The Manifold Beauties Of The Cathedral And Baptistery Need No
Recapitulation From Me; Though In This Case, As In A Hundred
Others, I Find It Difficult To Separate My Own Delight In Recalling
Them, From Your Weariness In Having Them Recalled.
There is a
picture of St. Agnes, by Andrea del Sarto, in the former, and there
are a variety of rich columns in the latter, that tempt me
strongly.
It is, I hope, no breach of my resolution not to be tempted into
elaborate descriptions, to remember the Campo Santo; where grass-
grown graves are dug in earth brought more than six hundred years
ago, from the Holy Land; and where there are, surrounding them,
such cloisters, with such playing lights and shadows falling
through their delicate tracery on the stone pavement, as surely the
dullest memory could never forget. On the walls of this solemn and
lovely place, are ancient frescoes, very much obliterated and
decayed, but very curious. As usually happens in almost any
collection of paintings, of any sort, in Italy, where there are
many heads, there is, in one of them, a striking accidental
likeness of Napoleon. At one time, I used to please my fancy with
the speculation whether these old painters, at their work, had a
foreboding knowledge of the man who would one day arise to wreak
such destruction upon art: whose soldiers would make targets of
great pictures, and stable their horses among triumphs of
architecture. But the same Corsican face is so plentiful in some
parts of Italy at this day, that a more commonplace solution of the
coincidence is unavoidable.
If Pisa be the seventh wonder of the world in right of its Tower,
it may claim to be, at least, the second or third in right of its
beggars. They waylay the unhappy visitor at every turn, escort him
to every door he enters at, and lie in wait for him, with strong
reinforcements, at every door by which they know he must come out.
The grating of the portal on its hinges is the signal for a general
shout, and the moment he appears, he is hemmed in, and fallen on,
by heaps of rags and personal distortions. The beggars seem to
embody all the trade and enterprise of Pisa. Nothing else is
stirring, but warm air. Going through the streets, the fronts of
the sleepy houses look like backs. They are all so still and
quiet, and unlike houses with people in them, that the greater part
of the city has the appearance of a city at daybreak, or during a
general siesta of the population. Or it is yet more like those
backgrounds of houses in common prints, or old engravings, where
windows and doors are squarely indicated, and one figure (a beggar
of course) is seen walking off by itself into illimitable
perspective.
Not so Leghorn (made illustrious by SMOLLETT'S grave), which is a
thriving, business-like, matter-of-fact place, where idleness is
shouldered out of the way by commerce. The regulations observed
there, in reference to trade and merchants, are very liberal and
free; and the town, of course, benefits by them. Leghorn had a bad
name in connection with stabbers, and with some justice it must be
allowed; for, not many years ago, there was an assassination club
there, the members of which bore no ill-will to anybody in
particular, but stabbed people (quite strangers to them) in the
streets at night, for the pleasure and excitement of the
recreation. I think the president of this amiable society was a
shoemaker. He was taken, however, and the club was broken up. It
would, probably, have disappeared in the natural course of events,
before the railroad between Leghorn and Pisa, which is a good one,
and has already begun to astonish Italy with a precedent of
punctuality, order, plain dealing, and improvement--the most
dangerous and heretical astonisher of all. There must have been a
slight sensation, as of earthquake, surely, in the Vatican, when
the first Italian railroad was thrown open.
Returning to Pisa, and hiring a good-tempered Vetturino, and his
four horses, to take us on to Rome, we travelled through pleasant
Tuscan villages and cheerful scenery all day. The roadside crosses
in this part of Italy are numerous and curious. There is seldom a
figure on the cross, though there is sometimes a face, but they are
remarkable for being garnished with little models in wood, of every
possible object that can be connected with the Saviour's death.
The cock that crowed when Peter had denied his Master thrice, is
usually perched on the tip-top; and an ornithological phenomenon he
generally is. Under him, is the inscription. Then, hung on to the
cross-beam, are the spear, the reed with the sponge of vinegar and
water at the end, the coat without seam for which the soldiers cast
lots, the dice-box with which they threw for it, the hammer that
drove in the nails, the pincers that pulled them out, the ladder
which was set against the cross, the crown of thorns, the
instrument of flagellation, the lanthorn with which Mary went to
the tomb (I suppose), and the sword with which Peter smote the
servant of the high priest,--a perfect toy-shop of little objects,
repeated at every four or five miles, all along the highway.
On the evening of the second day from Pisa, we reached the
beautiful old city of Siena. There was what they called a
Carnival, in progress; but, as its secret lay in a score or two of
melancholy people walking up and down the principal street in
common toy-shop masks, and being more melancholy, if possible, than
the same sort of people in England, I say no more of it. We went
off, betimes next morning, to see the Cathedral, which is
wonderfully picturesque inside and out, especially the latter--also
the market-place, or great Piazza, which is a large square, with a
great broken-nosed fountain in it:
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