Though the manner is dry, the drawing
incorrect, the design generally lame, and the colouring
unnatural; yet there is merit in the expression:
And the whole
remains as a curious monument of the efforts made by this noble
art immediately after her revival. [The History of Job by Giotto
is much admired.] Here are some deceptions in perspective equally
ingenious and pleasing; particularly the figures of certain
animals, which exhibit exactly the same appearance, from whatever
different points of view they are seen. One division of the
burying-ground consists of a particular compost, which in nine
days consumes the dead bodies to the bones: in all probability,
it is no other than common earth mixed with quick-lime. At one
corner of the corridore, there are the pictures of three bodies
represented in the three different stages of putrefaction which
they undergo when laid in this composition. At the end of the
three first days, the body is bloated and swelled, and the
features are enlarged and distorted to such a degree, as fills
the spectator with horror. At the sixth day, the swelling is
subsided, and all the muscular flesh hangs loosened from the
bones: at the ninth, nothing but the skeleton remains. There is a
small neat chapel at one end of the Campo Santo, with some tombs,
on one of which is a beautiful bust by Buona Roti. [Here is a
sumptuous cenotaph erected by Pope Gregory XIII. to the memory of
his brother Giovanni Buoncampagni. It is called the Monumentum
Gregorianum, of a violet-coloured marble from Scravezza in this
neighbourhood, adorned with a couple of columns of Touchstone,
and two beautiful spherical plates of Alabaster.] At the other
end of the corridore, there is a range of antient sepulchral
stones ornamented with basso-relievo brought hither from
different parts by the Pisan Fleets in the course of their
expeditions. I was struck with the figure of a woman lying dead
on a tomb-stone, covered with a piece of thin drapery, so
delicately cut as to shew all the flexures of the attitude, and
even all the swellings and sinuosities of the muscles. Instead of
stone, it looks like a sheet of wet linen. [One of these
antiquities representing the Hunting of Meleager was converted
into a coffin for the Countess Beatrice, mother of the famous
Countess Mathilda; it is now fixed to the outside of the church
wall just by one of the doors, and is a very elegant piece of
sculpture. Near the same place is a fine pillar of Porphyry
supporting the figure of a Lion, and a kind of urn which seems to
be a Sarcophagus, though an inscription round the Base declares
it is a Talentum in which the antient Pisans measured the Census
or Tax which they payed to Augustus: but in what metal or specie
this Census was payed we are left to divine. There are likewise
in the Campo Santo two antique Latin edicts of the Pisan Senate
injoining the citizens to go into mourning for the Death of Caius
and Lucius Caesar the Sons of Agrippa, and heirs declared of the
Emperor. Fronting this Cemetery, on the other side of the Piazza
of the Dome, is a large, elegant Hospital in which the sick are
conveniently and comfortably lodged, entertained, and attended.]
For four zechines I hired a return-coach and four from Pisa to
Florence. This road, which lies along the Arno, is very good; and
the country is delightful, variegated with hill and vale, wood
and water, meadows and corn-fields, planted and inclosed like the
counties of Middlesex and Hampshire; with this difference,
however, that all the trees in this tract were covered with
vines, and the ripe clusters black and white, hung down from
every bough in a most luxuriant and romantic abundance. The vines
in this country are not planted in rows, and propped with sticks,
as in France and the county of Nice, but twine around the hedge-
row trees, which they almost quite cover with their foliage and
fruit. The branches of the vine are extended from tree to tree,
exhibiting beautiful festoons of real leaves, tendrils, and
swelling clusters a foot long. By this oeconomy the ground of the
inclosure is spared for corn, grass, or any other production. The
trees commonly planted for the purpose of sustaining the vines,
are maple, elm, and aller, with which last the banks of the Arno
abound. [It would have been still more for the advantage of the
Country and the Prospect, if instead of these they had planted
fruit trees for the purpose.] This river, which is very
inconsiderable with respect to the quantity of water, would be a
charming pastoral stream, if it was transparent; but it is always
muddy and discoloured. About ten or a dozen miles below Florence,
there are some marble quarries on the side of it, from whence the
blocks are conveyed in boats, when there is water enough in the
river to float them, that is after heavy rains, or the melting of
the snow upon the mountains of Umbria, being part of the
Apennines, from whence it takes its rise.
Florence is a noble city, that still retains all the marks of a
majestic capital, such as piazzas, palaces, fountains, bridges,
statues, and arcades. I need not te11 you that the churches here
are magnificent, and adorned not only with pillars of oriental
granite, porphyry, Jasper, verde antico, and other precious
stones; but also with capital pieces of painting by the most
eminent masters. Several of these churches, however, stand
without fronts, for want of money to complete the plans. It may
also appear superfluous to mention my having viewed the famous
gallery of antiquities, the chapel of St. Lorenzo, the palace of
Pitti, the cathedral, the baptisterium, Ponte de Trinita, with
its statues, the triumphal arch, and every thing which is
commonly visited in this metropolis.
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