You Have Often Heard It Said, That The Purity Of The Italian Is
To Be Found In The Lingua Toscana, And Bocca Romana.
Certain it
is, the pronunciation of the Tuscans is disagreeably guttural:
The letters C and G they pronounce with an aspiration, which
hurts the ear of an Englishman; and is I think rather rougher
than that of the X, in Spanish. It sounds as if the speaker had
lost his palate. I really imagined the first man I heard speak in
Pisa, had met with that misfortune in the course of his amours.
One of the greatest curiosities you meet with in Italy, is the
Improvisatore; such is the name given to certain individuals, who
have the surprising talent of reciting verses extempore, on any
subject you propose. Mr. Corvesi, my landlord, has a son, a
Franciscan friar, who is a great genius in this way.
When the subject is given, his brother tunes his violin to
accompany him, and he begins to rehearse in recitative, with
wonderful fluency and precision. Thus he will, at a minute's
warning, recite two or three hundred verses, well turned, and
well adapted, and generally mingled with an elegant compliment to
the company. The Italians are so fond of poetry, that many of
them, have the best part of Ariosto, Tasso, and Petrarch, by
heart; and these are the great sources from which the
Improvisatori draw their rhimes, cadence, and turns of
expression. But, lest you should think there is neither rhime nor
reason in protracting this tedious epistle, I shall conclude it
with the old burden of my song, that I am always - Your
affectionate humble servant.
LETTER XXVIII
NICE, February 5, 1765.
DEAR SIR, - Your entertaining letter of the fifth of last month,
was a very charitable and a very agreeable donation: but your
suspicion is groundless. I assure you, upon my honour, I have no
share whatever in any of the disputes which agitate the public:
nor do I know any thing of your political transactions, except
what I casually see in one of your newspapers, with the perusal
of which I am sometimes favoured by our consul at Villefranche.
You insist upon my being more particular in my remarks on what I
saw at Florence, and I shall obey the injunction. The famous
gallery which contains the antiquities, is the third story of a
noble stone-edifice, built in the form of the Greek Pi, the upper
part fronting the river Arno, and one of the legs adjoining to
the ducal-palace, where the courts of justice are held. As the
house of Medici had for some centuries resided in the palace of
Pitti, situated on the other side of the river, a full mile from
these tribunals, the architect Vasari, who planned the new
edifice, at the same time contrived a corridore, or covered
passage, extending from the palace of Pitti along one of the
bridges, to the gallery of curiosities, through which the grand-
duke passed unseen, when he was disposed either to amuse himself
with his antiquities, or to assist at his courts of judicature:
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