examination commenced with the forum, a large open space, containing the remains of the pillars by which it was surrounded. From these remains and the remains of other public buildings, it is evident that Pompeii was a very elegantly adorned city. It had temples, no less than nine being marked upon the plan, but they are all in ruins; only fragments exist, the pillars and superincumbent building having been almost everywhere thrown down. In some of them, such as the temple of Venus and temple of Isis, a few columns, with their entablature, stand, to indicate the beauty of their construction. Besides temples there have been excavated two theatres and a large amphitheatre, in excellent preservation, capable of accommodating 20,000 persons, and nearly, in length and breadth, as large as that at Nismes; also, as usual in Roman towns, baths, besides other public buildings. But probably the greatest interest attaches to the remains of the private dwellings. It is rarely that private houses exhibit, after a lapse of nearly 2000 years, even in ruins, what they were when in occupation. Here, however, the lava or scoriæ or dust of Vesuvius by hermetical seal closed up these houses, in order that they might be seen by thepeople of a long-distant age. Many of the houses in Pompeii belonged to men of wealth, and they are all laid out, in the better class at least, upon much the same plan, entering upon a square court, open in the centre to the outer air, in the middle of which a marble fountain played. The rooms were built around or beyond, the principal or public rooms being to the back—a mode of design probably suitable to the climate, at least in summer, and admitting, no doubt, of great elegance of arrangement and design, and of which such houses as those of Marcus Holconius, of the Faun, of Sallust, of the poet, of Meleager, and of Cornelius Rufus afford examples,—all containing beautiful fluted pillars and other decorations, sometimes in marble, still standing, while the walls were tastefully decorated with that peculiar description of painting well known as Pompeian. Some of the houses appear to be only one storey high, but stairs indicate a second storey, and it is even supposed that in some cases there may have been a third. But they had no appearance to the street, while the streets themselves are narrow, so much so that it is impossible to see how in many of them even the smallest carriages could pass each other without encroaching on the equally narrow footway ortrottoir(discovery of the remains of it here revealing its use in ancient times); but the large stones or slabs forming the street pavement are in some places marked with a deep rut, indicating a good deal of carriage traffic. The shops on the streets are small, and are sometimes built into the dwellings, so that shop floors then were probably as remunerative as they seem to be now with ourselves, although persons now in similar rank of life in Great Britain would little like to allow a portion of their mansions to be so occupied. As, however, the streets were so confined, there could have been no view from the house itself upon the front facing the street; yet, no doubt, from some windows in the upper apartments behind there might be fine glimpses of the bay and of Vesuvius, as wellas of the surrounding country. At all events, we obtained excellent views from the ruins, especially from the walls. Vesuvius appears close at hand, and one feels astonished at the foolhardiness of people building towns and houses so close under the fiery mountain after the tremendous warnings received in the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum. We were shown at one place in the ‘House of Diomede’ a long vault or cellar, in which the remains were found of seventeen unfortunate persons who had taken refuge there during the awful time when they knew not where to flee, and supposed that the walls of the house would cover them from calamity. We could not look upon such places without thinking what an appalling time it must have been, and what heartrending agonies must then have been endured. Notwithstanding all the elegance of the public portions of the houses, and perhaps even of the private chambers, it seemed as if the actual comfort of the inhabitants could not be great, and especially in the matter of bedroom accommodation, for I imagine the sleeping-rooms were of the smallest dimensions—mere closets, not such as people of the present day in good circumstances would approve.

It would, however, be impossible, in small compass, to give any adequate idea of these houses or of their decorations. Books have been written upon the subject, and an excellent recent account of Pompeii, its history, buildings, and antiquities, containing nearly 300 illustrations, has been written by Dr. Thomas H. Dyer. Nothing, indeed, but a visit to Pompeii itself can convey a sufficient idea of the resuscitated city; but a study of Mr. Dyer’s book before going, as well as after a visit, will help materially to an understanding of it. Pompeii is a place of engrossing interest entirely unique, and in some respects it offers, I think, more attractions to a visitor than any other in Italy, and well merits more than one visit. The excavations arestill proceeding, and it will probably be many years before they are completed, as there is still a large piece of ground, probably as much again as has already been opened, on which to operate.

Having seen Pompeii, we did not care to stay longer at Castellamare, and next day, taking a carriage with three horses, the bells jingling cheerily all the way, drove to Sorrento. The drive occupied an hour and a half, and is considered to be one of the finest to be had in Italy. The road borders the bay, and passes through several large Italian villages most picturesquely situated, and across a deep ravine, evidently the result of an earthquake, by a beautiful bridge. Sorrento is a long town, and the road through its suburbs is shut in by lofty and most objectionable garden walls. As we drove down the road towards it, from the height to the eastward the place looked very charming, surrounded by hills on every side except the north, which is open to the sea. Turning down a long narrow lane, we arrived at the Tramontano Hotel (kept by an Irish landlady, an active and most obliging woman), where everything is remarkably comfortable, and the accommodation is ample. It is situated on classic ground, Tasso having resided in a house which, or its site, is now part of the hotel. A garden, where, no doubt, Tasso often meditated, encloses the hotel upon the south, while the north windows and terraces command magnificent views of the bay, of the islands, of Naples lying opposite, and of Vesuvius, whose smoke, always ascending, is an excellent indicator of the direction of the wind. The garden extends away to the eastward, where a dependence or additional house is kept for the accommodation of the guests. A large public room, with windows to the bay, was being added to the main house, so that now bothsalonandsalle-à-mangerare large rooms. Having had experience of the cold of northerly chambers at Castellamare, we chosecheerful rooms on the south side overlooking the hotel yard, with all its enlivening bustle, and the garden and green hills behind.

Sorrento lies upon a platform or broad level space of land, the seaward side being high perpendicular cliffs, so that one looks sheer down from the hotel windows on the north to the water far below, which is reached from the hotel by a winding tunnel cut into the rock. It is placed, like Mentone, under the guard of a semicircle of hills, although these are both nearer and much lower than those at Mentone; but as the town faces the north, instead of the south as at Mentone, it is rather a summer than a winter residence. We had it very cold there during the night, but in the glowing mid-day sun it was charming to look out upon the water and land, and see everything bathed in an atmosphere of light, while vegetation was now beginning to advance, lending an additional charm to the landscape. We were not, however, altogether without rain. One night was particularly stormy and wet.

There are excursions from Sorrento upon the hills which can be accomplished by aid of donkeys, and it is also possible to cross over the hills to Amalfi, though this was not reckoned altogether safe from bandits. Boats can be had for boating, but the main excursions are by steamboat to Capri, and driving to Massa, a picturesque town a few miles westward; the road to it by the coast being a continuation of that from Castellamare, and affording lovely views at every turn. The excursion to Capri is made by steamboat, and every fine morning two rival steamers (a paddle and a screw boat) from Naples approached Sorrento to take excursionists to Capri and its blue grotto. In addition to the fare there and back of 5 francs, innumerable other little charges for boats, etc. make the expense up to 8 francs each. When the sea is stormy, the boats do not go, as it is impossible to enter the grotto when there is the least swell upon the water. This is annoying to unlucky persons who are left on the island, as it sometimes happens in consequence that the boats may not leave Naples for weeks together. I met on board the steamer two American friends who had come from Naples, were to sleep a night at Capri and return the next day, having taken their passage for the day following in a steamer for Genoa. The next day, however, proved stormy, and the steamboats did not make their appearance for several days afterwards, so that our friends must have been kept prisoners on the island and lost their passage besides. We had, however, a very beautiful day for the trip, the steamboat taking about two hours to reach Capri from Sorrento, and it was most enjoyable. The views from the deck are enchanting. When we arrived off the grotto, the vessel was surrounded by a multitude of little boats; and as three persons only are allowed to each, it took a long time for all the visitors to get off. The sea where the steamer stopped was of a most lovely blue colour, perhaps due to some great local saltness of the ocean. On approaching the entrance to the grotto, all were desired to lie down on the bottom of the boat, otherwise, by catching the crest of a wave, we might have broken our heads against the rocks of the entrance, which is very low,—although it might, one would think, be enlarged,—while the boatmen carefully pushed the boat inside. Once we were in, however, there was space enough for several boats to paddle about. We found everything bathed in the blue light of the sea reflected on the walls of the cavern. It is this which gives the name to the grotto. The rocks themselves are just ordinary colour, and do not, as might from the name be supposed, consist, like those of the blue John Cavern of Derbyshire, of actual blue spar.

ill337

SORRENTO FROM THE WEST.

SORRENTO FROM THE WEST.

SORRENTO FROM THE WEST.

When all had seen the grotto, the steamboats took us to the town of Capri, which, with another on the hill, is picturesque. There are good hotels near the landing-place. A longascent leads to the high town, near which the palace of Tiberius once stood. From the height I had a view of the southern coast of Italy; but the day was hot, and the atmosphere therefore hazy, so that we could not see far. We returned to Sorrento in the afternoon.

Sorrento is a great place—in fact, the chief place—for the manufacture of articles of inlaid wood. It is the industry of the town, and everywhere we found workshops for its manufacture, having attached to them shops for its sale, although, I presume, the larger part of the manufacture is for export or transmission elsewhere. As may be supposed, there is considerable diversity of skill among the workmen, and many articles exhibit inferiority; but I soon found out in which shops the best workmanship prevailed, and in particular considered the articles manufactured by M. Grandville were both well finished and wrought in good taste. Garguilo also, who has a more imposing establishment, had some very fine specimens of work. Every visitor buys more or less, principally, doubtless, to take home as gifts to friends, and I did not escape the contagion. Some of the articles are extremely beautiful; and one I secured, which seemed to be one of the finest examples, was so delicately inlaid that at first sight it seemed as if it were a painting on the wood. I saw, however, the process by which the inlaying is effected, which satisfied me with the reality of the inlaying. A picture is drawn on paper, and little pieces, corresponding in colour to the pattern, are cut out of larger coloured pieces with an extremely slender steel saw—almost a thread for fineness. These are glued down upon the pattern so closely that the joinings are invisible, and it is in the comparative skill with which this nice operation is conducted I presume the difference of quality and effect is mainly found. In purchasing these articles, however, one has not to lose sight of the fact that the transaction is taking place inthe South of Italy, and sometimes a considerably higher price is asked than the seller is prepared to take. I had the specimens purchased put in a box, carefully packed, to send from Naples home by sea, and found on entering Naples thatoctroiduty upon it was exacted, and this not according to value, but to weight. The wood shops are among the best in Sorrento, but I was struck with the marvellous likeness there was, in size at least, in the common small shops of Sorrento to what had been shops in Pompeii.

We led a quiet life very pleasantly among friends and acquaintances at the hotel in Sorrento for about a fortnight, glad of rest after so much previous sight-seeing; but the hotel was always full, and the constant jingling of horses’ bells, denoting the arrival or departure of carriages, kept it lively, while, among other diversions, we witnessed the Tarantala dancing entertainment, to which I have elsewhere alluded (p. 72). We had at first thought of going to Cava, with a view to taking trips thence to Amalfi and Pæstum; but preferring rest, left that, like many other excursions, to another opportunity, which might never come. We returned to Naples on 11th April, having a glorious day for the return drive to Castellamare. The trees were only budding, so that we did not see things in perfection. As we drove out of the hotel yard, a man, neither clothed in plush and fine linen nor recently washed, jumped up and sat on the luggage behind, an undesirable-looking and unengaged lackey. The driver explained it was to guard the luggage, which sometimes, I believe, is, by the nimble-fingered inhabitants of the bay, quietly abstracted if not well roped. It was only, however, a genteel method of begging for 30 centimes, with which at Castellamare he was well satisfied. The beggars of Sorrento are certainly industrious in their calling. I stayed a few minutes at one place to make a little sketch, and was immediately surrounded by half-a-dozen women, and at least as many children,all wanting copper. One regular beggar, a man, old to appearance, who was constantly sauntering about, stick in hand, amused me much. His address was, as you approached him, arrestively and decisively, ‘Signor!’ You proceeded a yard farther, and it was more decisively, or rather imperatively, ‘Signor!’ You passed him, and it was ‘Signor! Signor!’ (weepingly) ‘povero vecc. he he per amor di Dio,’ a phrase generally employed by the Italian beggars. It is, however, but fair to add, that begging in Italy is not nearly so bad as it once was, for the authorities are setting their face against it. Still, in some places, it is a great annoyance that one cannot walk along the streets of a small town like Sorrento without being assailed by the same everlasting beggar, giving to whom only encourages to ask again.

We were anxious upon our return to Naples to have ascended Vesuvius, at least as far as the Observatory, but unfortunately a heavy cloud hung over the mountain, and reluctantly we had to give it up. Instead, we took a drive to Puteoli, or, as it is now called, Pozzuoli, about two hours distant. Our way lay through the grotto of Posilipo, which is lighted up with gas, and is about a third of a mile long, about 21 feet wide, and varies in height from 70 to 25 feet; thence along an uninteresting road till again we reached the sea, when the islands and Puteoli looked very picturesque. One could hardly imagine from its appearance that it was formerly a great Roman port; but it has been subjected to many changes, and bears evidence of the forces below agitating the ground, by which some parts have been alternately submerged and upheaved, and the recurrence of such events would be sufficient of themselves to account for its desertion. Here we drove over the southern termination of the Appian Way, paved with the large old Roman stones; and our coachman pointed out the part of the old Roman pier (now in fragments, like a row of giant stepping-stones lifting their heads above water) at which he alleged theApostle Paul had landed. There are some ruined temples in Puteoli and its neighbourhood, and the ruins of a large amphitheatre, which the guide said had held 45,000, but, as is more credibly stated by others, 25,000 spectators, for it is not so large or so imposing as that at Nismes, while the measurements are considerably less,—Nismes exceeding it in length by 75 feet, and in breadth by 120 feet. Chambers underneath were discovered in 1838, and are very interesting. They contained dens for the confinement of the wild beasts, and rooms where the gladiators were trained to fight. We had, previous to entering Puteoli, taken a side road to Solfatara. This is a scarcely extinct crater, supposed to have a direct communication underground with Vesuvius, twelve miles distant. However, there has been no eruption since 1198, when it sent forth a current of lava. A man who appeared as guide threw a heavy stone upon the probably thin crust of sulphurous matter constituting the ground over which we were treading; the reverberation from the fall indicated that it was hollow below, and in all likelihood a slender protection from a fiery furnace which it might not be safe to expose to the air and light of day. And as Solfatara is quiescent when Vesuvius is active, and active when Vesuvius is quiescent, which it then was, the thought, as we were intruding upon the domains of these angry forces of nature, that some sudden impulse might burst the earthy covering and blow us all up into the air, like Paul Pry peering about the steamboat when the boiler burst, was not comfortable. The guide took us to a hole from which sulphurous fumes were issuing, and for a few coppers entered it at some risk of suffocation, and by means of a long stick pulled out some pieces of hot sulphur from the boiling natural caldron, which we carried off as souvenirs of our visit to a place which some day may become the scene of a terrible disaster.

Taking a different route on returning, we passed thesupposed tomb of Virgil; and crossing over the hill, came again in sight at some distance of Naples, and the continuous stretch of houses along the coast to the southward. Altogether it was a very interesting drive. Had we had time for it, we should have gone farther, as far as to Baiæ, which is a few miles beyond Puteoli.

As illustrative of the method of selling and clutching at a profit, however small, I may here mention that, going out with a friend from the hotel, we were waylaid by boys offering walking-sticks for sale. The first boy asked 2 francs for a cane, my friend offered 1 franc, and it was at once taken. Thereupon another with much better canes came up. My friend picked out five of the best, for which he was asked 15 francs, and they were really very cheap at the money. He offered 5 francs and then 6, and to throw in the stick he had just bought of the other boy. The offer was at once closed with, so that he got for 7 francs five beautiful canes, which, judging from prices asked in the shops, were worth 20 francs at least.

We had still a good deal to see in Naples; but, not feeling very well, we were anxious to leave a place the reputation of which for salubrity is by no means assuring, and departed for Rome by a morning train, leaving at 7 o’clock and arriving before 2p.m.

XIV.FLORENCE, BOLOGNA.FLORENCE.Westayed in Rome until 27th April, when we left for Florence. We had intended going round by the attractive town of Perugia, but the morning of the 26th was wet, and, delaying our departure for a day, we gave up Perugia, partly because to have gone upon a Friday would have involved spending a Sunday there. The latter part of our journey was interesting. On arriving at the outskirts of the town the railway circumnavigates it, so that we had an opportunity from the very first of seeing the cathedral dome and campanile, and the other towers and spires of Florence, which lies beautifully situated in a luxuriantly verdant valley, enclosed by the Apennines and other hills, and intersected by the river Arno, which, seeing for the first time in the soft moonlight in the course of the evening, looked so lovely.The Lung’ Arno, or bank of the river, where most of the principal hotels are placed, is considered the best situation, at least for winter residence. Some of the hotels are unpleasantly near a waterfall or wear stretching across the river, the incessant din of which is troublesome at night. We spent a few nights at one of the hotels there, andafterwards a fortnight at the Pension Molini Barbensi[39], on the left bank of the river, where we found pleasant society and some former travelling acquaintances. The house is a good one, and the rooms are large, but a very little expenditure on sanitary arrangements would improve it as a residence. Living seems not to be expensive at Florence, and lodgings can be procured at a moderate rate.Florence lies upon the same river as Pisa, but I suppose fifty or sixty miles farther up, and the town bears some resemblance to it, but is far more picturesque and far more lively and populous. In fact, Pisa is quite a dull, quiet, dead-alive town beside it. The population of Florence, at present about 170,000, is four times as great as that of Pisa, and it has been a royal town as well as a provincial capital. The river is crossed by six bridges (three, or rather four of them, of very old date) connecting the north and south portions of the city, which, however, lies mainly upon the north shore. Of these bridges (all strongly buttressed against the force of the river, which no doubt occasionally descends in floods with great power), the Ponte Vecchio is peculiar and picturesque, and a remnant of old times, being covered on each side with houses, and on one side, on the top floor, by the long gallery which connects the Uffizi and Pitti Palaces. These houses on the bridge are very curious. Next the street they present to view on both sides small booths or stalls, principally occupied by goldsmiths or jewellers, which very likely much resemble what the shops of Old London were, but at the present day do not, for jewellers’ wares, inspire confidence. On the other or river sides, all manner of chambers in or on the wall project, jut out, and overhang the river, very perilous to behold, and suggestive ofoubliettesthrough which murdered travellers on the bridge might be quietly dropped into the river below, but conferring a quaintness of appearance precious in the sight of the artist. Equally striking in effect is an adjoining range of buildings on the left bank—also flanking the river, and with their projecting chambers overhanging it. In the centre of the bridge large arched openings enable the passer-by to look up and down the river, and take in the prospect beyond.ill345PONTE VECCHIO,—FLORENCE.Nearly all along both sides of the Arno (protected by parapet walls) a wide street runs, and the buildings lining it are some of them stately and handsome, others are old or massive or peculiar, while the line is diversified here and there by a spire or a curious tower. The remarkable lofty old tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, and the dome and campanile of the cathedral,—all such notable objects in the pictures of Florence,—are prominent from almost every part, but especially from the south side of the river. There are, however, certain points of view from which Florence can be commanded. One of these is the terrace of the church of San Miniato, which stands upon a hill to the south-east, and is reached by a very delightful winding road bordered by villas, which were all at the time of our visit looking very charming in their new drapery of spring foliage. The church is an old one, finely decorated with marble and mosaics and marble pillars, and possessing a large crypt below. In itself it is well worth seeing, but it is principally visited for the sake of the prospect. Looking down from the terrace in front, Florence, with dome and towers, is seen lying away below very compactly in the centre of a long, large, flat plain, cut in two by the river, and surrounded by hills. It has here a fresher and cleaner look than most Italian towns. Immediately below San Miniato the piazza named after Michael Angelo lies, adorned in the centre by that artist’s famous colossal statue of David.The smart terraces of this nicely laid-out piazza command views similar to those from San Miniato, but from a lower elevation. A different winding road, as pleasant as the other, conducts down to the town.Another fine drive is to the very ancient town of Fiesole, which stands on a hill upon the north side, and is about three miles out of town. There is here a curious old church or cathedral, with pillars said to be of the first century. Ascending a hill a little higher, and probably 1000 feet above the sea, the view from the top is more commanding than that of San Miniato, and one sees the Arno winding its way for a long distance down the valley, and the Carrara Mountains in the distance. These and other drives about the suburbs of Florence give the impression of a very charming place for a spring residence; but Florence is hot in summer and often very cold in winter time, fierce winds blowing from the hills, which I suppose are frequently covered with snow. The older portions of the city are similar to most Italian towns, full of narrow, tortuous streets; but adjoining the river and in the newer portions, and in the outskirts, the streets are regular and comparatively wide, with piazzas or open spaces in several parts. There are wide, handsome boulevards orvialesencircling the city. In the Piazza Cavour there is a graceful triumphal arch akin to that in the Tuileries of Paris. At the west end, and adjoining the Arno, a large public park extends, called the Cascine, in which are long avenues bordered by trees, affording room for delightful drives and walks, one portion being also laid out as a racecourse. In the quarter south of the Arno the Boboli Gardens attached to the Royal Pitti Palace are also extensive, but open to the public only on Sundays and Thursdays.Florence, historically, is a place of great interest, and is associated with many great names. It is the birthplaceof, among others, Dante, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Galileo, Michael Angelo Buonarotti, Cimabue, Fra Angelico, Leonardo da Vinci, Carlo Dolci, and others eminent in art. The houses of some of these celebrities are pointed out.I can imagine that to those who spend a winter in Florence it must be exceedingly interesting to study the history of the place, and read on the spot such entertaining books as the remarkable life of that most remarkable man, Benvenuto Cellini, giving, as it does, such an insight into Italian life in the sixteenth century. Machiavelli, who died in 1527, brings his history down only to the year 1492; but after reading Trollope’s history, in four vols., Napier’s in six (leaving off at the year 1824) will afford for a whole winter a sufficiently toughpièce de résistance, the perusal whereof one’s physician would no doubt recommend should be diversified occasionally by a chapter in Mrs. Oliphant’sMakers of Florence, or by George Eliot’sRomola, which it is to be hoped was not drawn from the life.Florence, although in itself a more desirable place of residence than Rome, has no Roman ruins. It possesses, however, very many objects of great interest. There are within it about ninety churches, not a few of which are attractive.The cathedral, commenced about six hundred years ago, and in its façade not yet finished, is immense, being 556 feet long by 342 feet wide. The spirit in which it was originated was lofty, the Florentine Republic desiring ‘that an edifice should be constructed so magnificent in its height and beauty that it shall surpass everything of the kind produced in the time of their greatest power by the Greeks and Romans.’ It is, at least in external covering, composed of marble—white, black, and green—with many sculptures and carvings in the marble, especially about the doorways. The stones are laid on a species of panelling consisting of upright parallelograms broken by large, formal,circular openings. Though it be somewhat stiff in pattern, and may be objected to as piebald, a certain richness of effect is produced. But the interior is not correspondent with the exterior; it is vast, but too bare and empty, and dark and dingy—perhaps, therefore, the more sublime! Looking up from below into the magnificent dome, it seems an enormous height to the lantern; as it no doubt is, being 352 feet—so high, in fact, that the dome itself is higher than that of St. Peter’s, although the highest pinnacle is not. In design and general effect, as a whole, the cathedral will not compare with the great temple of Rome. The campanile or bell tower which adjoins, but is separated from it, is of marvellous beauty, and stands nearly 300 feet high. It is a perpendicular square tower, built of every kind of coloured marble, adorned by statuary and covered with rich alto-relievos (of which photographs can be procured); also by the graceful windows, very charmingly decorated in a species of suitable tracery. There is a completeness about this tower, even though it lacks the spire with which Giotto intended it to be crowned, combined with an exuberant affluence of decoration, which renders it a delightful object of contemplation, or rather, I should say, a choice object of study.On the side of the piazza opposite to the west front the baptistery stands, an octagonal building 94 feet in diameter, and in one of the entrances the celebrated bronze gates are placed. We often availed ourselves of opportunities to examine these beautiful embodiments in bronze of Scripture subjects. Being exposed to the street, they are laden with dust, which to a certain extent reduces their apparent sharpness. Over this entrance gate there is a representation of the baptism of Jesus in three sculptured figures—our Lord, John the Baptist, and an attendant angel. Inside the baptistery, besides its oriental granite columns and its mosaics, there is nothing very remarkable.On the south side of the cathedral, in the piazza, we found the little church of the Misericordia, belonging to that peculiar body of monks who, dressed in long black cloaks, with black masks over their faces pierced by eyeholes, are to be occasionally seen going about Florence and elsewhere in procession with the dead, which they bury, taking thus the place of the relations, who, in some parts of Italy, seem to abandon their friends when they die, and appear regardless of what becomes of their remains. We saw the chapel upon Ascension Day, which was a great holiday, or, to speak more exactly,holyday in Florence. On that occasion it was, like other churches, crammed to the door with a changing audience, and, after pushing our way in, we were as glad to push our way out again.The churches of Santa Croce, S.S. Annunciata, Santa Maria Novella, and San Lorenzo are among the finest. They contain beautiful marble monuments, altar paintings, and other decorations which it would be endless to mention. The large church of Santa Croce has a fine white and black marble façade—rather straight and angular, however, in its lines. It measures nearly 500 feet long, and the interior, besides being adorned, as usual, with pictures, is the great receptacle of monuments to illustrious Florentine men, such as Michael Angelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli. The cloisters adjoining the church are well worthy of a visit. Most of the important churches in Florence have the advantage of a large open piazza in front. The vacant space surrounding the cathedral, unfortunately, is comparatively insignificant, and it were well if it could be enlarged. That in front of Santa Croce is large, and is adorned by a colossal marble statue of Dante in classic robe, attended by an eagle and guarded by four lions placed at the corners of a suitable pedestal.From the church of San Lorenzo, founded in the fourth century, and one of the oldest churches in Italy, we wereconducted by a touting guide to the adjacent chapel of the Medici,—the princes of Florence,—and the tombs of these princes, erected at a cost of nearly £900,000. The chapel contains Michael Angelo’s masterpieces in sculpture—Lorenzo de Medici as a warrior resting, but ready, while Day and Night personified recline below, and on the opposite side Julian de Medici sits pondering over recumbent Dawn and Twilight. Opinions, however, have differed as to which is Lorenzo and which is Julian, and I am afraid the visitor has, like the little boy, to ‘take his choice.’The monastery, formerly of the Silvestrine, afterwards the Dominican monks, now the Museum of San Marco, is close to the church of San Marco. Here are to be seen a great many paintings by the pure-minded Fra (Giovanni) Angelico, who resided in the monastery during the first half of the fifteenth century. All his works, wrought out in prayer, are distinguished by the beautiful though smooth painting of the faces, many of which, here and elsewhere in Florence, are angelic, or, as we might more correctly designate them, of a saintly, soft beauty, and composed, devout inexpressiveness of any passion, but peculiar both in attire and employment. It would be a mistake, however, to set down all Angelo’s faces as of this description, as in some of his paintings there is great diversity of contour and of expression, although the drawing is often singular and in the pre-Raphaelite style. I suppose it is generally correct, although not always. In one instance I noticed that a neck seemed to be a linked sweetness rather long drawn out. There is likewise shown in this museum, which is in reality a range of monkish cells, the little cell in which Savonarola, the illustrious, eloquent prior of the order, lived,—a man of great force of character, a precursor of Luther, fearless as Knox, and a saviour of Florence, whose people, when they burnt him at the stake, put to death theirgreatest benefactor. In a large room were exhibited an immense collection of the flags, banners, and colours of all the towns and corporations of Italy which were represented at the Dante festival in 1865.On the south side of the river, with the exception of Minesota, the churches do not appear to be so fine; but there is one, the church of San Spirito, which is large and attractive, and contains no less than thirty-eight chapels encircling it—by far the largest number of side chapels attached to a church I have seen anywhere.The visitor, however, is at first most attracted by the Piazza della Signoria, which—the centre of business—is a large open space, wherein, or in its neighbourhood, some of the most important buildings are congregated. On the south side of this piazza there is a lofty, covered, arcaded hall, called the Loggia dei Lanzi, open on two sides to the street by arches resting upon high ornamental pillars. Here are arranged some of the most beautiful modern statues in Florence, including the Rape of the Sabines in marble, by Giovanni da Bologna—a spirited work, which, like some of the others, is constantly being copied on a small scale in marble and alabaster, for sale in the shops; and Perseus, a bronze statue by Benvenuto Cellini, a master of whose works there are various specimens to be seen in Florence. Both these stand in line with the front of the Loggia. Behind them are several other groups, including the Rape of Polyxena, Hercules slaying the Centaur, and one supposed to represent Ajax dragging along the body of Patroclus or of Achilles, all in fine powerful action. Tall, massive buildings have been erected on another side of the square, and opposite them, sentinelled by statues, the Palazzo Vecchio rises grandly but grimly, with its conspicuous campanile towering over everything around. This palace is well worthy of a visit. Immediately within the doorway we found, in contrast with the exterior, a graceful entrance court, encircledby an arcade supported by rows of columns florid in arabesques, each differing from the others, and a small fountain in the centre giving life to the whole. Ascending a long stair, we were ushered into an enormous hall, ornamented by six huge fresco paintings representing events in the history of Italy. On a floor above we were shown a chapel and several small rooms, in one of which there was a model of the proposed façade of the cathedral. I suspect it will be a long time before the façade itself be an accomplished fact. It appears strange that it should be allowed to remain in its present condition, a blemish upon the building, and a reflection upon the spirit in which the erection was commenced.The house of Michael Angelo is not far from the Piazza. It has been converted into a museum, and contains, besides a series of paintings representative of events in his life, with some of his drawings and models in wax, and a small collection of works of art, a closet or studio in which he wrought, and a portrait and statue of this extraordinary artist and fiery independent man, conscious of a genius as versatile as it was unrivalled. The high estimate in which he has been held by those qualified to judge may be seen by referring to Sir Joshua Reynolds’Discourses.[40]In another street an inscription upon a stone in the wall denotes a house in which Benvenuto Cellini at one time lived.But the greatest sources of attraction in Florence are the Uffizi and Pitti Galleries. These are open free to the public on Sundays and Thursdays—on other days on payment of a franc. The Uffizi Gallery occupies the upperfloor of the three sides of a long narrow street or court orcul de sac, I believe 450 feet long—the fourth being open to the Piazza della Signoria. The building has a handsome elevation, scarcely visible in the narrow street, and is adorned by nearly thirty marble statues of celebrated Tuscans, such as Dante, Petrarch, Michael Angelo, Lorenzo il Magnifico, evidencing the wealth of Florence in illustrious men. The gallery itself is reached by a long staircase, and through vestibules embellished by busts and statues. On entering we find ourselves in a long corridor, which is carried round the whole length of the three sides of the building; in fact, making three long galleries, not particularly high, though high enough for the purpose, and lighted from the top and by windows looking into the court. In these corridors, besides a good many pictures interspersed upon the walls, the greater part of the sculpture of the collection is assembled—embracing some choice specimens of ancient art, but in number very small compared with the vast treasures of the Vatican. Doors open all round into suites of rooms containing an immense assemblage of paintings, principally Italian, and among them many of the choicest works of the great masters. Besides the many chambers devoted to works of art of various nations, among which Britain seems to be nowhere and Italy to predominate, there are some small rooms containing collections of gems, medals, and bronzes. Two of the larger galleries exhibit several hundred portraits of artists, one of the most pleasingly beautiful among them being a sweet likeness by Mme. Le Brun of herself, a very favourite subject of copy, and with herself a not uncommon subject of her brush, as may be noticed in the Louvre. A very large room is likewise set apart mainly for the exhibition of seventeen most painfully-expressive statues of the famous Niobe group. But of all the rooms in this great gathering of art, the Tribune is the one which displays the choicest specimens. It is a comparatively small room, but is said to have cost £20,000in its construction. Here are chef-d’œuvres of Raphael, Titian, Guido Reni, Correggio, and various others; while the chamber also contains the famous Venus de Medici, the Wrestlers, the Dancing Faun, the Whetter—all masterpieces of ancient sculpture.Descending by a stair, the visitor proceeds by an almost interminably long corridor, which stretches out to the Ponte Vecchio, and across that bridge away to the Pitti Palace on the south side of the Arno—I suppose scarcely less than half a mile between the two places. This corridor, being lined with engravings, with drawings of the masters, and with tapestries,—a collection of things in themselves valuable,—would take a long time to examine, but in presence of so much else more attractive, scarcely succeeds in alluring the passing visitor to any lengthened scrutiny. Away and away it stretches, till after a weary walk it comes to a termination, and ascending by another stair into the Pitti Palace, we find ourselves in a collection of upwards of five hundred paintings and a few sculptures, occupying about fifteen different beautiful large rooms. It may truly be said there is hardly a painting in these rooms which is not good, while there are among them some of the choicest works of the great masters, as, for example,—for it is but one of very many which might be named,—Raphael’s Madonna della Sedia, the beauty of which painting is something wonderful. No engraving and no copy that I have seen approaches the lovely expressiveness of the original. I was several times in these galleries, in which one could spend many days with the greatest enjoyment. But to endeavour to write a description would be not merely fruitlessly to seek to realize the works, but would be to attempt a disquisition on the great in art, which, even with capacity for the undertaking, would here be out of place. I suppose there is not an Italian painter of eminence who is not represented in the gallery, though beyond native art I think the only other nations whoseartists’ works appear are the Dutch and Spanish. Photographs and engravings can be procured of many of the pictures in the shops.At all times artists are engaged, in both the Uffizi and Pitti Galleries, making copies of the more celebrated or most attractive pictures—occasionally two upon the same picture; and they do proceed with most wonderful patience and infinite pains, copying to the minutest hair, and laying on coat after coat with the greatest delicacy, some of them attaining to great excellence. Apermessois necessary to copy, and for some of the more celebrated paintings the artists, I was told, had sometimes to wait their turn for years. When they have, after elaborate painstaking, made a good copy, I fancy they manufacture other copies from it. I was fortunate enough, among others, to secure a copy of the lovely Madonna del Cordellina by Raphael, so perfect that it might almost vie with the original. It was obviously a copy direct from, and inspired by, the original. Beside it stood in the same shop another copy, but oh! how different! I believe that some of the copiers attach themselves more particularly to given masters,—for example, one in general copies Titians, another Murillos, another Raphaels. To protect against the abstraction of pictures from the galleries, no one is allowed to take a picture, not even a copy, out of Italy without apermesso. I bought a small copy of a Titian in the galleries, and the artist (Adolphe Boschi) accompanied me with it to the town, because, he said, they would not have allowed me to pass with it myself.There is one little inconvenience attendant upon the extreme length of the galleries. Upon occasion of my first visit, I had unfortunately taken an umbrella, which I was obliged to leave at the door of the Uffizi Gallery. After wandering to the extreme end of the Pitti Gallery, I had to retrace all my steps to regain this umbrella. It is better, therefore, if anything must be left at the door, toconfine a visit to one or other of the palaces, and there is abundance in either to engage a whole forenoon.Not far from the Piazza della Signoria is what is called the National Museum, contained in the old Palazzo del Podesta, rich, but severely rich, in its architecture. The ground floor is occupied with ancient and modern armour and arms. Above there is a gallery of statues, some of them by Michael Angelo, a room full of majolica, another of ivory carvings, two of bronzes, two of tapestry, and two of sculpture; but the collection, though interesting, looks small after experiencing the extent of the Uffizi and Pitti Galleries, and seems hardly deserving to be dignified with the name of National.The Corsini Palace, on the Lung Arno, is open three days in the week to the public, and contains in twelve rooms a large collection of paintings, many of which are by the great masters.The Academia delle Belle Arti contains a large collection of pre-Raphaelites, commencing with Cimabue, and comprising among others some fine Peruginos. It is accordingly interesting. In an upper floor several rooms exhibit paintings by modern Italian artists, principally battlepieces. I paid a visit also to the rooms of the Association for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts, which seems to be founded somewhat on the same principles as similar associations in Great Britain; but from such opportunities as I have had of forming an opinion, I cannot say that the mantle of their great predecessors—whose works are constantly before them, and might be thought calculated to inspire—has fallen upon the modern Florentine artists.Florence, besides being a great place for the sale of copies of paintings, and for the manufacture of the well-known massive and tastefully-decorated picture-frames, all carved out of the solid wood, upon which the gilding islaid without any mixture of composition, is the place of all others for the manufacture and sale of marble and alabaster sculpture, and of the beautiful Florentine mosaic jewellery. It is filled with shops for the sale of these various articles, which are to be had at moderate prices, and strangers seldom leave without more or less extensively making purchases.The streets of Florence are always full of life. Occasionally of an evening a body of men, perhaps twenty or thirty, would form themselves in a ring, and with deep, rich, melodious voices sing Italian songs. The power of voice or strength of lungs which the Italians sometimes possess is indeed often exhibited in a surprising manner. All of a sudden, walking along a street, it may be meditatively, a vendor of small wares will abruptly at your very ear, and without apparent effort, discharge a sharp, stentorian cry, piercing and startling as with the shock of a nine-pounder, and nearly knocking you down breathless and affrighted. The markets, too, are noisy,—bargain-making being a serious operation, in which success is supposed to attend the most vociferous and energetic,—but sometimes they are more quietly conducted. Having once penetrated them, and found myself in the press of a great crowd in very narrow passages, and in odious proximity to heaps of most unpleasant-looking fish, it was with no little satisfaction I made my escape as soon as escape was practicable.There are many other places in Florence to be seen besides those I have specially mentioned. We did see a good deal in the time we were there, but not all by any means, and what we did see was in a very general way. We remained not quite three weeks, and could with pleasure have stayed much longer. It is a place which, like Rome, though not to the same extent, requires a long stay, and is full of objects meriting careful study and worthyof repeated examination. It is not, however, without its drawbacks, chief among them being the not uncommon practice in Italian towns of making air-holes from the drains to the streets, from which unsavoury whiffs occasionally come, not pleasant to contemplate. The authorities plainly want in sanitary arrangements some teaching.BOLOGNA.We left Florence for Bologna by train at 7.50A.M.As we were about to enter a railway carriage, a pleasant-looking English lady looked out and cried to us deterringly, ‘This is not a smoking carriage.’ ‘Thank you, madam,’ I replied; ‘that is just what we want.’ So, as the two parties filled the compartment, we were not troubled with any selfish smoker, and, as we were all English, with no needless exclusion of the views by lowering the blinds. We reached Bologna at noon. The railway passes through many tunnels, and in some places at a great elevation. The views from it are fine.Bologna is a singular old university town, very compact within the walls, so as to accommodate its population of 109,000. From the twelve or thirteen gates in the walls, leading streets converge to the centre, constructed with arcades at the sides, under which the pavements and shops are placed. The object of the arcading is probably to afford shelter from the snow in winter and the rain in summer. The town itself is dull, and the shops entering from the arcades are dark and second-rate. Photographs of Bologna can be procured at Florence, and perhaps in some as yet undiscovered region in Bologna itself. The Hotel Brun (the principal one) is an old-fashioned house. Like many of the Italian hotels, thesalonsare entered direct from the court-yard.As soon as possible, as we were only to stay one night, we went out for a drive of some hours, and were taken first to the two leaning towers, which stand together. These are long, lanky, and square, dark with age and long exposure to the weather, often, I suspect, of a humid character. One of them—theTorre Asinelli—said by Bædeker to be 272, and in other authorities 320 feet high, was originally 476 feet, or 40 feet higher than the top of the cross of St. Peter’s. It was shortened in 1416 after an earthquake. It now lies 3 ft. 5 in. off the perpendicular. The other, that of Garisenda, is, according to Bædeker, 138 feet high, and upwards of 8 feet out of the perpendicular, and by no means assuring to look at. They are neither of them imposing architecturally, although noted features viewed from outside the city. From this point we went to the Etruscan Museum, in which a variety of antiquities are exhibited, and, among other things, several skeletons of an old date discovered in neighbouring excavations. Under the same roof there is also a large library, comprising upwards of 100,000 volumes. I believe the museum and library are connected with the University, 760 years old. Close by is the large church of San Petronio, 384 feet long by 154 feet wide, intended to have been a vast deal larger. Here Charles v. was crowned emperor in 1530. There are various other large churches interesting to see, but, after those in Rome and Florence, they have, with all their grandeur, rather a provincial look. We then drove beyond the walls to the Villa Reale, one of the royal palaces. It stands upon a height, and commands admirable views of the town, out of which rise a good many towers, domes, and spires, relieving its otherwise spiritless level. One also sees far into the surrounding country, which, for the most part, is very flat. The villa contains some long corridors, one of them 500 feet long, adorned by statues. The church of the monastery is entered from the galleries.From this we drove (still outside the walls) to the Campo Santo, which is much larger, is more ramified, and is older than that at Genoa, but it is by no means equal to it either in arrangement or in monuments. Some of the monuments are good, but many are paltry. On our way back to town we entered the churches of San Domenico and San Pietro, both large, and containing greater objects of interest than San Petronio.Cab fares in Bologna are moderate. I paid the cabman half a franc more than his fare, and, wonderful to say, he thanked me. It was the first and only time in Italy. The usual course is to take all that is offered and beg for more. Do the cabmen of Bologna graduate at the University?Rain fell heavily the following morning, and as we were to leave for Venice at twelve o’clock, we had not much time, but I could scarcely leave Bologna without taking a hurried glimpse of the Academia delle Belle Arti. An hour in this large gallery was, of course, far too brief a space for seeing its contents, and in the galleries there are many great paintings of more or less merit; among others, Raphael’s celebrated and beautiful picture of St. Cecilia listening to heavenly music, in which, however (such are the exigencies of art), six solid angels, securely seated on a cloud, obtain their words and their time, somewhat inconveniently, from two stout music-books, perhaps purchased in the Via outside—a profane remark; but irreverent thoughts will intrude even in the presence of the most wonderful works. It was a change to pass from the well-favoured countenance of St. Cecilia to Guido Reni’s Crucifixion. There are indeed two Crucifixions by Guido, but the smaller one seems to me the grander effort of genius. The effect of the darkness in the painting is truly sublime.

FLORENCE, BOLOGNA.

Westayed in Rome until 27th April, when we left for Florence. We had intended going round by the attractive town of Perugia, but the morning of the 26th was wet, and, delaying our departure for a day, we gave up Perugia, partly because to have gone upon a Friday would have involved spending a Sunday there. The latter part of our journey was interesting. On arriving at the outskirts of the town the railway circumnavigates it, so that we had an opportunity from the very first of seeing the cathedral dome and campanile, and the other towers and spires of Florence, which lies beautifully situated in a luxuriantly verdant valley, enclosed by the Apennines and other hills, and intersected by the river Arno, which, seeing for the first time in the soft moonlight in the course of the evening, looked so lovely.

The Lung’ Arno, or bank of the river, where most of the principal hotels are placed, is considered the best situation, at least for winter residence. Some of the hotels are unpleasantly near a waterfall or wear stretching across the river, the incessant din of which is troublesome at night. We spent a few nights at one of the hotels there, andafterwards a fortnight at the Pension Molini Barbensi[39], on the left bank of the river, where we found pleasant society and some former travelling acquaintances. The house is a good one, and the rooms are large, but a very little expenditure on sanitary arrangements would improve it as a residence. Living seems not to be expensive at Florence, and lodgings can be procured at a moderate rate.

Florence lies upon the same river as Pisa, but I suppose fifty or sixty miles farther up, and the town bears some resemblance to it, but is far more picturesque and far more lively and populous. In fact, Pisa is quite a dull, quiet, dead-alive town beside it. The population of Florence, at present about 170,000, is four times as great as that of Pisa, and it has been a royal town as well as a provincial capital. The river is crossed by six bridges (three, or rather four of them, of very old date) connecting the north and south portions of the city, which, however, lies mainly upon the north shore. Of these bridges (all strongly buttressed against the force of the river, which no doubt occasionally descends in floods with great power), the Ponte Vecchio is peculiar and picturesque, and a remnant of old times, being covered on each side with houses, and on one side, on the top floor, by the long gallery which connects the Uffizi and Pitti Palaces. These houses on the bridge are very curious. Next the street they present to view on both sides small booths or stalls, principally occupied by goldsmiths or jewellers, which very likely much resemble what the shops of Old London were, but at the present day do not, for jewellers’ wares, inspire confidence. On the other or river sides, all manner of chambers in or on the wall project, jut out, and overhang the river, very perilous to behold, and suggestive ofoubliettesthrough which murdered travellers on the bridge might be quietly dropped into the river below, but conferring a quaintness of appearance precious in the sight of the artist. Equally striking in effect is an adjoining range of buildings on the left bank—also flanking the river, and with their projecting chambers overhanging it. In the centre of the bridge large arched openings enable the passer-by to look up and down the river, and take in the prospect beyond.

ill345

PONTE VECCHIO,—FLORENCE.

PONTE VECCHIO,—FLORENCE.

PONTE VECCHIO,—FLORENCE.

Nearly all along both sides of the Arno (protected by parapet walls) a wide street runs, and the buildings lining it are some of them stately and handsome, others are old or massive or peculiar, while the line is diversified here and there by a spire or a curious tower. The remarkable lofty old tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, and the dome and campanile of the cathedral,—all such notable objects in the pictures of Florence,—are prominent from almost every part, but especially from the south side of the river. There are, however, certain points of view from which Florence can be commanded. One of these is the terrace of the church of San Miniato, which stands upon a hill to the south-east, and is reached by a very delightful winding road bordered by villas, which were all at the time of our visit looking very charming in their new drapery of spring foliage. The church is an old one, finely decorated with marble and mosaics and marble pillars, and possessing a large crypt below. In itself it is well worth seeing, but it is principally visited for the sake of the prospect. Looking down from the terrace in front, Florence, with dome and towers, is seen lying away below very compactly in the centre of a long, large, flat plain, cut in two by the river, and surrounded by hills. It has here a fresher and cleaner look than most Italian towns. Immediately below San Miniato the piazza named after Michael Angelo lies, adorned in the centre by that artist’s famous colossal statue of David.The smart terraces of this nicely laid-out piazza command views similar to those from San Miniato, but from a lower elevation. A different winding road, as pleasant as the other, conducts down to the town.

Another fine drive is to the very ancient town of Fiesole, which stands on a hill upon the north side, and is about three miles out of town. There is here a curious old church or cathedral, with pillars said to be of the first century. Ascending a hill a little higher, and probably 1000 feet above the sea, the view from the top is more commanding than that of San Miniato, and one sees the Arno winding its way for a long distance down the valley, and the Carrara Mountains in the distance. These and other drives about the suburbs of Florence give the impression of a very charming place for a spring residence; but Florence is hot in summer and often very cold in winter time, fierce winds blowing from the hills, which I suppose are frequently covered with snow. The older portions of the city are similar to most Italian towns, full of narrow, tortuous streets; but adjoining the river and in the newer portions, and in the outskirts, the streets are regular and comparatively wide, with piazzas or open spaces in several parts. There are wide, handsome boulevards orvialesencircling the city. In the Piazza Cavour there is a graceful triumphal arch akin to that in the Tuileries of Paris. At the west end, and adjoining the Arno, a large public park extends, called the Cascine, in which are long avenues bordered by trees, affording room for delightful drives and walks, one portion being also laid out as a racecourse. In the quarter south of the Arno the Boboli Gardens attached to the Royal Pitti Palace are also extensive, but open to the public only on Sundays and Thursdays.

Florence, historically, is a place of great interest, and is associated with many great names. It is the birthplaceof, among others, Dante, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Galileo, Michael Angelo Buonarotti, Cimabue, Fra Angelico, Leonardo da Vinci, Carlo Dolci, and others eminent in art. The houses of some of these celebrities are pointed out.

I can imagine that to those who spend a winter in Florence it must be exceedingly interesting to study the history of the place, and read on the spot such entertaining books as the remarkable life of that most remarkable man, Benvenuto Cellini, giving, as it does, such an insight into Italian life in the sixteenth century. Machiavelli, who died in 1527, brings his history down only to the year 1492; but after reading Trollope’s history, in four vols., Napier’s in six (leaving off at the year 1824) will afford for a whole winter a sufficiently toughpièce de résistance, the perusal whereof one’s physician would no doubt recommend should be diversified occasionally by a chapter in Mrs. Oliphant’sMakers of Florence, or by George Eliot’sRomola, which it is to be hoped was not drawn from the life.

Florence, although in itself a more desirable place of residence than Rome, has no Roman ruins. It possesses, however, very many objects of great interest. There are within it about ninety churches, not a few of which are attractive.

The cathedral, commenced about six hundred years ago, and in its façade not yet finished, is immense, being 556 feet long by 342 feet wide. The spirit in which it was originated was lofty, the Florentine Republic desiring ‘that an edifice should be constructed so magnificent in its height and beauty that it shall surpass everything of the kind produced in the time of their greatest power by the Greeks and Romans.’ It is, at least in external covering, composed of marble—white, black, and green—with many sculptures and carvings in the marble, especially about the doorways. The stones are laid on a species of panelling consisting of upright parallelograms broken by large, formal,circular openings. Though it be somewhat stiff in pattern, and may be objected to as piebald, a certain richness of effect is produced. But the interior is not correspondent with the exterior; it is vast, but too bare and empty, and dark and dingy—perhaps, therefore, the more sublime! Looking up from below into the magnificent dome, it seems an enormous height to the lantern; as it no doubt is, being 352 feet—so high, in fact, that the dome itself is higher than that of St. Peter’s, although the highest pinnacle is not. In design and general effect, as a whole, the cathedral will not compare with the great temple of Rome. The campanile or bell tower which adjoins, but is separated from it, is of marvellous beauty, and stands nearly 300 feet high. It is a perpendicular square tower, built of every kind of coloured marble, adorned by statuary and covered with rich alto-relievos (of which photographs can be procured); also by the graceful windows, very charmingly decorated in a species of suitable tracery. There is a completeness about this tower, even though it lacks the spire with which Giotto intended it to be crowned, combined with an exuberant affluence of decoration, which renders it a delightful object of contemplation, or rather, I should say, a choice object of study.

On the side of the piazza opposite to the west front the baptistery stands, an octagonal building 94 feet in diameter, and in one of the entrances the celebrated bronze gates are placed. We often availed ourselves of opportunities to examine these beautiful embodiments in bronze of Scripture subjects. Being exposed to the street, they are laden with dust, which to a certain extent reduces their apparent sharpness. Over this entrance gate there is a representation of the baptism of Jesus in three sculptured figures—our Lord, John the Baptist, and an attendant angel. Inside the baptistery, besides its oriental granite columns and its mosaics, there is nothing very remarkable.

On the south side of the cathedral, in the piazza, we found the little church of the Misericordia, belonging to that peculiar body of monks who, dressed in long black cloaks, with black masks over their faces pierced by eyeholes, are to be occasionally seen going about Florence and elsewhere in procession with the dead, which they bury, taking thus the place of the relations, who, in some parts of Italy, seem to abandon their friends when they die, and appear regardless of what becomes of their remains. We saw the chapel upon Ascension Day, which was a great holiday, or, to speak more exactly,holyday in Florence. On that occasion it was, like other churches, crammed to the door with a changing audience, and, after pushing our way in, we were as glad to push our way out again.

The churches of Santa Croce, S.S. Annunciata, Santa Maria Novella, and San Lorenzo are among the finest. They contain beautiful marble monuments, altar paintings, and other decorations which it would be endless to mention. The large church of Santa Croce has a fine white and black marble façade—rather straight and angular, however, in its lines. It measures nearly 500 feet long, and the interior, besides being adorned, as usual, with pictures, is the great receptacle of monuments to illustrious Florentine men, such as Michael Angelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli. The cloisters adjoining the church are well worthy of a visit. Most of the important churches in Florence have the advantage of a large open piazza in front. The vacant space surrounding the cathedral, unfortunately, is comparatively insignificant, and it were well if it could be enlarged. That in front of Santa Croce is large, and is adorned by a colossal marble statue of Dante in classic robe, attended by an eagle and guarded by four lions placed at the corners of a suitable pedestal.

From the church of San Lorenzo, founded in the fourth century, and one of the oldest churches in Italy, we wereconducted by a touting guide to the adjacent chapel of the Medici,—the princes of Florence,—and the tombs of these princes, erected at a cost of nearly £900,000. The chapel contains Michael Angelo’s masterpieces in sculpture—Lorenzo de Medici as a warrior resting, but ready, while Day and Night personified recline below, and on the opposite side Julian de Medici sits pondering over recumbent Dawn and Twilight. Opinions, however, have differed as to which is Lorenzo and which is Julian, and I am afraid the visitor has, like the little boy, to ‘take his choice.’

The monastery, formerly of the Silvestrine, afterwards the Dominican monks, now the Museum of San Marco, is close to the church of San Marco. Here are to be seen a great many paintings by the pure-minded Fra (Giovanni) Angelico, who resided in the monastery during the first half of the fifteenth century. All his works, wrought out in prayer, are distinguished by the beautiful though smooth painting of the faces, many of which, here and elsewhere in Florence, are angelic, or, as we might more correctly designate them, of a saintly, soft beauty, and composed, devout inexpressiveness of any passion, but peculiar both in attire and employment. It would be a mistake, however, to set down all Angelo’s faces as of this description, as in some of his paintings there is great diversity of contour and of expression, although the drawing is often singular and in the pre-Raphaelite style. I suppose it is generally correct, although not always. In one instance I noticed that a neck seemed to be a linked sweetness rather long drawn out. There is likewise shown in this museum, which is in reality a range of monkish cells, the little cell in which Savonarola, the illustrious, eloquent prior of the order, lived,—a man of great force of character, a precursor of Luther, fearless as Knox, and a saviour of Florence, whose people, when they burnt him at the stake, put to death theirgreatest benefactor. In a large room were exhibited an immense collection of the flags, banners, and colours of all the towns and corporations of Italy which were represented at the Dante festival in 1865.

On the south side of the river, with the exception of Minesota, the churches do not appear to be so fine; but there is one, the church of San Spirito, which is large and attractive, and contains no less than thirty-eight chapels encircling it—by far the largest number of side chapels attached to a church I have seen anywhere.

The visitor, however, is at first most attracted by the Piazza della Signoria, which—the centre of business—is a large open space, wherein, or in its neighbourhood, some of the most important buildings are congregated. On the south side of this piazza there is a lofty, covered, arcaded hall, called the Loggia dei Lanzi, open on two sides to the street by arches resting upon high ornamental pillars. Here are arranged some of the most beautiful modern statues in Florence, including the Rape of the Sabines in marble, by Giovanni da Bologna—a spirited work, which, like some of the others, is constantly being copied on a small scale in marble and alabaster, for sale in the shops; and Perseus, a bronze statue by Benvenuto Cellini, a master of whose works there are various specimens to be seen in Florence. Both these stand in line with the front of the Loggia. Behind them are several other groups, including the Rape of Polyxena, Hercules slaying the Centaur, and one supposed to represent Ajax dragging along the body of Patroclus or of Achilles, all in fine powerful action. Tall, massive buildings have been erected on another side of the square, and opposite them, sentinelled by statues, the Palazzo Vecchio rises grandly but grimly, with its conspicuous campanile towering over everything around. This palace is well worthy of a visit. Immediately within the doorway we found, in contrast with the exterior, a graceful entrance court, encircledby an arcade supported by rows of columns florid in arabesques, each differing from the others, and a small fountain in the centre giving life to the whole. Ascending a long stair, we were ushered into an enormous hall, ornamented by six huge fresco paintings representing events in the history of Italy. On a floor above we were shown a chapel and several small rooms, in one of which there was a model of the proposed façade of the cathedral. I suspect it will be a long time before the façade itself be an accomplished fact. It appears strange that it should be allowed to remain in its present condition, a blemish upon the building, and a reflection upon the spirit in which the erection was commenced.

The house of Michael Angelo is not far from the Piazza. It has been converted into a museum, and contains, besides a series of paintings representative of events in his life, with some of his drawings and models in wax, and a small collection of works of art, a closet or studio in which he wrought, and a portrait and statue of this extraordinary artist and fiery independent man, conscious of a genius as versatile as it was unrivalled. The high estimate in which he has been held by those qualified to judge may be seen by referring to Sir Joshua Reynolds’Discourses.[40]In another street an inscription upon a stone in the wall denotes a house in which Benvenuto Cellini at one time lived.

But the greatest sources of attraction in Florence are the Uffizi and Pitti Galleries. These are open free to the public on Sundays and Thursdays—on other days on payment of a franc. The Uffizi Gallery occupies the upperfloor of the three sides of a long narrow street or court orcul de sac, I believe 450 feet long—the fourth being open to the Piazza della Signoria. The building has a handsome elevation, scarcely visible in the narrow street, and is adorned by nearly thirty marble statues of celebrated Tuscans, such as Dante, Petrarch, Michael Angelo, Lorenzo il Magnifico, evidencing the wealth of Florence in illustrious men. The gallery itself is reached by a long staircase, and through vestibules embellished by busts and statues. On entering we find ourselves in a long corridor, which is carried round the whole length of the three sides of the building; in fact, making three long galleries, not particularly high, though high enough for the purpose, and lighted from the top and by windows looking into the court. In these corridors, besides a good many pictures interspersed upon the walls, the greater part of the sculpture of the collection is assembled—embracing some choice specimens of ancient art, but in number very small compared with the vast treasures of the Vatican. Doors open all round into suites of rooms containing an immense assemblage of paintings, principally Italian, and among them many of the choicest works of the great masters. Besides the many chambers devoted to works of art of various nations, among which Britain seems to be nowhere and Italy to predominate, there are some small rooms containing collections of gems, medals, and bronzes. Two of the larger galleries exhibit several hundred portraits of artists, one of the most pleasingly beautiful among them being a sweet likeness by Mme. Le Brun of herself, a very favourite subject of copy, and with herself a not uncommon subject of her brush, as may be noticed in the Louvre. A very large room is likewise set apart mainly for the exhibition of seventeen most painfully-expressive statues of the famous Niobe group. But of all the rooms in this great gathering of art, the Tribune is the one which displays the choicest specimens. It is a comparatively small room, but is said to have cost £20,000in its construction. Here are chef-d’œuvres of Raphael, Titian, Guido Reni, Correggio, and various others; while the chamber also contains the famous Venus de Medici, the Wrestlers, the Dancing Faun, the Whetter—all masterpieces of ancient sculpture.

Descending by a stair, the visitor proceeds by an almost interminably long corridor, which stretches out to the Ponte Vecchio, and across that bridge away to the Pitti Palace on the south side of the Arno—I suppose scarcely less than half a mile between the two places. This corridor, being lined with engravings, with drawings of the masters, and with tapestries,—a collection of things in themselves valuable,—would take a long time to examine, but in presence of so much else more attractive, scarcely succeeds in alluring the passing visitor to any lengthened scrutiny. Away and away it stretches, till after a weary walk it comes to a termination, and ascending by another stair into the Pitti Palace, we find ourselves in a collection of upwards of five hundred paintings and a few sculptures, occupying about fifteen different beautiful large rooms. It may truly be said there is hardly a painting in these rooms which is not good, while there are among them some of the choicest works of the great masters, as, for example,—for it is but one of very many which might be named,—Raphael’s Madonna della Sedia, the beauty of which painting is something wonderful. No engraving and no copy that I have seen approaches the lovely expressiveness of the original. I was several times in these galleries, in which one could spend many days with the greatest enjoyment. But to endeavour to write a description would be not merely fruitlessly to seek to realize the works, but would be to attempt a disquisition on the great in art, which, even with capacity for the undertaking, would here be out of place. I suppose there is not an Italian painter of eminence who is not represented in the gallery, though beyond native art I think the only other nations whoseartists’ works appear are the Dutch and Spanish. Photographs and engravings can be procured of many of the pictures in the shops.

At all times artists are engaged, in both the Uffizi and Pitti Galleries, making copies of the more celebrated or most attractive pictures—occasionally two upon the same picture; and they do proceed with most wonderful patience and infinite pains, copying to the minutest hair, and laying on coat after coat with the greatest delicacy, some of them attaining to great excellence. Apermessois necessary to copy, and for some of the more celebrated paintings the artists, I was told, had sometimes to wait their turn for years. When they have, after elaborate painstaking, made a good copy, I fancy they manufacture other copies from it. I was fortunate enough, among others, to secure a copy of the lovely Madonna del Cordellina by Raphael, so perfect that it might almost vie with the original. It was obviously a copy direct from, and inspired by, the original. Beside it stood in the same shop another copy, but oh! how different! I believe that some of the copiers attach themselves more particularly to given masters,—for example, one in general copies Titians, another Murillos, another Raphaels. To protect against the abstraction of pictures from the galleries, no one is allowed to take a picture, not even a copy, out of Italy without apermesso. I bought a small copy of a Titian in the galleries, and the artist (Adolphe Boschi) accompanied me with it to the town, because, he said, they would not have allowed me to pass with it myself.

There is one little inconvenience attendant upon the extreme length of the galleries. Upon occasion of my first visit, I had unfortunately taken an umbrella, which I was obliged to leave at the door of the Uffizi Gallery. After wandering to the extreme end of the Pitti Gallery, I had to retrace all my steps to regain this umbrella. It is better, therefore, if anything must be left at the door, toconfine a visit to one or other of the palaces, and there is abundance in either to engage a whole forenoon.

Not far from the Piazza della Signoria is what is called the National Museum, contained in the old Palazzo del Podesta, rich, but severely rich, in its architecture. The ground floor is occupied with ancient and modern armour and arms. Above there is a gallery of statues, some of them by Michael Angelo, a room full of majolica, another of ivory carvings, two of bronzes, two of tapestry, and two of sculpture; but the collection, though interesting, looks small after experiencing the extent of the Uffizi and Pitti Galleries, and seems hardly deserving to be dignified with the name of National.

The Corsini Palace, on the Lung Arno, is open three days in the week to the public, and contains in twelve rooms a large collection of paintings, many of which are by the great masters.

The Academia delle Belle Arti contains a large collection of pre-Raphaelites, commencing with Cimabue, and comprising among others some fine Peruginos. It is accordingly interesting. In an upper floor several rooms exhibit paintings by modern Italian artists, principally battlepieces. I paid a visit also to the rooms of the Association for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts, which seems to be founded somewhat on the same principles as similar associations in Great Britain; but from such opportunities as I have had of forming an opinion, I cannot say that the mantle of their great predecessors—whose works are constantly before them, and might be thought calculated to inspire—has fallen upon the modern Florentine artists.

Florence, besides being a great place for the sale of copies of paintings, and for the manufacture of the well-known massive and tastefully-decorated picture-frames, all carved out of the solid wood, upon which the gilding islaid without any mixture of composition, is the place of all others for the manufacture and sale of marble and alabaster sculpture, and of the beautiful Florentine mosaic jewellery. It is filled with shops for the sale of these various articles, which are to be had at moderate prices, and strangers seldom leave without more or less extensively making purchases.

The streets of Florence are always full of life. Occasionally of an evening a body of men, perhaps twenty or thirty, would form themselves in a ring, and with deep, rich, melodious voices sing Italian songs. The power of voice or strength of lungs which the Italians sometimes possess is indeed often exhibited in a surprising manner. All of a sudden, walking along a street, it may be meditatively, a vendor of small wares will abruptly at your very ear, and without apparent effort, discharge a sharp, stentorian cry, piercing and startling as with the shock of a nine-pounder, and nearly knocking you down breathless and affrighted. The markets, too, are noisy,—bargain-making being a serious operation, in which success is supposed to attend the most vociferous and energetic,—but sometimes they are more quietly conducted. Having once penetrated them, and found myself in the press of a great crowd in very narrow passages, and in odious proximity to heaps of most unpleasant-looking fish, it was with no little satisfaction I made my escape as soon as escape was practicable.

There are many other places in Florence to be seen besides those I have specially mentioned. We did see a good deal in the time we were there, but not all by any means, and what we did see was in a very general way. We remained not quite three weeks, and could with pleasure have stayed much longer. It is a place which, like Rome, though not to the same extent, requires a long stay, and is full of objects meriting careful study and worthyof repeated examination. It is not, however, without its drawbacks, chief among them being the not uncommon practice in Italian towns of making air-holes from the drains to the streets, from which unsavoury whiffs occasionally come, not pleasant to contemplate. The authorities plainly want in sanitary arrangements some teaching.

We left Florence for Bologna by train at 7.50A.M.As we were about to enter a railway carriage, a pleasant-looking English lady looked out and cried to us deterringly, ‘This is not a smoking carriage.’ ‘Thank you, madam,’ I replied; ‘that is just what we want.’ So, as the two parties filled the compartment, we were not troubled with any selfish smoker, and, as we were all English, with no needless exclusion of the views by lowering the blinds. We reached Bologna at noon. The railway passes through many tunnels, and in some places at a great elevation. The views from it are fine.

Bologna is a singular old university town, very compact within the walls, so as to accommodate its population of 109,000. From the twelve or thirteen gates in the walls, leading streets converge to the centre, constructed with arcades at the sides, under which the pavements and shops are placed. The object of the arcading is probably to afford shelter from the snow in winter and the rain in summer. The town itself is dull, and the shops entering from the arcades are dark and second-rate. Photographs of Bologna can be procured at Florence, and perhaps in some as yet undiscovered region in Bologna itself. The Hotel Brun (the principal one) is an old-fashioned house. Like many of the Italian hotels, thesalonsare entered direct from the court-yard.

As soon as possible, as we were only to stay one night, we went out for a drive of some hours, and were taken first to the two leaning towers, which stand together. These are long, lanky, and square, dark with age and long exposure to the weather, often, I suspect, of a humid character. One of them—theTorre Asinelli—said by Bædeker to be 272, and in other authorities 320 feet high, was originally 476 feet, or 40 feet higher than the top of the cross of St. Peter’s. It was shortened in 1416 after an earthquake. It now lies 3 ft. 5 in. off the perpendicular. The other, that of Garisenda, is, according to Bædeker, 138 feet high, and upwards of 8 feet out of the perpendicular, and by no means assuring to look at. They are neither of them imposing architecturally, although noted features viewed from outside the city. From this point we went to the Etruscan Museum, in which a variety of antiquities are exhibited, and, among other things, several skeletons of an old date discovered in neighbouring excavations. Under the same roof there is also a large library, comprising upwards of 100,000 volumes. I believe the museum and library are connected with the University, 760 years old. Close by is the large church of San Petronio, 384 feet long by 154 feet wide, intended to have been a vast deal larger. Here Charles v. was crowned emperor in 1530. There are various other large churches interesting to see, but, after those in Rome and Florence, they have, with all their grandeur, rather a provincial look. We then drove beyond the walls to the Villa Reale, one of the royal palaces. It stands upon a height, and commands admirable views of the town, out of which rise a good many towers, domes, and spires, relieving its otherwise spiritless level. One also sees far into the surrounding country, which, for the most part, is very flat. The villa contains some long corridors, one of them 500 feet long, adorned by statues. The church of the monastery is entered from the galleries.From this we drove (still outside the walls) to the Campo Santo, which is much larger, is more ramified, and is older than that at Genoa, but it is by no means equal to it either in arrangement or in monuments. Some of the monuments are good, but many are paltry. On our way back to town we entered the churches of San Domenico and San Pietro, both large, and containing greater objects of interest than San Petronio.

Cab fares in Bologna are moderate. I paid the cabman half a franc more than his fare, and, wonderful to say, he thanked me. It was the first and only time in Italy. The usual course is to take all that is offered and beg for more. Do the cabmen of Bologna graduate at the University?

Rain fell heavily the following morning, and as we were to leave for Venice at twelve o’clock, we had not much time, but I could scarcely leave Bologna without taking a hurried glimpse of the Academia delle Belle Arti. An hour in this large gallery was, of course, far too brief a space for seeing its contents, and in the galleries there are many great paintings of more or less merit; among others, Raphael’s celebrated and beautiful picture of St. Cecilia listening to heavenly music, in which, however (such are the exigencies of art), six solid angels, securely seated on a cloud, obtain their words and their time, somewhat inconveniently, from two stout music-books, perhaps purchased in the Via outside—a profane remark; but irreverent thoughts will intrude even in the presence of the most wonderful works. It was a change to pass from the well-favoured countenance of St. Cecilia to Guido Reni’s Crucifixion. There are indeed two Crucifixions by Guido, but the smaller one seems to me the grander effort of genius. The effect of the darkness in the painting is truly sublime.

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