PART III.—1842. (continued 2)

At length we obtained the paper, and set out. 77We had engaged a veturino for Venice. Some hope had we that the railroad might be open from Padua to Mestri; if not, we were to be taken to Fusina, sleeping at Vicenza in our way. The charm of autumnal vegetation, in a rich vine country, adorned the road, and a distant view of the Alps bounded the scene. We arrived at Vicenza at eleven o’clock, by a bright moonlight. I was sorry to see no more of these Palladian palaces than the glimpses we caught from our carriage-windows. Architecture shows to peculiar advantage by the silver radiance of a full moon: its partial white light throws portions into strong relief, and the polished marble reflects its, so to speak, icy radiance.

September 19th.

We found, on our arrival at Padua, that the railroad was not open; so we proceeded along the banks of the Brenta to Venice. Many a scene, which I have since visited and admired, has faded in my mind, as a painting in the Diorama melts away, and another struggles into the changing canvass; but this road was as distinct in my mind as if traversed yesterday. I will not here dwell on the sad circumstances that clouded my first visit to Venice. Death hovered over the scene. Gathered into myself, with my “mind’s eye” I saw those before me long departed; 78and I was agitated again by emotions—by passions—and those the deepest a woman’s heart can harbour—a dread to see her child even at that instant expire—which then occupied me. It is a strange, but to any person who has suffered, a familiar circumstance, that those who are enduring mental or corporeal agony are strangely alive to immediate external objects, and their imagination even exercises its wild power over them. Shakspeare knew this, and the passionate grief of Queen Constance thence is endued with fearful reality. Wordsworth, as many years ago I remember hearing Coleridge remark, illustrates the same fact, when he makes an insane and afflicted mother exclaim,—

“The breeze I see is in the tree;

It comes to cool my babe and me.”

Holcroft, who was a martyr to intense physical suffering, alludes to the notice the soul takes of the objects presented to the eye in its hour of agony, as a relief afforded by nature to permit the nerves to endure pain. In both states I have experienced it; and the particular shape of a room—the progress of shadows on a wall—the peculiar flickering of trees—the exact succession of objects on a journey—have been indelibly engraved in my memory, as marked in, and associated with, hours and minutes when the nerves were strung to their utmost tension by the 79endurance of pain, or the far severer infliction of mental anguish. Thus the banks of the Brenta presented to me a moving scene; not a palace, not a tree of which I did not recognise, as marked and recorded, at a moment when life and death hung upon our speedy arrival at Venice.

And at Fusina, as then, I now beheld the domes and towers of the queen of Ocean arise from the waves with a majesty unrivalled upon earth. We were hailed by a storm of gondolieri; their vociferations were something indescribable, so loud, so vehement, so reiterated; till we had chosen our boat, and then all subsided into instant calm.

I confess that on this, my second entrance into Venice, the dilapidated appearance of the palaces, their weather-worn and neglected appearance, struck me forcibly, and diminished the beauty of the city in my eyes. We proceeded at once to the Leone Bianco, on the Canale Grande; they asked a very high price for their rooms, which rendered us eager, as we intended to remain here a month, to make immediate arrangements for removing elsewhere.

Our first act was to send our letters of introduction; the second, for two of us to go out to look for lodgings. The account brought back by our second dove from the ark was rather discouraging; but our first brought better things. Count —— and Signor —— 80loved and respected too sincerely the writer of our letters not to hasten on the instant to acknowledge them. Signor —— at once perceived and entered into our difficulty. I never saw such friendly zeal; nor was Count —— behind in kindness, though, as a younger man, and not so conversant with the perplexities of travellers, he could not be so efficient in his help. The thing was soon settled. Signor —— remarked that if we took lodgings we should want a cook, and that housekeeping in an unknown town, for a short space of time, was fraught with annoyance. There was a new hotel just established, which desired to be made known to the English, and which therefore would be moderate in its charges. We went to see the rooms. The Hotel d’Italia is situated in a canal, three oar-strokes from the Canale Grande; so far we lost what is most to be coveted at Venice—the view from our window of this ocean stream, with its bordering palaces,—but we were within three minutes’ walk of the Place of Saint Mark. Our rooms were on the second floor, a bed-room apiece, and a salon, spacious, turned to the sun, and being but just furnished, clean in the excess of newness. Many a palace had been spoiled of its marble architraves and ornaments to decorate this new hotel. We made our bargain; we calculated that, everything included, each of our party 81would pay nine pounds a month for lodging and board.

This done, we returned with our kind friends to the Leone Bianco, as we are not to remove till tomorrow. Evening has come, and the moon, so often friendly to me, now at its full, rises over the city. Often, when here before, I looked on this scene, at this hour, or later, for often I expected S.’s return from Palazzo Mocenigo, till two or three in the morning; I watched the glancing of the oars of the gondolas, and heard the far song, and saw the palaces sleeping in the light of the moon, which veils by its deep shadows all that grieved the eye and heart in the decaying palaces of Venice. Then I saw, as now I see, the bridge of the Rialto spanning the canal. All, all is the same; but as the Poet says—

“The difference to me!”

82

LETTER VII. The Ducal Palace.—The Academia delle Belle Arti.

Venice, September.

I miss greatly the view of the Canale Grande from my window; however, the result, probably, of our being in a narrow canal will be, that I shall see much more of Venice: for were we among its most noble palaces, it would suffice and amply fill the hours, merely to loiter away the day gazing on the scene before us. As it is, though singularly Venetian—the wave-paved streets beneath, the bridge close at hand—the peep we get at wider waters at the opening,—it is but a promise of what we may find beyond, and tempts us to wander.

There is something so different in Venice from any other place in the world, that you leave at once all accustomed habits and everyday sights to enter enchanted ground. We live in a palace; though an inn, such it is: and other palaces have been robbed of delicately-carved mouldings and elegant marbles, to decorate the staircase and doorways. You know 83the composition with which they floor the rooms here, resembling marble, and called everywhere in Italy Terrazi Veneziani: this polished uniform surface, whose colouring is agreeable to the eye, gives an air of elegance to the rooms; then, when we go out, we descend a marble staircase to a circular hall of splendid dimensions; and at the steps, laved by the sea, the most luxurious carriage—a boat, invented by the goddess of ease and mystery, receives us. Our gondolier, never mind his worn-out jacket and ragged locks, has the gentleness and courtesy of an attendant spirit, and his very dialect is a shred of romance; or, if you like it better, of classic history: bringing home to us the language and accents, they tell us, of old Rome. For Venice

“Has floated down, amid a thousand wrecks

Uninjured, from the Old World to the New.”^[13]

With the world of Venice before us, whither shall we go? I would not make my letter a catalogue of sights; yet I must speak of the objects that occupy and delight me.

First, then, to the Ducal palace. A few strokes of the oar took us to the noble quay, from whose pavement rises the Lion-crowned column, and the tower of St. Mark. The piazzetta is, as it were, the vestibule to the larger piazza.

84But I spare description of a spot, of which there are so many thousand—besides numerous pictures by Cannaletti and his imitators, which tell all that can be told—show all that can be shown: to know Venice, to feel the influence of its beauty and strangeness, is quite another thing; perhaps the vignettes to Mr. Rogers’s Italy, by Turner, better than any other description or representation, can impart this.

From the piazzetta we entered a grass-grown court, once the focus of Venetian magnificence—for, at the top of that majestic flight of steps which rises from it, the Doges were crowned. The cortile is surrounded by arcades, decorated by two magnificent bronze reservoirs, and adorned by statues. The effect is light and elegant, even now that neglect has drawn a veil over its splendour. Yet Nature here is not neglectful; her ministrations may be said even to aid the work of the chisel and the brush, so beautiful are they in their effects.

The Scala de’ Giganti was before us, guarded by two almost colossal figures of Mars and Neptune, the size of whose statues gives the name to the steps: ascending them, we found ourselves in the open gallery that runs round three sides of the court, supported by the arcades. Yawning before us was the fatal lion’s mouth, receiver of those anonymous accusations, the terror of all, and destroyer of 85many of the citizens. Ringing a bell, we were admitted into the palace.

We do not visit it once only; day after day we wander about these magnificent, empty halls—sometimes going in by the hall of audience, sometimes ascending the Scala d’Oro, we enter in by the library. Sometimes we give ourselves up to minute view of the many frescoes, which record the history, the glories, and even the legends of Venice. At the dawn of the art, the more than royal government caused the walls to be thus adorned by Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, and subsequently by Titian: a fire unfortunately destroyed their work in 1577; and the present paintings are by Tintoretto, Paul Veronese, and others. On an easel in the library, is a picture in oil by Paul Veronese,—the Queen of Cyprus, Catherine Cornaro, a daughter of Venice, resigning her crown to the Doge—an iniquitous act enough on the part of the republic; as others, heirs of Cyprus, with claims more legitimate than Catherine’s, existed. There is the grace and dignity, characteristic of this painter, in the various personages of the group. It is to be raffled for, and the proceeds of the lottery are to be given to the infant schools; but the tickets are sold slowly, and the time when they are to be drawn is yet unfixed. There are marbles also, in this room, that deserve 86attention,—some among them are relics of antiquity; for the Rape of Ganymede is attributed to Phidias, and worthy of him. Sometimes we wander about, content only with the recollections called up by the spot; and we step out on the balconies which now command a view of the piazzetta, now of the inner courts, with a liberty and leisure quite delightful: and then again we pass on, from the more public rooms to the chambers, sacred to a tyranny the most awful, the most silent of which there is record in the world. The mystery and terror that once reigned, seems still to linger on the walls; the chamber of the Council of Ten, paved with black and white marble, is peculiarly impressive in its aspect and decorations: near at hand was the chamber of torture, and a door led to a dark staircase and the state dungeons.

The man who showed us the prisons was a character—he wanted at once to prove that they were not so cruel as they were represented, and yet he was proud of the sombre region over whose now stingless horrors he reigned. A narrow corridor, with small double-grated windows that barely admit light, but which the sound of the plashing waters beneath penetrates, encloses a series of dungeons, whose only respiratories come from this corridor, and in which the glimmering dubious day dies away 87in “darkness visible.” Here the prisoners were confined who had still to be examined by the Council. A door leads to the Ponte de’ Sospiri—now walled up—for the prisons on the other side are in full use for criminals: years ago I had traversed the narrow arch, through the open work of whose stone covering the prisoners caught one last hasty glimpse of the wide lagunes, crowded with busy life. Many, however, never passed that bridge—never emerged again to light. One of the doors in the corridor I have mentioned leads to a dark cell, in which is a small door that opens on narrow winding stairs; below is the lagune; here the prisoners were embarked on board the gondola, which took them to the Canal Orfano, the drowning-place, where, summer or winter, it was forbidden to the fishermen, on pain of death, to cast their nets. Our guide, whom one might easily have mistaken for a gaoler, so did he enter into the spirit of the place, and take pleasure in pointing out the various power it once possessed of inspiring despair; this guide insisted that the Pozzi and Piombi were fictions, and that these were the only prisons. Of course, this ignorant assertion has no foundation whatever in truth. From the court, as we left the palace, he pointed to a large window at the top of the building, giving token that the room within was airy and lightsome, 88and said with an air of triumph, Ecco la Prigione di Silvio Pellico!—Was he to be pitied when he was promoted to such a very enviable apartment, with such a very fine view? Turn to the pages of Pellico, and you will find that, complaining of the cold of his first dark cell, he was at midsummer transferred to this airy height, where multitudinous gnats and dazzling unmitigated sunshine nearly drove him mad. Truly he might regret even these annoyances when immured in the dungeons of Spielburg, and placed under the immediate and paternal care of the Emperor—whose endeavour was to break the spirit of his rebel children by destroying the flesh; whose sedulous study how to discover means to torment and attenuate—to blight with disease and subdue to despair—puts to shame the fly-killing pastime of Dioclesian. Thanks to the noble hearts of the men who were his victims, he did not succeed. Silvio Pellico bowed with resignation to the will of God—but he still kept his foot upon the power of the tyrant.

Having visited every corner of the palace, and heard the name given for every apartment, we asked for the private rooms in which the Doge slept and ate, which his family occupied. There were none. A private covered way led from these rooms to an adjoining palace, assigned for the private residence 89of the Doge. The council were too jealous to allow him to occupy the palace of the republic, except for the purposes of the state.

At other times, turning to the right, when we leave our canal, we are rowed up the Canale Grande to the Accademia delle Belle Arti, to feast our eyes on the finest works of Titian. The picture usually considered the chef-d’œuvre of this artist, the Martyrdom of St. Peter the Hermit, has, for the purpose of being copied, been removed from the dark niche in which it is almost lost in the church of the Saints Giovanni and Paolo, and is here. The subject is painful, but conceived with great power. A deep forest, in which the holy man is overtaken by his pursuers, sheds its gloom over the picture; his attendant flies, the most living horror depicted on his face; the saint has fallen, cut down by the sword of the soldier; an angel is descending from above, and, opening heaven, sheds the only light that irradiates the scene. It is very fine; but in spite of the celestial messenger, there is wanting that connecting link with Heaven,—the rapture of faith in the sufferer’s countenance, which alone makes pictures of martyrdom tolerable.

I was struck by the last picture painted by the venerable artist—Mary visiting the Tomb of Jesus. I was told that I ought not to admire it; yet I could 90not help doing so: there was something impressive in the mingled awe and terror in Mary’s face, when she found the body of Jesus gone.

The Marriage at Cana, by Paul Veronese, adorns these walls, removed from the refectory of the suppressed Convent of San Giorgio Maggiore. It is the finest specimen of the feasts which this artist delighted to paint; bringing together, on a large scale, groups of high-born personages, accompanied by attendants, and surrounded by a prodigality of objects of architecture, dress, ornaments, and all the apparatus of Patrician luxury. It is filled, Lanzi tells us, with portraits of princes and illustrious men then living.

We turned from the splendour of the feast to the more noble beauty of Titian’s Presentation of the Virgin—a picture I look at much oftener, and with far greater pleasure, than at the more celebrated Martyrdom. The Virgin, in her simplicity and youth; in the mingled dignity and meekness of her mien, as she is about to ascend the steps towards the High Priest, is quite lovely; the group of women looking at her, are inimitably graceful: there is an old woman sitting at the foot of the steps, marvellous from the vivacity and truth of her look and attitude. In another large apartment is the Assumption of Titian. The upper part is indeed glorious. The Virgin is rapt in a paradisiacal ecstacy as she ascends, 91surrounded by a galaxy of radiant beings, whose faces are beaming with love and joy, to live among whom were in itself Elysium. Such a picture, and the “Paradiso” of Dante as a commentary, is the sublimest achievement of Catholicism. Not, indeed, as a commentary did Dante write, but as the originator of much we see. The Italian painters drank deep at the inspiration of his verses when they sought to give a visible image of Heaven and the beatitude of the saints, on their canvass.

There are other and other rooms, all filled with paintings of merit. One hall contains the earlier productions of Gentile and Giovanni Bellini. The genius and the elevated piety of these painters give expression to the countenances; but the dry colouring, the want of foreshortening, the absence of grace everywhere except in the faces—which are often touchingly beautiful—all exhibit the infancy of the art.

The Academy contains also a hall for statues; in which the glossy marble of Canova’s Hebe looks, I am sorry to say, shrunk and artificial, beside the mere plaster casts of the nobler works of the Ancients.

92

LETTER VIII. Chiesa de’ Frari.—San Giorgio Maggiore.—Santa Maria della Salute.—Lido.—The Giudecca.—The Fondamenti Nuovi.—The Islands.—The Armenian Convent.

Venice, September.

There are three churches here in particular, which we have visited several times, with interest; the most venerable, the Westminster Abbey of Venice, is the church of Santa Maria de’ Frari, built in the middle of the thirteenth century. Every portion of this vast and noble edifice is filled with tombs and pictures, exciting respect and admiration. Many a Doge is here buried; and many monuments, some mausoleums in size and magnificence, some equestrian, some mere urns, Gothic or of the middle ages, crowd the walls. With more veneration we looked on the unadorned stone, inscribed with the honoured name of Titian. He died on the 9th September, 1575, at the age of ninety-nine, of the plague, and the visitation of this calamity caused the citizens to consign him hastily to the grave, without thought of marking it by any monument or inscription, so that the spot was almost 93forgotten. The mortuary registers of the church of S. Tommaso prove that he then died, and was here buried, and his name with a few words conjoined have been chiselled in the pavement. The republic of Venice projected a monument, which the troubled times and invasion of Napoleon prevented their accomplishing. Canova made a model subsequently; but, dying before he could execute it, the marble was entrusted to various sculptors, and is erected in his own honour in this church on the side opposite to the spot where Titian lies. There is something very impressive in the idea of this monument—a procession of figures entering the half-opened door of a dark tomb.

There are several pleasing pictures in the church, chiefly by Salviati; but its pride in painting is an altar-piece of Giovanni Bellini. He had lived long and painted much in fresco, when, at more than sixty years of age, he was initiated in oil painting by Antonello of Messina, and executed his chefs-d’œuvre,—a picture in the church of San Pietro, on the island of Murano, and that which we have looked at with interest and delight in the sacristy of this church. “It presents,” says Mr. Rio, “the imposing seriousness of a religious composition, in the figure of the Virgin, and in that of the saints which surround the throne on which she sits; in 94the faces of the angels it equals the most charming miniatures for freshness of colour and ingenuousness of expression. A foretaste of beatitude seems to have warmed the old man’s soul as he worked—he has removed the cloud of melancholy with which he formerly loved to cover the Virgin’s countenance; he no longer paints the Mother of the seven sorrows, but rather the cause of our joy.”^[14]

Exactly opposite our canal, at the entrance from the Quay to the Canale Grande, is the church of San Giorgio Maggiore; it is built chiefly from a model of Palladio, and is the noblest in Venice. Our gondola landed us at the spacious marble platform before the church. Its situation is most happy. Looked at from the Piazzetta, it is the most stately ornament of Venice. Looking from it, a view is commanded of the towers, and domes, and palaces, that illustrate the opposite shore. The church is immense, and adorned by several pictures of Titian. A convent adjoined, now destroyed; but as we rambled about, we found that they had kindly retained, and left open for the visits of strangers, the celebrated cloister, surrounded by an elegant colonnade of Ionic pillars, and the staircase, which is one of the boasts of Venice.

Somewhat above, within the Canale Grande, is the 95church of Santa Maria della Salute; this was built in 1631, a time when architecture had degenerated, and a multiplicity of ornaments was preferred to that simple harmonious style, whose perfection has to my eye the effect of one of Handel’s airs on the ear—filling it with a sense of exalted pleasure. Here was beauty, but it existed even in spite of the defects of the building; it sprang from its situation, its steps laved by the sea, its marble walls reflecting the prismatic colour of the waves, its commanding a view of great architectural beauty; within also it contains pictures of eminent merit.

The roof of the Sacristy possesses three Titians, which overpaid you for twisting your neck to look at them. Methinks they ought to convert the exclusive admirer of the mystic school, who would confine painting to the expression of one, it is true, of the most exalted among the passions—adoration, love, and contemplation of Divine perfection. These paintings are, what surely pictures ought to be allowed to be, dramatic in the highest sense; they tell a story; they represent scenes with unsurpassed truth and vigour. The killing of Goliath by David, is admirable. The countenance of the youthful hero, as he stands unarmed, “with native honour clad,” is instinct with the glow of victory, purified by his artless reliance on the God of his fathers. The Sacrifice of 96Isaac, is the only representation of that tremendous act that ever pleased me: generally it inspires pain—often disgust; a father, unimpassioned and pitiless, about to cut the throat of his innocent and frightened child. But Titian’s imagination allowed him to conceive the feelings that must have actuated and supported both father and son—that of unquestioning certainty that what God ordered was to be obeyed, not only without a murmur, but with alacrity and a serene conviction that good alone could be the result. In particular, the countenance of Isaac is the most touching commentary on this story; it displays awe of approaching death, without terror; it is solemn, and yet lit up by that glance into eternity, and unquestioned resignation to a will higher and better than his own, which alone could sanctify the horror of the moment.

But, perhaps, surpassing these in power, is the Death of Abel. Usually, you see a man striking his brother the death-blow, as it seems, with cold-blooded brutality: here, you behold the wild frenzy that transported the fratricide out of himself. I have seen the passion of violent and terrible anger well expressed in two pictures only—this one, and that at Berlin, where the Duke of Gueldres clenches his fist at his father.

One day, in one of our many rambles, we tried to 97get into a church, but it was at the worst hour for such a visit—between one and four—when the churches are closed. We tried to find the sacristan, when a workman came to us—“You cannot get in there,” he said; “but I will show you something.” He took us to the building at which he was at work—a convent for Dominicans. The French, during their rule, suppressed all the convents; they are being revived, even in Lombardy, where, till lately, there were none. There was nothing attractive in a modern house divided off into narrow cells, two of which were windowless, and pointed out as luoghi di castigo, by our guide; but it was curious (whether satisfactory or not, I leave to others to decide,) to see this building, narrow of dimensions, mean in its proportions, altogether insignificant in size and aspect, replace the stately edifices in which monks of olden time passed their fives.

The church of the Jesuits is in the ornate style dear to this order, and is even in worse taste than usual. Before the high altar is spread the imitation of a carpet, formed of party-coloured marbles. Even the pictures—many of which are by Palma—that hang around, are robbed of their beauty by their juxtaposition to heavy, inelegant ornaments.

We were glad to leave it, and to turn our steps to the church of the Saints Giovanni and Paolo, 98a very large and majestic edifice; it is more venerable than any other in Venice, and belongs to the middle ages; the name of the architect is lost: an inscription under the organ only tells us, that it was begun in 1246, and consecrated in 1430. It is filled with magnificent tombs of the old Doges, and rich in pictures by Bonifazio, Bassano, Bellini—the famous Martyrdom of Titian is taken hence. We often wander about its vast and stately nave, reading, with pleasure, the historical names on the tombs—taking delight in the many remains of the middle ages—and filled more and more with veneration for the energy, magnificence, and taste of the Venetians.

I cannot tell you of all we see, or it would take you as long to read my letter as we shall be at Venice. As we remain a month, we do not crowd our day with sights; our gondoliers come in the morning, and we pass our time variously. Sometimes, after visiting a single church, we are rowed over to Lido; and, crossing a narrow strip of sand, scattered with Hebrew tombstones, find ourselves on the borders of the ocean; we look out over the sea on vessels bound to the East, or watch the fishing-boats return with a favourable wind, and glide, one after the other, into port, their graceful lateen sails filled by the breeze. We thus loiter hours away, 99especially on cold days, when we have been chilled at home; but Lido has a heat of its own—its sands receiving and retaining the sun’s rays—which we do not enjoy among the marbles and pavements of Venice.

As the sun sinks behind the Euganean hills, we recross the lagune. Every Monday of this month is a holiday for the Venetian shopkeepers and common people; they repair in a multitude of gondolas to Lido, to refresh themselves at the little inn—to meet in holiday trim, and make merry on the sea-sands. We pass them in crowds as we return on that day. Our way is, sometimes (according as the tide serves,) under the walls of the madhouse, celebrated in Shelley’s poem of Julian and Maddalo—

“A windowless, deformed, and dreary pile.”

Yet not quite windowless; for there are grated, unglazed apertures—against which the madmen cling—and gaze sullenly, or shout, or laugh, or sing, as their wild mood dictates.

We often allow our gondolier to take us where he will; and we see a church, and we say, what is that? and make him seek the sacristan, and get out to look at something strange and unexpected. Thus we viewed the church of St. Sebastian, which contains the chef-d’œuvre of Paul Veronese, the Martyrdom of 100St. Mark. There is something in the works of this artist, which, without being ideal or sublime, is graceful and dignified—according to the dignity of this world;—his groups are formed of the high-born and high-bred, and all the concomitants of his pictures are conceived in the same style of mundane but elegant magnificence. Sometimes we walk: passing through the busy Merceria, we get entangled, and lose ourselves in the calle of Venice;—we see an open door and peep in, and ask where we are from a passer by; and hear a name of historic renown, and find ourselves viewing, by chance, one of the wonders of the place. A favourite walk is straight across towards the north, till we reach the Fondamenti Nuovi, a handsome quay, from which we command a view of many of the smaller islands; and far distant, the Julian Alps and the mountains of Friuli. It is to me a most exalted pleasure to look on these heaven-climbing shapes.

Sometimes, if the morning be “kerchiefed in a comely cloud,” and it feels chilly, we cross merely to the Canale della Giudecca, which is almost a lagune, and being very much wider than the Canal Grande, is not so convenient for common traffic; a handsome street or quay, turned to the south, borders the water—which, receiving the noonday sun, forms a pleasant and warm promenade.

101Madame de Genlis exclaims, “Quelle triste ville que Venise!” For those who love the confusion and clatter of carriages, the garish look of smart shops, and a constant flux and reflux of passers-by, it is indeed dull. There is no noise (except the church bells, of which there is too much)—no dust; the waters sparkle silently at your feet; the marble palaces catch their radiance and are dressed in prismatic colours, reflected from the waves. It is a place where you may dream away your life, quite forgetful of the rubs, thorns, and hard knocks of more bustling cities.

But if Venice be tranquil, come with me beyond Venice, and tell me what name to give to the superlative stillness that reigns when we cross the lagunes to the islands—Murano, Mazzorbo, Burano Torcello. Little remains on them, except the churches, built in the younger days of Venice; several of these are magnificent in marbles, and interesting from their pictures, painted in the infancy of the art. We rambled about, and our very footsteps seemed unnaturally to invade the stillness that dwells on these desert shores, beside the waveless lagune. For a time we might fancy ourselves—

“The first that ever burst

Into that silent sea.”

102We were pleased; but quiet became lethargy; and the dank grass and marshy ground looked unhealthy. We were glad to be rowed back to Venice.

It was much pleasanter to visit the Armenian convent. This is the beau idéal of gentlemanly and clerical seclusion. Its peaceful library; its cultivated and shady garden; the travelled tastes of its inmates, who all come from the East, and are not imprisoned by their vows, but travel on various missions, even as far as that Ultima Thule which we consider the centre of all busy life—the view of the domes and towers of Venice; and further still, of the Euganean hills to the west, and of the Alps to the north; the sight you caught of some white sails on the far ocean;—all this gave promise of peace without ennui—a retreat—but not a tomb.

Thus I dwell on the beauty, the majesty, the dreamy enjoyments of Venice. I will now endeavour, though the time I stay is too short to enable me to observe much, to tell you something of the Venetians.

103

LETTER IX. Free Port.—Venetian Society.—Titles of the Nobility.—The Dotti.—Infant School.

October.

When I was here last, the duties on all imports to Venice were high, living became expensive, and the city languished;—it is now a free port; everything enters without paying the slightest toll, with the exception of tobacco. The Emperor of Austria grows a wretched plant, to which he gives this name, on his paternal acres, and will not allow his subjects to smoke anything else. If that were the only misdeed of his government, I should not quarrel with him, but only with the people, who do not thereon forego the idle habit of cigars altogether.

The free port gives a far greater appearance of life and activity to the city than it formerly had; and some luxuries—such as Turkish coffee, and, indeed, all things from the East, are much better and cheaper than with us. To the Venetians, coffee stands in lieu of wine, beer, spirits, every 104exciting drink, and they obtain it in perfection at a very low price. The Austrian is doing what he can to revive trade, so to increase his store; for two thirds of the taxes of the Regno Lombardo-Veneto go to Vienna. He desires that railroads should be made, and one is being constructed from Milan to Venice. Nay, they are in the act of building a bridge for the railroad carriages from Mestre to the centre of the city; however convenient, it is impossible not to repine at this innovation; the power, the commerce, the arts of Venice are gone, the bridge will rob it of its romance.

With scarcely any exception, all the Venetians of the higher ranks are at Villeggiatura at this season, so we have seen but very few of them. The manner in which the upper class live is, I fancy, monotonous enough. In the winter, the Viceroy comes from Milan to inhabit his palace, and gives a few balls. Some ladies open their houses for conversazioni in the evening; but the usual style is for each lady to have her circle, and the general drawing-room is the Opera-house; or they assemble in the Piazza of San Marco. There is a plentiful supply of chairs before the doors of the principal caffès, and they sit and converse. It is not etiquette for a lady to enter a caffè, and they are shocked at the English women, who do not perceive the difference 105between eating their ice, or sipping their coffee, in the open Piazza, and entering the shop itself. To sit or to walk, listening to the band, and exchanging visits in this glorious drawing-room, lighted up by the mighty lamps of heaven, is, especially to an unhacknied stranger, a very pleasant way of passing a summer evening. The caffè to which the noble Venetians resort, is that of Suttil. Foreigners go next door to Florian, where Galignani is taken in, which is an attraction to the English.

That reading does not flourish here, may be gathered from the fact that there is no circulating library, nor any literary society, such as are frequent in country towns in France and England, where people subscribe among one another for the supply of books. The French Consul tried to establish one, but did not succeed. I think it is Doctor Gregory who says, reading novels is better than a total incapacity to take an interest in books, since it enlarges the mind more than no reading at all. It is sometimes alleged, that in a state of society where there is no thought nor desire for the acquisition of knowledge, it is better not to read, than to imbibe the opium or exciting cordials of the usual run of novels. The question is, whether these works are not a step towards awakening a desire for nobler and more 106useful mental culture. Meanwhile, to live among a people who do not read—do not desire to learn—presents to us a singular phasis of society. What can they do? Many things, it may be said, remain for women in the discharge of their duties, without becoming blue; but the fact is, that a desire for improvement is the salt of the human intellect; that a wish to acquire knowledge is natural to a well-conditioned mind, and ought especially to exist among individuals of that class of society which enjoys uninterrupted leisure. The Italians are delicately organised, and have intuitive taste in music and most of the fine arts; but accomplishments, as they are called, cannot be cultivated to any extent, nor can even a love of duty subsist among the idle, which the Italians proverbially are.

Still, among the Venetians, as all over Italy, you must not suppose because they are ignorant—because they live in a confined routine—because to make love in their youth, and take care of their money in later years, be the occupation of the greater number, that you find the provincial tone of a French or English country town. Graceful manners—accents modulated by the kindest courtesy—suavity that is all gentleness, and a desire to do more than please, to be useful, is innate among them—it reigns in every class of society, and wins irresistibly.

107When I was last at Venice, many many years ago, I knew no Venetians, and it so happened that the English whom I saw chose to erect themselves into censors of this people, and to speak of them in unmeasured terms of censure. New to Italy, we believed those who had lived there long. Shelley, in his letters and poems, echoes these impressions. I cannot pretend to say with what justice such opinions were formed: I do not know whether the Venetians are improved. If a foreigner came to England, and chose to associate with the most vicious of our country people, both nobles and that worst race who live by the vices of the rich, he might find as much to abhor as Lord B— represented as detestable at Venice. But then there is another class among us,—and he declared there was no other here. We know, indeed, generally speaking, that Italian morality is not ours; but if it falls short in some things, perhaps in others, if we knew them well, we should be obliged to confess its superiority.

The duties of husband and wife are in England observed with even more sanctity than they obtain credit for. But in how many instances do our affections and duties begin and end there—with the exception of those exercised by the parents towards their very young children. We all know 108that when a son or daughter marries, they literally fulfil the dictum of Adam, “therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave unto his wife.” Our family affections centre in the small focus of the married pair, and few and ineffectual are the radii that escape and go beyond.

Now, it must be acknowledged that, however endearing at the outset, however necessary and proper, to a certain extent, such a state of things may be, it often degenerates after a little time into the most sordid selfishness. The Italians are deficient in this self-dedication to one, but they have wider extended family attachments, of a very warm and faithful description. We who consider it a necessity of life to have a menage to ourselves—each couple in its nest—cannot understand the harmony and affection nourished in a little republic, often consisting of grandfather and grandmother, who may be said to have abdicated power, and live in revered retirement—their days not counted and grudged, as with us is too frequently the case: then comes father and mother, respected and loved—and then brothers and sisters. If a sister marries, she becomes a part of another family, and goes away. The son brings his wife under his father’s roof; but the size of their houses renders them independent in their daily life. The younger sons are not apt to 109marry, because, in addition to their want of fortune, too many women, essentially strangers, would thus be brought under one roof, and would be the occasion of discord. We know how readily the human heart yields to a law which it looks on as irrefragable; submitting to single life, uncles learn to love their nephews and nieces as if they were their own offspring, and a strong family chain is thus formed. A question may arise as to how much of family tyranny turns these links into heavy fetters. In the first place, their families are seldom as numerous as with us. The necessities of their position fall lightly on the males. All over the world younger sons seldom marry; or only do so to exchange luxury for straitened circumstances; and younger sons who continue to grow old under the paternal roof, sharing by right the luxuries to which they were born, and in which they were educated, are better off than our younger sons, who are often thrust forth from the luxurious home of their youth, to live on a bare pittance in a wretched lodging.

Unmarried women all over the Continent have so much the worst of it, that few remain single. How they contrive to dispose of their girls, now convents are in disuse, I cannot tell; but, as I have said, there are not so many as with us, and they usually contrive to marry. At times you may find a maiden aunt, 110given up to devotion, who sheds a gentle and kindly influence over the house. It does not strike me that, as regards daughters who survive their parents, things are much better managed with us.

This family affection nurtures many virtues, and renders the manners more malleable, more courteous, and deferential. For the rest, though I cannot pretend to be behind the scenes—and though, as I have said, their morality is confessedly not ours—I am sure there is much both to respect as well as love among the Italians.

The great misfortune which the nobles labour under is, in the first place, a bad education, and afterwards the want of a career. The schools for children are as bad as they can be;—at their universities there is a perpetual check at work, to prevent the students imbibing liberal opinions; for as the governments of Italy consider that those who dedicate themselves to study and reflection are sure to be inimical to them, so do they look on such with jealousy and distrust, while sharp watch is kept on the professors, to prevent their ranging beyond the bounds of science, into the demesnes of philosophy.^[15] Young 111men at college, however, are all liberal, all ardent for the freedom of their country, all full of the noblest, though too often the most impracticable views for her regeneration. They leave college,—and what is to become of them? If they have already distinguished themselves for boldness of opinions, or even for great capacity and love of knowledge, they are marked men; they are not permitted to travel;—in any case they have no career, unless they give in at once their adherence to Austria; and, certainly, however hopelessness or misfortune may tame and induce them to do this in after times, at their first outset in life, an Italian would feel as if, in so doing, he were a traitor to his country. Some few there are—as many perhaps as with us—chosen spirits, who can pursue their course, devoted to study, or the service of their fellow creatures—abstracted from the frivolity or vices of society. But the majority have either never felt the true touch of patriotism and a desire for improvement, or find such incompatible with worldly pleasure. There is little or no public employment; 112the marine is but a name; the army, no true Italian would enter; if they did, they would be quartered far away from their native country, in Hungary or Bohemia; they have nothing to occupy their minds, and of course plunge into dissipation. Play is the whirlpool that engulphs most of them. As with us during the middle of the last century—as among a certain set of our present aristocracy—play is their amusement, their occupation, their ruin;—many of the noblest Italian families are passing away, never more to be heard of, the heirs of their wealth having lost all in play.—New men, mostly of Jewish extraction, who have gained by banking, stock jobbing, and money lending, what the others have lost by their extravagance, are rising on their downfall.

A curious anomaly exists among the nobility of the north of Italy. It is well known that titles in England are on a different footing from those on the Continent, and hence are far more respected. In England, a peer is an hereditary legislator, he is certain to possess a comparatively large fortune; so that, to be a noble with us, is to be in the possession of power and influence. His sons, except the eldest, enjoy little of all this, and in the next generation they sink into untitled gentry. In Italy, indeed every where abroad, the descendants of a noble are also noble to the end of time. The individuals of 113this order, in consequence, intermarry only among one another, and flourish as a numerous class, wholly apart; but of course the respect in which titles are held is greatly diminished, as power and fortune by no means constantly attend them.

At present many of the most illustrious families of Venice and Lombardy have lost their titles. Thus it happened. On Napoleon’s downfall, when Venice and her territories and other parts of Northern Italy were ceded to Austria, the kingdom Lombardo-Veneto was formed, and all those persons who wished to become nobles of the new state, were ordered to prove their titles by producing the diplomas and documents establishing the same. The Venetians could easily have complied, since the names of the nobility were, under the republic, inscribed in the libro d’oro; for, although the original of this book was burnt by the republicans in 1797, several copies existed; and the Venetian nobles were informed, that on presenting a petition to request leave, and paying the tax or fees, they might retain the titles of their forefathers. Many who were descended from families which had given doges to the state, refused to petition.—“What is the house of Hapsberg,” they said, “that it should pretend to ennoble the offspring of old Rome?” Nor would they deign to request honours 114from the invaders of their country, who carried their insolence so far as to demand proof of noble origin from those who, for centuries, had illustrated the pages of history with their names.^[16]

The nobility of Lombardy were also called upon to ask for the confirmation of the titles which they already possessed, by producing the documents that proved them. Very few were able to comply, as the Jacobins had destroyed their papers when they seized on all public and private archives, and burned them. Thus many of the most ancient and illustrious families are deprived of the titles which, for centuries, they enjoyed. These regulations concern that portion of Lombardy lately incorporated 115in the Austrian kingdom. With regard to the Milanese nobility, and that belonging to the states which Austria possessed before the French Revolution, the edicts touched only the new nobility, for which the Austrian government entertained an antipathy, and was desirous of finding a pretence for depriving of rank; it was often enabled to succeed by taking advantage of some flaw in their diplomas, or in the manner in which they had fulfilled the conditions contained in the article of the constitution which treats of feudal tenures. It also forced the nobles of Lombardy, who had received additional rank, to choose whether they would belong to the ancient nobility by their old titles, or to the modern by their new. Litta and Visconti, who had been made dukes, as well as others who had been advanced in rank, chose the former, and thus, though of ancient race, belong to the new nobility.

But to return to the more important topic of the state of knowledge in Italy—for this matter of titles is held by themselves in great contempt, and only thought of as marking the desire of Austria to arrogate power and to annoy. The Italians care very little for titles; and I have often heard them say, that until they visited France or England, they scarcely knew or cared whether they possessed any.

You must not suppose, from what I say, that Italy 116in no way shares in the enlightenment of the present times. Moreover, the Emperor of Austria admits the diffusion of science in his dominions. Happy Italians, to whom is conceded one path, on which their minds may proceed in the journey onwards for which God created man. The Austrian government is aware that their own native subjects can go pottering on with theories and science, without one aspiration to become men, in the free and noble sense of self-government, stirring in their hearts: it supposes that it will be the same in Italy; but the people of this country are made of different clay; and it seems to me, that as Jehovah hardened the heart of Pharaoh for his own destruction, so does he soften the heart of Prince Metternich, thus to admit a system of improvement into Lombardy, which will hereafter prove the instrument of the overthrow of his power. Science is generally pursued by clever Italians as a mode of employing their understandings, which does not excite the suspicion of government; and scientific meetings, such as assemble with us at stated times in the great provincial towns, take place yearly in Italy. This season the learned met in Padua; and at the inn where we refreshed ourselves in that city, we found tables spread for three hundred Dotti, as they are called. A ridiculous story came to us the other day from across the 117lagune. A student of the university looking over the bridge, and seeing come up the river a barge full of pumpkins, cried out, “Vengono i dotti—see, they have sent their heads before them!” Testa di zucca, or pumpkin-head, answers to our phrase of blockhead. This, however, was regarded as a serious insult, and the offender has been put under arrest, and is to be imprisoned till the great men leave Padua.

There is another point for which the government shews toleration, on condition that its own political catechism is taught—infant schools. I visited one, and was much interested. It belongs to our district of Venice, and is one among many. It was for both boys and girls under the age of nine. I saw the girls’ room first. They learn according to the system now prevalent everywhere for teaching the poor—Bell’s and Lancaster’s, as it used to be called. There were some thirty or forty girls; and I am sorry to say they did not shew so well as the boys; the cause, I trust, being that the head-teacher, a priest, attended only to the latter. I do not mean to detract from the governesses who presided over both schools: they seemed sensible and zealous, and in every way the whole thing was respectable. But the priest, a young man, has a passion for arithmetic; he teaches it with ardour to his pupils, who have a 118happy knack for the same; and the sums we witnessed brought to a happy conclusion by these little fellows, all under nine years of age, and one between seven and eight being the cleverest, were to me quite prodigious. Once the master disputed a point; the boys insisted they were right, and so it proved. We gave the stuns. As to the correctness of the computation, we trusted a good deal to the honour of the governesses and master; but in truth, to see the eager and intelligent way in which the boys answered, was quite sufficient, for no one could be so ready and glad unless he felt himself in the right. These children were not pretty. I have often remarked, that handsome as the Italian common people are, their children (probably from bad food) are seldom good-looking.

Unfortunately, when the children leave the infant schools, their education ends; they fall back on the habits of indolence and ignorance indigenous here. How far their arithmetical studies may conduce to their honesty, I cannot guess. I am not one of those who say,

“Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.”

A little light is better than total darkness; especially in Italy, where the cleverness of the people prevents their ever becoming stupid. They must learn something; and a little good is better than all bad.

119

LETTER X. Venetian Palaces.—Gondolieri.—Basilica of St. Mark.—Opera.—Illumination of the Fenice.

Venice, October.

Many of the palaces of Venice still preserve their pictures, and shew, in their numbers and beauty, the wealth and taste of the families in old time. The Palazzo Manfrin contains, I think, the largest and most choice collection. It has some incomparable pictures by Giorgione, the contemporary, and rival, of Titian. He also was a pupil of Gian Bellini, but invented a style of his own, and first painted with that richness and grandeur of colouring which is the pride of the Venetian school. His pictures in the Palazzo Manfrin are wonderfully beautiful. The Deposition from the Cross, by Titian, is here: indeed, the collection is in every respect magnificent, and deserves many visits. In the Palazzo Mocenigo (which Lord Byron inhabited—there are two palaces Mocenigo: it is one of the most illustrious families of Venice), there is the design for the Paradiso of Tintoretto. In the Palazzo Pisani 120is an admirable picture by Paul Veronese—the Family of Darius at the feet of Alexander. It rises above his usual style of mere portraiture into the ideal. There is the true chivalrous expression in the mien and countenance of the youthful victor—the grandeur of habitual command, the dignity resulting from noble ambition; at the same time, you see that his very soul is touched by compassion for the fallen princesses, and the ingenuous shame which a generous mind feels on beholding those lately placed so high humiliate themselves before him, mantles in his face.

In the Barberigo Palace is the Maddalena Scapigliata of Titian. Her eyes, swollen and red, are raised to heaven, and her face is disfigured by much weeping. Her remorse, her vehemence of grief, differs wholly from the tender sorrow, chastened and supported by faith, of Correggio’s Magdalen. At first sight, the deformity of her features produced by violent weeping, is almost repulsive; but the picture gains on you; the real beauty of the countenance—a something of noble and soft, in spite of passionate sorrow and self-abasement—is perceptible through her tears.

We were taken to-day to see a modern picture painting for the Emperor. It is on a large scale—Foscari taking leave of his Father; his mother is fainting; the Doge, struggling with contending 121emotions, turns half away. The best figure is that of the son: the feebleness arising from physical suffering—veneration for his seemingly severe parent—grief, tenderness, and resignation—are well expressed in his kneeling figure and downcast face.

The Venetians are much interested at this moment by the restoration of the Pala of the high altar of St. Mark’s. It required an order to view it and the other precious objects preserved in the Treasury.

The Basilica of San Marco is the most singular among the edifices of Venice. Its strange Arab architecture denotes its great antiquity. The ancient chapel of St. Theodore (who, before the transfer of the body of St. Mark, was the patron saint of the city), built in 552, was incorporated in 828 in the ancient church of St. Mark, at the time when the bones of the Saint arrived. These edifices being consumed by fire, the foundations of the present were laid in 976, and completed in 1071; but even until the middle of the last century its internal decorations were not completed.

Every portion glistens with precious stones. Its walls are covered with pictures in Mosaic: its pavement, and the five hundred columns that adorn it, are composed of verde antique, jasper, porphyry, agate, and the most precious marbles. Usually, one cares little for such things; but here the barbaric 122magnificence—the Eastern aspect—the tombs of heroes it contains, and its association with the glories of the republic—combine to render the tribute of Mammon to Heaven interesting.

The high altar has two Pale: one covers the other. The internal one, a curiosity from its richness, has been taken down to be repaired. It is called the Pala d’oro, and is formed of enamel paintings on silver and gold, encrusted with a profusion of gems; it was executed at Constantinople by order of the Doge Piero Orseolo, under whose reign the Basilica was finished. It now forms the delight of Venice, and many noble ladies have contributed a quantity of gems, to replace those that have been lost. It is a curious specimen of the state of the arts in the middle ages, before it revived and received a soul from the great painters of Tuscany and Umbria. It is all glitter and richness, and a sort of barbaric elegance, without real taste.

The treasure of St. Mark once overflowed with wealth, in gems, pearls, and worked gold, chiefly transferred from Constantinople; these have all disappeared; the only objects that attract attention are an antique porphyry vase, with letters carved on it, such as are found in Persepolis—and a golden rose, one of those which it was the practice of the popes to present on certain occasions to catholic sovereigns. 123This had been presented to a doge of Venice; it was no meagre gift, being a very large bough, bearing many roses, all formed of the precious metal.

Each day we grow more familiar with this delightful city—favourite of Amphitrite and the Nereids; the little roots, generated by sympathy and enjoyment, begin to strike out, and I shall feel the violence of transplanting when forced to go. I look wistfully on some of the palaces, thinking that here I might find a pleasant, peaceful home; nor is the idea, though impracticable for me, wholly visionary. Several of the palaces, bereft of their old possessors, are used for public offices, or are let at a low rent. It is easy to obtain a house, whose marble staircase, lofty halls, and elegant architecture, surpass anything to be found in France or England. Several English gentlemen have taken apartments, and fitted them up with old furniture, and find themselves, at slight cost, surrounded by Venetian grandeur. No one can spend much money in Venice:—a gondola is a very inexpensive carriage; hiring one, as we do, costs four swanzikers a day—about four pounds a month, with a buona mano of half a swanziker a day to the gondolier, on going away.

Of course, if settled, you must build your own gondola; and to be respectable you must have two gondolieri in livery. The appearance of the boatmen 124dressed like footmen is, to my eye, the only inharmonious sight in Venice. These men used to be reserved only for the use of the gondola and carrying messages; but in these poorer days, they serve as domestics in the house; they are still, however, a race apart, thoroughly acquainted with every nook and corner of the city; intelligent, alert, zealous; ready (as we were told of old) to do any bad errand; but with such having nothing to do, we know nothing. We have two gondolas in our pay. One of the gondolieri is a favourite, Beppo, No. 303; the other, Marco, 307. We have no fault to find with either; and they join intelligence to exactness. At first, we would not engage Marco, because, accustomed to foreigners, he was proud of his scraps of bad French. We made a bargain with him that he should always speak Italian—Venetian we would not insist upon, for we should not understand him. I am almost sorry to know nothing of Venetian; it was the first dialect formed from Latin that was written. At the time when, in the other cities of Italy, the annals were drawn up in barbarous Latin, the Venetians made their records in their vernacular tongue, which remain to this day in multitudinous volumes in the Library of St. Mark. It has been averred that the first colonists from Padua brought this dialect of the 125Latin with them, and that it is a remnant of the vernacular of Roman Italy. Nine centuries later, the lingua Toscana could scarcely be said to exist; the language of Brunetto Latini, Dante’s master, being very scant and inefficient. I am told that Dante himself hesitated whether to write his “Divina Comedia” in Latin or Venetian, till fortunately he became aware that the talk of the common people of Tuscany possessed all the elements of expression; and he, collecting them with that life-giving power proper to genius, “created a language, in itself heroic and persuasive, out of a chaos of inharmonious barbarisms.”^[17] There is, I believe, even at this day, greater scope for wit and airy grace in Venetian than in Tuscan.

The gondolieri often sing at their oars; nor are the verses of Tasso quite forgotten. One delicious calm moonlight evening, as we were walking on the Piazzetta, an old gondoliere challenged a younger one to alternate with him the stanzas of the “Gerusalemme.” I have often wished to hear them. It was a double pleasure that I did not do so by command, but in the true old Venetian way, two challenging each other voluntarily, and taking up alternate stanzas, till one can remember no more, and the other comes off conqueror. We are told 126that the air to which they sing is monotonous: so it is; yet well adapted to recitation. The antagonists stood on the Piazzetta, at the verge of the laguna, surrounded by other gondolieri—the whole scene lighted up by the moon. They chanted the favourite passage, the death of Clorinda. I could only follow the general sense, as they recite in Venetian; but the subject of the verse, high and heroic, the associations called up—the beauty of the spot—a sort of dignity in the gestures of the elder boatman, and nothing harsh, though it might be monotonous, in their chaunt—the whole thing gave me inexpressible pleasure—it was a Venetian scene, dressed in its best; and the imagination was wrapped in perfect enjoyment.

The weeks pass away, and we are soon, I am sorry to say, about to leave Venice. We have taken our sight-seeing quietly, and each day has had a novel pleasure. It is one of our amusements to visit the piazza of San Marco at two in the afternoon, when, on the striking of the hour on the great clock, the pigeons come down to be fed. These birds are sacred to Saint Mark, and it is penal to kill any. They lead a happy life, petted by all the citizens. Now and then they may be served up at the dinner of a poor man; but they are too many not to spare, 127without grudging, an individual or two for the good of their maintainers.

We have visited the arsenal, a monument of the glory and commerce of Venice; silent, empty, useless. One poor brig lies in the harbour; it served during the late war in the East; and the young officer, who kindly acted as cicerone, had captured a Turkish flag, which showed fresh among ancient Venetian trophies. It seemed only a pretty compliment when I told him, that it gave me more pleasure than all the curiosities he was showing us; but I spoke the simple truth. Anything that demonstrates the valour and spirit of the present race of Italians, is more satisfactory to behold, than all the cobwebbed glories of old times.

No good opera is going on here. The Fenice, the large theatre, is only open during carnival. The most popular amusement is the famiglia Vianesi, about half a dozen children, who sing the Barbiere di Seviglia and the Elisir d’Amore. It was very wonderful, but not pleasing. There is a young and pretty prima donna—a mezzo soprano—Gazzaniga, who takes the part of Romeo in the Montecchi e Capuletti, and sings it very nicely; and there is an amusing buffo.

A grand opera was got up at Padua during the visit of the Dotti, and even Taglioni was engaged. 128There was a talk of her coming to Venice, but it fell to the ground. However, after the learned had dispersed, the operatic company crossed the lagune, bringing the decorations of Robert le Diable. The Italians do not understand German music. They bring it out because it has been praised; but they do not like it; and alter it, and try to make it coincide with their taste, and spoil it completely.

The Emperor Ferdinand’s uncle, and the heir presumptive of the imperial crown, is come to spend a day here, and it is thought proper to mark his visit by a festival. The Piazza di San Marco has been illuminated—only with a mezza illuminazione, but still it was very beautiful; nor can anything be otherwise in the magnificent theatre of this stately square.

In addition they opened the opera-house of the Fenice, and lighted it up. An illuminara in one of the great opera-houses is almost a national event in an Italian town: I never witnessed one before, and now could understand the excitement that it occasions. The price of boxes was very high, some sixty swanzikers and more. Signor —— kindly brought me the keys of a very good box, opposite that occupied by the royal party. We went early; the whole house was full; the passages and corridors, all brilliantly lighted, were filled with the common people—admitted without paying. Nothing could be more 129animated, more gay. Our gondolier, one of whose offices this is, paid for us, and showed us the way to our box. When the door opened we were dazzled: it was like a scene in fairy land. Accustomed to our few wax candles, and the deforming, sombre light of gas, the innumerable lights that shed more than day over the whole house, produced an effect of brilliancy and elegance quite indescribable.

There had been much debating as to the opera, Gazzaniga wished to have the Montecchi e Capuletti, as she shone in the part of Romeo; but the primo buffo did not like to be excluded from singing before H. R. I. H. Accordingly, the opera of Chi dura Vince was fixed on, in which Gazzaniga had a prominent serio-comic part. The story of the play is similar to that of our Honeymoon; and the way in which she acted the angry, deluded bride was very amusing. This opera is by Ricci, and has a few agreeable airs in it—though nothing rising above mediocrity. The Archduke went away before the opera was over. Royal personages labour so very hard; and the Archduke was to leave Venice at four the following morning. He went in a steamer to view the sea-wall building at Malamocco, and thence is to proceed by steam to Trieste. Another steamer accompanied him; and the first people of Venice, and all strangers, were invited, as for a party of 130pleasure. I had a sort of fore-feeling I should not like it; for though I was assured the steamer would make the voyage in the lagune on this side Lido, I did not quite believe that to be possible. So it proved—the steamers took to the open sea, which was rather rough; and though plenty was provided to refresh and entertain the guests, very little was eaten.

131

LETTER XI. Journey to Florence.—Cold and rainy Season.—Excursion to Vallombrosa.

October 30th.

We have taken flight, over plain, river, and mountain, and are arrived in the beautiful city of Italy—Firenze la Bella. We parted excellent friends with the host of l’Hôtel d’Italie, who had shown himself anxious to please, and fair in his dealings. A vetturino journey is always somewhat tedious, and the deep roads neighbouring the Po, having been damaged by rain and flood, our progress was more than usually slow. We were drawn by two admirable little horses, and their avaricious master taxed their strength to the utmost. He had demanded more from us, alleging the necessity of extra horses, but grudged the price asked, and went on merely with his own. The stinginess of this fellow had its reward in riches, for he told us he was called Il Miliorino. This it is that makes avarice an incurable vice. It can never be satiated, for it ever wants more; and it is seldom disappointed, for it 132gains its ends more passively than actively, and its success depends on self, not on others; but this it is also that renders it so despicable. “Tell him his soul lives in an alley,” said Ben Jonson, when Charles I. sent him a niggard gift. The souls of the avaricious live in the narrowest of all alleys; they are shut up in the dreariest solitary confinement, from which they have not the spirit to escape.

We contrived to peep at a few pictures. At Padua, we paid a hurried visit to one or two churches adorned by frescoes by some of the earlier masters, admirable for the artless gesture—the earnest, rapt expression—the power of shewing the soul breathing in the face. Every painter who aims at the ideal—at expressing the purer and higher emotions of the soul, ought to make a particular study of these early Christian paintings; they must not imitate them—true genius, indeed, cannot imitate. He can catch the light which the labours of his predecessors throw over his path; but he will proceed on one shaped out by himself. To imitate Perugino would be to write poetry in the obsolete language of Chaucer. Yet every English writer ought to be familiar with the pathos, sweetness, and delicate truth of one of our greatest poets.

I was sorry not to spend more time at Ferrara; 133and in particular not to revisit the galleries, and palaces, and churches of Bologna. To have seen these once was no excuse for not seeing them again; but I could not.

I cannot say why, but the impression left on my mind of the passage of the Appenines had been unfavourable, and I was agreeably surprised to find the scenery far more varied—richer in wood, and more picturesque than I expected. The mountain inns are all much improved since I last crossed. Evening closed as the valley in which Florence is situated opened before us; the descent is rapid, ending almost at the gate of the city itself. We traversed it at its greatest length, from the Porta San Gallo to Schneiderff’s Hotel, where very uncomfortable rooms were assigned to us.

This, and the expense of the hotel, made us eager to take apartments. I was instantly employed in the wearisome task of finding them. There are a great many, but still it was difficult to find such as we wanted. There were several numerous and handsome suites of rooms at a high price, and a great number of narrow and uncomfortable ones tolerably cheap. Neither suited us. We at last fixed on a second floor, on the Lungo l’Arno. The rooms are nearly all turned to the south, and look over the river: they are not large, but they are clean and 134neat. We are sure of the sun whenever he shines; which is a great desideratum, especially in an Italian winter, when the presence of sunshine often admits of an absence of fire. We have engaged our rooms for four months. It is very cold—as cold as it can be in England.

November.

To cold has succeeded rain, with a few sunny days to break the dreariness of the season; but I believe you in England are enjoying fine weather, and, strange to say, we hear that in Rome and Naples the rain is still more continuous and chill. Walking is out of the question; and driving,——how I at once envy and despise the happy rich who have carriages, and who use them only to drive every afternoon in the Cascine—the Hyde Park of Florence. If I could, I would visit every spot mentioned in Florentine history—visit its towns of old renown; and ramble amid scenes familiar to Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch, and Macchiavelli.

The fault of Florence is, that it is built in a basin, too entirely and too closely shut in by mountains, which collect the clouds, and render the air stagnant; so that it is hot in summer; and in winter, when there is snow on the Appenines, sharply cold. Now that there is no snow, the season being mild, we have the other alternative of rain and mist. Sometimes 135the Arno rises so high that it threatens a flood: on these occasions, it is watched and guarded like a wild beast, and every inch, as it rises, is proclaimed. I like to hear it, roaring and rushing in its course—

“Per aver pace co’ seguaci sui,”

as Dante says of the Po; and any one witnessing the turbulence of these tideless Italian rivers when swollen by rains; who views their precipitate speed, and listens to their thunder, as the mountain torrents, named by the poet their pursuers, come dashing after, to augment their fury—whoso sees this, is conscious that in this passage Dante displays his peculiar and high power of putting a sentient soul into nature, and representing it to our minds by images suggested by a quick and poetic feeling of her vitality.

During the intervals between the rainy days, the mists hang as dense and low over the city as they used to rest over the valley of Dolgelly during last year’s wintry summer. But when the sun does shine, and when the smiles of Nature call me forth, I cross the Ponte alle Grazie—I leave the town by the gate of San Miniato, and ascend the steep hill to the platform before the little elegant church (San Miniato fuore delle mura) on which Michael Angelo delighted to fix his eyes, calling it “La bella villanella.” From the height, you command a view of the city, crowned by dome and tower, of the Appenine that 136slopes down to cradle it in its green lap; and of the Arno, that, having forced its way among the mountains, now hurries on towards the marine plain. This view, and the climate also of Florence, was injured not many years ago, when the forests, that clothed the mountain sides, were cut down, to be replaced by the olive—a more profitable growth. But the removal of the forests opened the gullies of the hills; took away the check formerly opposed to the violent tramontana; which collects its strength on the snowy peaks, and rushes down the bared sides with mightier power.

I look on those glorious hills, and turn to a map of Italy, and long to lose myself in their depths, and to visit every portion of Tuscany; every smaller town and secluded nook of which, is illustrious through historical association. It is my dream to set out some day on this ramble, and see places untrod by the usual tourist; but now I cannot.

However, we could not resist the temptation of visiting Vallombrosa. It is true this is not the season for excursions, autumn being too far advanced; but a fine day gave us promise, we hoped, for the same on the morrow: so we hired a vettura and set out.

The road skirts the river, and winds up the Valdarno, the slopes of whose inclosing hills are thickly studded with country seats. It was a 137showery day; but the sun shone at intervals, and brightened the stream and mountain sides. The road is new and good. At about one o’clock we reached a small town where a cattle fair was going on.^[18] After some little delay, however, we got ponies and a guide, and proceeded. We now fell upon a true mountain path, winding up the hill beside a brawling torrent; the crags rose high above, and the branches of noble forest-trees were spread over our path—truly they were in the sear and yellow leaf; but the place was the more consonant with Milton’s verse—

“Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks

In Vallombrosa, where th’ Etrurian shades

High, over-arched embower.”

As we climbed higher, a shower of sleet came on, and we arrived wet through at the Convent. No women are admitted within these sacred walls, but a forestiera is built adjoining for our accommodation.

The grassy plain, or platform, before the Convent is at the head of a huge gully or ravine, which 138slopes down towards the valley of the Arno. A mist hung over the scene; but in summer-time it must be—what it is named—Paradise.

Vallombrosa is situated on the verge of the mountainous region of the Casentino. This district is little known; it vies with Switzerland or the Tyrol in beauty; covered by forests, resonant with streams, the valleys that intervene are green and fertile. Cortona is its capital. Its nobility is of high antiquity, and the peasantry are attached to it with a sort of feudal sense of vassalage.

We arrived wet through. The lay-brother made a good fire, and asked us what refreshment we would have. We had already dined, so he brought us some excellent coffee, and a chasse of rosolio, such as is only to be found distilled by the Monks of this Convent.

The rain made the scene dreary; but it ceased at last, and we mounted our ponies. The sun broke out as we descended; and the sparkling torrent murmured softly as it danced along. I hailed it with delight, as one of—

“Li ruscelletti, che de’ verdi colli

Del Casentin discendon giuso in Arno,

Facendo i lor canali e freddi e molli;”—

Verses are these that might refresh a thirsty wanderer in a hot sandy desert. There is scarcely a 139spot in Tuscany, and those parts of the North of Italy, which he visited, that Dante has not described in poetry that brings the very spot before your eyes, adorned with graces missed by the prosaic eye, and yet which are exact and in perfect harmony with the scene.

There are three convents, Vallombrosa, Calmaldoli, and Laverna, situated in the depths of the district of the Casentino, of which visitors make the tour. Monks of old were wise to choose spots of extreme beauty, however solitary, for their life of seclusion, peace, and praise.

140

LETTER XII. Art at Florence.—Cosimo Rosselli.—Ghirlandajo.—Beato Fra Angelico.—Poccetti.—Later Florentine School.

January, 1843.

Florence contains a multitude of various paintings, which to describe, or even to classify, would demand a volume, and would require a knowledge of the art, the elements even of which I do not possess. I have not the remotest pretension to being a connoisseur; nor do I say, as some have done, “I do not know what is called good, but I know what pleases me”—giving it to be understood, by these words, that they have an untaught instinct, transcending culture of the student. I believe, in all matters of art, good taste results from natural powers joined to familiarity with the best productions. To read sublime poetry, to hear excellent music, to view the finest pictures, the most admirable statues, and harmonious and stately architecture, is the best school in which to learn to appreciate what approaches nearest to perfection in each.

M. Rio satisfactorily proves that the modern art 141of painting resulted from the piety of the age in which it had birth. The adoration of images—or, if that expression be too strong, the having recourse to images for the purpose of concentrating, vivifying, and exalting the faith of the worshippers—created a demand (to use a phrase of the day) for pictures on religious subjects. At first this was satisfied by paintings of the Byzantine school, to which custom gave sanctity. But when men of eminent piety, gifted with pictorial powers, turned their talents to representing bodily to the eye, the Saviour of the world, the chaste sinless mother of God, or saints, who through their faith form a portion of the hierarchy of heaven, and are admitted by the Judge to mediate for their fellow-creatures, they depicted all that their souls could conceive of sublime and holy in the face of man, seeking to present

“Of good, wise, just, the perfect shape.”^[19]

It is with extreme delight that I have viewed some of the works of the elder Florentine painters, who excelled in pourtraying the human countenance lighted up by the nobler passions. Simplicity and innocence; rapt enthusiasm, or dignified repose, characterise their various productions. It has been remarked that Shakspeare’s personages speak the very 142words which we may imagine that our noble selves would say under the suggestions of certain passions, dispositions, and circumstances. So it may be said that every figure painted by these higher artists looks an individual chosen among our species for nobility of bearing and beauty of countenance, and that their attitude and look strictly belong to them. There is nothing theatrical nor affected, which is the Charybdis—nor anything constrained or inane, which may be termed the Scylla of the art.

Among the compositions eminent for the conjunction of the truth of nature and ideal beauty, is the fresco of Cosimo Rosselli, in the church of Saint Ambrosio. The subject is the translation of the miraculous chalice to the episcopal palace. It is replete with figures of various aspect, but all expressive of the sentiment of worship and admiration proper to the occasion. There is a group of women in particular, which, if such lived and assembled in the churches of Florence, show that personal beauty and graceful dignity then existed among the sex in a degree unparalleled elsewhere. But these evidently are not mere portraits; and the painter, though accustomed to associate with a race occupied by nobler thoughts and desires than now for the most part harbour in the brain and heart of women, yet idealised his actual experiences.

143There is another picture of this age, which to see, is to feel the happiness which the soul receives from objects presented to the eye, that kindle and elevate the imagination. It represents the Adoration of the Magi, by Ghirlandajo, in the chapel of an hospital in the Piazza della Annunziata. There is one of the Kings standing on one side of the Virgin, which might (as the Apollo Belvidere is said to have done), create a passion in a woman’s heart. Where on earth find a man so full of majesty, gentleness, and feeling? There is a charming accessory to this picture. In the back-ground is represented the Murder of the Innocents, in all its terror; but immediately in the foreground, on each side of the Virgin, kneel two children—the souls of the Innocents who died for Christ, and are redeemed by him. The attitude of these babes, especially of one, has that inexpressible charm of innocence which words cannot convey, and which since the creation of man, the pencil has seldom been able to depict.

Led by the admiration which this picture excited, I visited every other in Florence by Ghirlandajo; they mostly bear the stamp of the power I have mentioned. Vasari, albeit of a different school, praises him highly, but chiefly for the naturalness and truth with which he pourtrayed the feelings; and speaks of the wonder excited by those effects, 144and the pleasure they produced in the beholders. Describing one of the paintings in a chapel of the Church of the Santa Trinità, at Florence, representing the Death of St. Francis, and the grief of the monks, he says, “there is one friar who kisses his hand; and it is not possible, in painting, better to pourtray the expression; and there is besides a bishop, with spectacles on, who is singing vespers, not hearing whom is the only testimony that it is a mere painting.”

Lanzi speaks of his perfection of outline, grace of attitude, truth of ideas, and of his facility and rare diligence. He was the master of Michael Angelo; and, it is said, envying the talents his pupil displayed, contrived that he should quit painting for sculpture. But this, I have no doubt, is a calumny. He is one of the most prolific among the early Florentine painters; but, among his many pictures, I liked none so well as the Adoration of the Magi I before mentioned, and the Life of St. Francis, in a chapel dedicated to this Saint, in the Church of the Santa Trinità.

The Beato Fra Angelico surpasses all his contemporaries in the celestial sweetness he infuses into the countenances of his saints and angels. We may believe ourselves regarding the blessed in the kingdom of heaven, as we look at these creations 145of a mind cradled in love, charity, and devotion. Fra Giovanni, of Fiesole, known as the blessed Fra Angelico, presents in his life the very type of a Christian ecclesiastic. He gave himself wholly up to piety and good works. His humility was such, that when Pope Nicholas V. desired to make him Archbishop of Florence, he represented to his Holiness that he did not feel himself formed to govern the many, and implored him to name another more worthy in his stead. “It appears, from this holy man,” says Vasari, “that the monks of his time did not desire to obtain those burthensome honours which they did not think that they could worthily fulfil, and were ready to yield them to others whom they judged more capable—as did this truly angelic father, who spent his life in the service of God, and in benefiting the world and his neighbour; and what more can be desired by man than by living holily to attain the kingdom of heaven, and acting worthily to acquire eternal fame on earth.” Fra Angelico was no lazy priest—besides his works elsewhere, Florence abounds with lovely images whose serene and blessed faces breathe the virtues of their author. The delicacy and softness for which he is remarkable never degenerates into insipidity. His pure taste made him conceive the highest beauty, his faith gave him a foretaste of beatitude, and he adorned with 146these attributes the beings whom alone he consented to represent, the saints and angels of Paradise.^[20]

We had a curious scene in the sacristy of the church of Santa Maria Novella, whither we went to hunt for one of the works of this angelic artist; the reliquaries mentioned by M. Rio; consisting of two tablets painted with a series of miniatures, representing the Life of Jesus Christ; the Last Judgment, in which the beatitude of the elect appears in all its living ecstasy, and St. Thomas Aquinas and Albert the Great, surrounded by their disciples. For a long time the keys could not be found of the closet in which these reliquaries were deposited; and a most active hunt after them was made. At length they came to light, and the tablets were brought out. The Dominican, who took every pains to find them for us, had lately arrived from Rome, and had never seen them. His almost childish delight, as he regarded the inexpressible loveliness of these exquisite miniatures, was highly amusing. Whenever you have to do with an Italian, you do not encounter the doltish ignorance 147of an English clown, nor the dogged sullenness of a German. He takes pleasure in your pleasure, and interests himself in the objects which are exciting your interest, in a manner at once gratifying to us and honourable to himself.

Of a later age is Poccetti, unnamed by Vasari, because, when he wrote, he had not painted the pictures which render him one of the most admirable fresco painters in the world: Florence is full of his works, and every one may be visited with pleasure and profit, for he depicts Nature in her truth and yet in her elegance;—if that word denotes the power of displaying in the demeanour and attitude, and countenances of men, their souls defecated of every meaner quality—dignified through unaffected self-forgetfulness—animated by charity—beaming with faith.—One of his most renowned works is a series of frescos in the cloister of the convent of the Santissima Annunziata: they represent the conversion, holy life, and death, of seven Florentine gentlemen, who dedicated themselves to religion under the name of Servi di Maria. The aspect and bearing of these holy men mark them as gentlemen in the best sense of the word. Men, “generous, brave, and gentle;” and, in addition, animated by earnest benevolence towards their fellow-creatures, and lively faith towards the divinity. Perhaps, however, the most 148admirable of his works is the cupola of a chapel, belonging to the church and convent of Santa Maria degli Angioli. It is painted in fresco, and represents the Saints of the Old and New Testament; the more beautiful portion is the congregation of female saints—Saint Cecilia, the musician; Saint Clara, the nun; Saint Catherine, the bride of Christ, &c. The foreshortening is admirable, the spirit and grace of the attitudes worthy of the highest masters of the art.^[21]

Such is the spirit that animates the earlier school of Florence. But as painting became more of an art, and grew to represent domestic scenes and portraits, artists broke from the confinement of mere religious subjects, or treated them in a mundane manner. Then it was that their imagination so degenerated, that they had recourse to portraits to represent Christ, the Virgin, and the Saints; some of them even fell so far from the ideal of sinless chastity, as to paint their mistresses and women of unworthy life; offering to the worship of the pious, the image of mere physical beauty, without the superior grandeur of moral excellence.

149I must confess, that any rules (except the immutable laws of moral rectitude) that tend to limit the objects on which man is to exercise his faculty of the imagination, appear to me contrary to the scope of our creation. We are so far from being all born possessed of equal powers of mind, that since the world began there has been scarcely a hundred among us capable of the higher flights of the intellect. How few possess, in any degree, the capacity of becoming painters, and far fewer are those who are able to rise to an exalted order of art. We ought to know what the highest is,—that those who feel the power should endeavour to elevate themselves to it; but beauty may be found elsewhere, and must not be rejected. Bigotry is ever to be eschewed in all that pertains to man; to confine painters to one class of pictures, is to turn some who would be great, if allowed to originate subjects of a lower grade, into tame copyists, and humble, lifeless imitators of the thoughts of others. As well insist that all poets should write hymns and heroic poetry, as that painters should confine the pencil to the delineation of the conceptions of religious mysticism.

The genuine school of Christian idealism is, for the present, come to an end. And I confess, as far as I may be allowed to judge, that it strikes me that the 150Germans of the present day, who are endeavouring to revive it, fall into the same mistake as our sculptors, who employ themselves in imitating the ancients;—they are good copyists, but are never original. And what appears to prove this is, that the Germans are not content with endeavouring to reproduce that composed and severe expression which the earlier painters yet knew how to ally to vitality in its highest sense, but they return to the dry colouring and meagre composition, which is the chief defect of the infancy of painting.

Still, there can be no question that in poetry, music, or the plastic arts, the ideal must rank above the merely imitative. Those painters who can embody ideas conceived in their purest and most elevated contemplations, far removed from vulgar and trivial reality, are the greatest. Artists, however, are men formed by nature with the peculiar eye to see and represent form and colour; and it is not strange that the majority among them should turn to the study of these, and view in the perfection of representing the one or the other, the aim of their labours. Thus the study of nature succeeded to the ideal; art fell lower afterwards, and became the copyist of art; and ancient statues grew to be the models from which modern painters strove to gain inspiration, till the uniformity, stiffness, and even 151deformity thus produced, induced others, who perceived these faults and their cause, to have again recourse to nature.

But these remarks tend beyond the limits of my knowledge, or even powers of observation. I have mentioned pictures not much visited except by the curious, just to shew the way towards, not to guide you (for I cannot), in your search after pictorial excellence: nor will I long detain you in the more beaten road of the public galleries.

152

LETTER XIII. The Gallery.—Palazzo Pitti.—Le Belle Arti.—Portrait of Dante.—The Churches.

With slow steps my feet almost unwillingly first moved to the collection in the Reali Uffizi. As I entered the Tribune I felt a crowd of associations rise up around me, gifted with painful vitality. I was long lost in tears. But novelty seems all in all to us weak mortals; and when I revisited these rooms, these saddest ghosts were laid; the affliction calmed, and my mind was free to receive new impressions.

The Tribune is adorned with the selected chefs-d’œuvre of the best artists of every school, in addition to some of the finest ancient sculpture in the world. The matchless statue of the Queen of Beauty reigns over the whole—Venus, majestic in her bending softness, which once to see does not reveal its perfection. There is here one of the most beautiful of Raphael’s Madonnas—one of the eight which M. Rio mentions as among the chefs-d’œuvre that Raphael executed in the short interval of two years, during which he especially dedicated 153himself to multiplying representations of the Virgin, for whom from childhood he had felt an especial devotion.^[22]