From the steeple of the
Superga the view is very fine.
In the University of Turin is a very good Cabinet d'Histoire naturelle,
containing a great variety of beasts, birds and fishes stuffed and
preserved; there is also a Cabinet of Comparative Anatomy, and various
imitations in wax of anatomical dissections. Among the antiquities, of
which there is a most valuable collection, are two very remarkable ones:
the one a beautiful bronze shield, found in the Po, called the shield of
Marius; it represents, in figures in bas-relief, the history of the
Jugurthine war.[76] This shield is of the most exquisite workmanship. The
other is a table of the most beautiful black marble incrusted and inlaid
with figures and hieroglyphics of silver. It is called the Table of Isis,
was brought from Egypt and is supposed to be of the most remote antiquity.
It is always kept polished. Among the many valuable pieces of sculpture to
be met with here is a most lovely Cupid in Parian marble. He is represented
sleeping on a lion's skin. It is the most beautiful piece of sculpture I
have ever seen next to the Apollo Belvedere and the Venus dei Medici; it
appears alive, and as if the least noise would awake it.[77]
Turin used to be in the olden time one of the most brilliant Courts and
cities in Europe, and the most abounding in splendid equipages; now very
few are to be seen. When Piedmont was torn from the domination of the House
of Savoy and annexed to France, Turin, ceasing to be the capital of a
Kingdom, necessarily decayed in splendor, nor did its being made the Chef
lieu of a Prefecture of the French Empire make amends for what it once
was. The Restoration arrived, but has not been able to reanimate it; an air
of dullness pervades the whole city. Obscurantism and anti-liberal ideas
are the order of the day.
I witnessed a military review at which the King of Sardinia assisted. The
troops made a very brilliant appearance and manoeuvred well. His Majesty
has a very good seat on horseback and a distinguished military air. He is a
man of honor tho' he has rather too high notions of the royal dignity and
authority, and is too much of a bigot in religion; but his word can be
depended on, a great point in a King; there are so many of them that break
theirs and falsify all their promises. He will not hear of a constitution,
and endeavors to abolish or discountenance all that has been effected
during his absence. The priests are caressed and restored to their
privileges, so that the inhabitants of Piedmont are exposed to a double
despotism, a military and a sacerdotal one; the last is ten times more
ruinous and fatal to liberty and improvement than the former.
I have put up in Turin in the Pension Suisse, where for seven franks per
diem I have breakfast, dinner, supper and a princely bed room. The houses
are in general lofty, spacious and on a grand scale.
[67] Francois Lamarque, born 1756, a member of the Convention, ambassador
in Sweden, prefect of the Tarn and member of the Cour de Cassation
(1804). He was exiled in 1816. - ED.
[68] Major Frye (who wrote the name Despinassy) certainly means
Antoine-Joseph Marie Espinassy de Fontanelle's (1787-1829), who was a
member of the Convention, voted the King's death and served in the
Republican army of the Alps. In 1816, he was banished and went to
Lausanne, where he died 1829. - ED.
[69] Pardoux Bordas (1748-1842) was a member of the Convention. Though he
had not voted the death of Louis XVI, he was banished from France in
1816 and did not return there before 1828. - ED.
[70] Antoine Francis Gauthier des Orcieres (1752-1838) was elected to the
Etats Generaux in 1789, and, in 1792, to the Convention, where he
voted the death of Louis XVI. Later on, he was member of the Conseil
des Anoiena, juge au tribunal de la Seine and conseiller a la cour
imperiale de Paris (1815). Banished in 1816, he returned to France in
1828.
[71] Jean Baptists Michaud, a member of the Directoire du departement du
Doubs, and a member of the National Convention, voted the death of
Louis XVI and against the proposed appeal to the people. - ED.
[72] Jean Daniel Paul Etienne Levade (1750-1834), Protestant minister first
in England, then in Amsterdam, finally minister at Lausanne and
professor of theology at the Academie of the same town. - ED.
[73] Countess de Boigne, in her interesting Memoirs (of which there is an
English translation) abstained from describing her husband's career in
India; this lends additional interest to the information collected by
Major Frye, - ED.
[74] The manuscript has Sennar, a name quite unknown at Suza. - ED.
[75] Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, iv, 13, 5. - ED.
[76] This shield, now at the Armoria Reale, is not antique, but is
ascribed to Benvenuto Cellini. - ED.
[77] This statue of Cupid is not antique, and has been recently ascribed to
Michelangelo (Knapp, Michelangelo, p. 155.) - ED.
CHAPTER VIII
Journey from Turin to Bologna - Asti - Schiller and Alfieri - Italian
cuisine - The vetturini - Marengo - Piacenza - The Trebbia - Parma - The
Empress Maria Louisa - Modena - Bologna - The University - The Marescalchi
Gallery - Character of the Bolognese.
August - - 1816
'Twas on a fine morning the 16th August that I took my departure from Turin
with a vetturino bound to Bologna. I agreed to pay him sixty francs for
my place in the coach, supper and bed. When this stipulation for supper and
bed is included in the price fixed for your place with the vetturino, you
are said to be spesato, and then you have nothing extra to pay for but
your breakfast.
