Italy revisited
Gallenga, Antonio, 1810-1895
■'^0?!?f^fi(^1^fM t^ '(^t-<z^.^^My ITALY EEYISITED. BY A. GALLENGA, AUTHOE OF ' ITALY, PAST AND PKESENT.' 'ITALY IN 1848.* 'FBA DOLCINO, HISTORY OF PIEDMOHT.' 'OOUNTBY LIFE IN PIEDMONT,' •THE INVASION OF DENMARK,* ETC. ETC. IN TTVO VOLUMES. VOL. II. SECOND EDITION. Uonlron : i 1 SAMUEL TINSLEY, 10 SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND. 187C. [All riyhU ruei-ved.^ |l CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. CHAPTER I. FBOM ROME TO FLORENCE. The Roman Railway-Station — Guelphs and Ghibellines — The Rail- way makes us acquainted with strange Fellow-Travellers — A distinguished Fellow-Traveller — Railway Talk — The Pope and the Washerwoman — The Pope and the Earthquake. Pagel CHAPTER II. ROME AND FLORENCE. Italian Cities — Rome — Florence — Val d'Arno and Campagna — Florence the Fair — The Arao — Italian Rivers — Wood and Water — Rivers and Forests — The Evil and its Remedy. Page 17 CHAPTER III. TUSCAN NOBLES. Italian Aristocracy — Florentine Nobility — The Marquis Ginori — Plantations at Doccia — Progress of the Work — Its Difficulties — Its Results — Taxation and Industry — San Giovanni Iron- Works — A Day at San Giovanni .... Page 31 IV CONTENTS. CHAPTER rV. THE CTTY OF FLOWERS. Florence — A Florentine of Florence — The Florence Flower-Show — Its Object — IJps and Downs of Florence — Florence in full Flower — The Central Market — The Flowers — The Opening of the Flower- Show — The King at the Flower-Show . Page 47 CHAPTER V. THE LAND OF AET. The Duomo of Florence — Italian Art — Tuscan Art — Foreign and Italian Art — A Tuscan Villa — A Tuscan Lady — Italian Talk. Page 67 CHAPTER VI. THE HUNDRED CITIES OF ITALY. Italian Cities — The Past — The Present — Causes of Decline — Spectre Cities — University Towns — Popular and Academical Education — Parasitical Institutions — Masters and Pupils — Prospects of Universities — Prospects of University Towns. Page 87 CHAPTER VII THE OLD PIEDMONTESE CAPITAL. Turin — Thousand Pageantries at Turin — The Alpine Tunnel — Mont Cenis, Past and Present — Turin Illuminations — The Shah in Turin — The Cavour Monument — Happy Meetings — Turin, Past and Present — The Inauguration — Tlie D'Azeglio Monu- ment— Cavour and D'Azeglio — D'Azeglio at Cannero. Page 104 k CONTENTS. V CHAPTER VIII. THE CITY OF LOMBAEDY. Milan in Town — A Milanese " Caff6" — Rich and Poor Milanese — Milan Tag-rag- and-bob tail — Milanese Good-nature — Milanese Impudence — Milan out of Town — A Festa and a Regatta—- Lombard Beauty — Boating on Lake of Como — Lombard Courtesy — Life in Lombardy — Milan, Past and Present—' Outside the Duomo — Inside the Duomo — Manzoni a Poet-— Manzoni a Patriot — Manzoni's Funeral . . Page 130 CHAPTER IX. AN ITALIAN SUMMER. Lake Maggiore — Stresa — Summer Showers — North Italian Climate — Summer in the Country — Summer in Town — How to bear Heat-.-Summer Holiday Life — Spread of Italian Well-being. Page 160 CHAPTER X. AN ITALIAN OBITUARY. Italian Worship of the Dead — Rattazzi — His Career — Novara — Aspromonte — Mentana — His death — His Character — Gualterio — His Character — Wasting Life of Italian Public Men — Nino Bixio — His last Cruise — Bixio and Garibaldi — Mazzini. Page 181 CHAPTER XI. VENETIA. Verona — Austrian and Italian Verona — Decline — Revival — The Arena — The Veronese Clergy — The Battle of Lepanto — Local Self-Govemment — The Mantua-Modena Railway — Old and New Verona — Venetian Prospects — North and South TjtoI — Austrian and Italian Tyrol — Italian and German Mountains. Page 209 Tl CONTENTS. CHAPTER Xir. GLIMPSES OF OLD ITALY. Rail to Orvieto — Old Italian Cities — Orvieto, Inside and Out — Departed Greatness — Influence of the Church — Railways — Forsaken Places — Phases of Religious Life — Aspects of Social Life Page 231 CHAPTER XIIL UP TO ABEUZZO. Italy beyond the Railways — An Excursion in the Apennines — Rieti and the Sabina — Aquila and the Abruzzo — The Country — The People — An Anglo-Italian Household . . Page 252 CHAPTER XIV. DOWN FROM ABRUZZO. From Aquila to Avezzano — The Road — The Inn — Rural Interiors — Ancient and Modern Roman Works — Torlonia and Lake Fucino — The King, the Prince, and the Guerrilla Chief — Garibaldi in Rome— The Tiber Canal . . Page 277 CHAPTER XV. TERRA DI LAVORO. From Avezzano to Sora — A Stormy Journey — Pleasant Quarters — An Interior — A Character — Campanian Industry — Monte Cassino — A Priest-ridden, Foul-mouthed Population. Page 299 CONTENTS. Vll CHAPTER XVI. LUNIGIANA. The Tunnel of tlie Bracco — Reminiscences of the Road — A Diplo- matic Campaign — Prince Napoleon — His Doings in Tuscany — His Tactics and Strategy — Lunigiana — The Coimtry — The People — Physical and Moral Suflferings of the Fifth Corps — Solferino — Villafranca Page 327 CHAPTER XVII. CALABKIA. Naples, Past and Present — A Bloodless Campaign — Garibaldi — A Voyage with Garibaldi — Mock Battles — A Debacle — Cam- paigning Experiences — Calabria and the Calabrese — Garibaldi and a Priest — War in Post-Chaises — Garibaldi's Double — Naples Conquered by Telegraph .... Page 355 ITALY REVISITED. CHAPTER I. FROM ROME TO FLORENCE. The Roman Rail way- Station — Guelphs and Ghibellines — The Rail- way makes us acquainted with strange Fellow-Travellers — A distinguished Fellow-Traveller — Railway Talk — The Pope and the Washerwoman — The Pope and the Earthquake. There was something in the railway-station at Rome, as I left that city at the end of the season by the night mail to Florence, which reminded me of the stalwart steed with the two riders on his back, described by Ariosto. There are few of us who do not recollect the pleasing episode at the opening of the poem. Two knights, a Christian and a Paynim — Rinaldo and Ferrau — fight a whole hour for the possession of a fair lady, Angelica, the heiress of the Empire of Cathay, who, seated on her milk-white palfrey, witnesses the combat, of which she is to be the prize. VOL. II. • B 2 ITALY REVISITED. All of a sudden, seized with a panic, the damsel turns her horse's rein and gallops across the woods. The two champions, perceiving their loss, lower the points of their swords and agree to put off their contest, and ride in pursuit of the fugitive. The Pagan's charger however happens to be absent without leave, and his baptized antagonist, with a courtesy based on love of fair play, vaults on his saddle and bids his dismounted adversary get up behind, that they may together overtake the maiden and renew the combat which is to decide of her fate. Thus the two heroes set off. Templar fashion, the courser's sides bleeding from their four spurs. Here the bard's fancy takes fire at the noble instance of chivalrous generosity himself has con- jured up, and he breaks out in his loftiest strain, " Oh ! the marvellous loyalty of these ancient knights ! They were rivals in love, enemies in faith, and their bones were still aching all over with the fell blows with which they had been mauling each other; and yet away they go together, through thick woods, along dark winding paths, without a shadow of mistrust of one another." * * " Oh gran bonta de' Cavalieri antiqui ! Eran rivali, eran di fe diversi, E si sentian degli aspri colpi iniqui Per tutta la persona anco dolersi, E pur per selve oscure e calli obliqui Insieme van senza sospetto aversi." Orlando Fueioso, i. 22. FROM ROME TO FLORENCE. 3 A railway-train leaving Rome towards mid- summer in these days takes with it more than one couple, who have as little reason to love, and yet seem as little disposed to dread or suspect, each other, as the two gallant cavaliers who urged the same charger on the track of the coy Cathay princess. The train was, as it is every night at this season, an extremely long one, for political life is at this time at an end in Rome, and with the few senators and deputies, whom business has hitherto detained, the cry is at last, '' Devil take the hindmost ! " There will actually be nobody left behind — the bluff Re Galantuomo away to Val Savaranche, on that lofty mountain-ridge which parts the waters of the Oreo from those of the Dora Baltea, eager in pursuit of his stambecchi, or wild goats — the Ministers all scattering about anywhere far from the Roman malaria ; some dipping in the Medi- terranean waves at Ardenza or Viareggio, others taking their plunge in the Adriatic at Rimini, Ancona, or the Venetian Lido ; others again breathing the fresh mountain air either on the shore of a pure lake at Lugano, or at the foot of some grim Alpine pass, like the Stelvio in Valtellina. The double set of Quirinal and Vatican diplomatists will soon follow, and with them many of their subalterns, porters, lackeys and scullions. With one of the very last batches of these public men, great and small, I also took my departure. The honourable members of both Houses and their B 2 4 ITALY REVISITED. friends, wlio purposed to travel by that night train, all belonged to New Italy. The '' fire-steed" which was to carry them was their property, and they of course put their best foot in the stirrup, and were soon at home in the saddle ; in plainer words, they got into the first-class carriages and ensconced themselves and bags in the snug comers. But in the midst of the crowd, pushing and jostling, either to be off, or to see others off, were also the men of Old Italy — men, for the most part, in long black coats, knee-breeches and three-cornered hats — the men who believe in the Vatican, and the men who without believing find their interest in running errands for it. These showed great eagerness to elbow their way to the train, and to get on with the others, whether, like the Christian Paladin, they found empty corner-seats, or, like the Moslem Knight, they had to jump up, en croupe, viz., sit bodkin in the inner seats. Between the people of these two classes there is, as we all know, no love lost ; and every one who, arriving late and out of breath, made up to the carriages in quest of a place seemed at first dis- posed to be particular about the choice of his fellow- travellers. But the railway is a peace-maker, as well as a leveller. There are actually in Rome two cities, with only one way out of it. The Clericals and the Liberals may shun one another like the plague while they abide in the town, but they must needs be brought together when they FROM ROME TO FLORENCE. 5 travel to or leave it. The Pope has, or may have, if he applies for it, a post and telegraph-office all to himself; but a railway of his own he does not possess ; and although he could always have a special train, and order out the superb saloon carriage with the golden cross-keys the company place at his disposal, — just as he could, if he would take to the sea, have anything, from a fishing-boat to the redoubtable French frigate, the Orenoque, about which so much ill-blood has arisen between France and Italy since it was moored four years ago at Civita Vecchia, and which is now so over- grown with barnacles as to find it difficult to move at all, — the same accommodation is not tendered to his clergy; and priests of all ranks, up to scarlet and violet prelates, are compelled to scuffle for their seats like common mortals, obedient to the orders of the guard, who stows away his live cargo like herrings, and never sets off till he has each com- partment *' compZei," little caring whether the till at the ticket-office has been filled with the money of the Pope-blessed Caccia-lepri, or by the excom- municated Buzzurri — these being the appellations by which the two hostile parties are styled by one another. To see the Ghibellines of the Quirinal look askance at the Guelphs of the Vatican as, in spite of visible repugnance, they have to brush elbows and cross legs in the same carriage, is supremely amusing. A priest on board a ship manned by a b ITALY REVISITED. superstitious crew is hardly looked upon as a worse kill-joy and wet-blanket than ho is here, when told by the conducteur or porter, who shoves him in, that "there is yet one place for him on the back seat." The lively, bantering chat, with which the last minutes before the start had been whiled away among friends and colleagues, drops at once and there ensues a blank, though not positively rude stare, which the unwilling intruder either meekly shrinks from, or boldly meets and returns, as his natural disposition prompts him to be pacific or defiant. In most cases however all parties soon become aware of the necessity of at least mutual forbearance and common Italian courtesy ; and the lamp is shaded, faces are turned from each other and muffled up, and the journey is performed, if not in amity, at least in silence, darkness and sleep. A tall and stately, and by no means shy or timid, but perfectly good-humoured, gentlemanly prelate happened to be my vis-d-vis. He was remarkably fair and handsome, and I ought to have imme- diately recognized in him the man who had lately officiated at some grand religious ceremony, and was described in the newspapers as " the hand- somest priest in the whole Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church." He had a crowd of friends and dependants about him, three or four priestlings, one or more advocates, several domestic servants, and apparently some FROM ROME TO FLORENCE. 7 chance acquaintance. All of them, one after another, pressed eagerly forward to the carriage window for a last word, and kissed his pastoral ring, as he affably held out his hand to them. He addressed them in a variety of languages, some in good French or Italian, some in German, others in idioms unknown to me, but which by the sound I sup2)osed to be Slavonic. My surmise was that he was an Austrian prelate, a Schwartzenberg or mayhap a Strossmayer ; at all events a German, bishop of one of the Eastern dioceses of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. There were a few words exchanged between us as we started ; then we both made the best of our cramped position and slept, or seemed to sleep, through the night. Towards morning we came in sight of Arezzo, and, as I nmrmured to myself the name of the place, Monsignore, who appeared to be less acquainted with the route than I was, addressed me a few questions, and conversation began in good earnest. I confess that I was for some time baffled in my attempts to make out who he was. There is and has been for some time a great stir among the higher Roman clergy ; and as I heard my fellow-traveller was on his way not to Agrani or Prague, but to Paris, I gave uj) my first guess that he was an Austrian bishop, and took it for granted that he was one of the many pontifical agents who are canvassing the world, and especially France, on 8 ITALY REVISITED. behalf of what they call the '' Catholic interests," — i. e., Peter's pence, pilgrimages, and eventual crusades. I congratulated him on his excellent Italian, claiming as a native to be a tolerably fair judge of the subject, and he informed me that ho had lived in Rome a good many years, and had lately spent several summers as well as winters in the city with- out a change of air. " But you spoke Slavonic last night," said I, '' and are certainly no Slave by blood. Probably I liavc the honour to speak to one of tlie Polyglot wonders at the Propaganda." ^' I have but little to do with the Proj^aganda ; but, as you say, I am no Slave ; I am an Englishman." After that of course no more was needed, because I was personally acquainted with one of the English Monsignori; I knew another by sight; a third I had lately heard preaching, and a fourth was said to be ill in Paris. There' remained a fifth whom most people know, though I did not. We were soon at home on a variety of subjects, and became at least as good friends as the Rinaldo and Ferrau of Ariosto during their ride across the woods on the same steed. I had hitherto paid no attention to the six other travellers whom chance had given us for companions on the way ; but they were already one after another emerging from their wrappers, and stretching their limbs, and reconnoitring the world through wliich FROM ROME TO FLORENCE. 9 the steam-engine was whirling- them. Monsignore and I were evidently unknown to them, as they to us ; but as they listened to our talk, in which among much English a few words of Italian were mixed, they began to gaj^e and stare, wondering, as they noticed tlic evident cordiality of our intercourse, who the layman could be that travelled on such intimate terms with a prelate, and in their own hearts setting me down as one of the Neri, or '' Blacks," as I, from some undefinable signs about their looks and costume, should have had little hesitation in describing them as " Reds." Now in neither of the extreme dyes of those two colours is there much discretion, and no sooner had those six friends come to their own estimate of our l^ersons and characters, than a very animated gabble began among them, the main topic of which, so far as one could make anything out of the din of voices, and of the confusion of strong Northern accents, was — the Pope. They seemed to know everything about the aged Pontiff. How subject he is to sudden outbursts of wrathful humour ; brooking no contradiction, and satisfied with no small amount of servile adulation ; how not only noble guards, officers of the late Papal gendarmerie, and other lay functionaries, but even clerks of the Dataria, and occasionally also household prelates, had to put up with terrible scolding, and were frequently driven from the Apostolical palace at the shortest notice ; how bitter 10 ITALY REVISITED. the Pope could be even in his pleasant humour, and what withering sarcasms he would mix up with puns and jokes in which scurrility was as conspicuous as senility ; how he played one of his Ministers against another, mistrusting, deceiving, and in the end throwing them all over — all but his "Giacomo" (Cardinal Antonelli), the one he likes least, but dreads most, and whom he never- theless delights in twitting and thwarting, lending himself to all sorts of underhand tricks and plots to defeat his policy; how, in his heart of hearts, Pius IX. detests even the Jesuits — he, the " White Pope," always wishing, yet never daring to break through the toils of the '' Black Pope," Father Beckx, the General of that order — a master ill-dis- guised in a servant's livery. This was the Pope as described by our Red friends, and they illustrated the character they were drawing by scraps of Vatican gossip commonly current in Rome, piquant, if not authentic ; how on a late occasion the Holy Father thought him- self poisoned, he little knew whether by a drug administered by a quack monk, Fra Salvatore, whom he trusted, or by an antidote prescribed by his Court physician, Vialo Prela, whom lie mis- trusted, and was made dreadfully sick, and thought he was dying, when '* he was only preserved by tlie miraculous interference of the Heavenly Powers," — a dispensation which did not however soften his heart to his doctor, whom he dismissed, and FROM ROME TO FLORENCE. 11 who died broken-hearted at his disgrace, — and how throughout that trial the Pope was supported by his implicit belief in the written prediction of a washerwoman, Anna Maria Taigi, now dead and in odour of sanctity, who more than thirty years ago, among many particulars respecting Giovanni Mastai Ferretti, "which have all come true," foretold that *'he should be Pope, and outlive his ninetieth year." How much of this was spoken at us, or at least at my very reverend friend, I could not say, nor could I make out whether he heard, understood, or noticed what was said ; but what is certain is, that, if he did, he bore it without flinching, without wincing, impassable as a Red Indian at the stake. He continued to address a few remarks to me on indif- ferent topics, then threw himself back in his seat, and took his usual morning draught of that anodyne of a Catholic priest — the breviary. That was the surest way of baffling his tormentors if their design had been to annoy him. The talk at the other end of the carriage soon languished, and was presently turned to other less offensive, if not more edifying matters. But — I can hardly say how it came to pass — when the breviary was laid aside and Monsignore again addressed me, I fell almost unconsciously upon the subject which had dropped on the other side. Of a strange piece of indiscretion the Pope had lately made himself guilty. Scores of victims, it 12 ITALY REVISITED. may be remembered, had been buried by an earth- quake, under the ruins of private and public edifices in the Venetian province of Belluno. The Cathedral of that town was irreparably damaged ; a church at Feletto had crushed the priest, with many of his congregation attending mass, and was a heap of ruins ; crowds of men, women and children were without shelter. A year had just elapsed since that occurrence, and alarms were felt about an impending renewal of the catastrophe. This reminded me of the Allocution in which the Holy Father had so far forgotten himself as to make political capital of the earthquake. '' What shall we say?" the Pope had burst out, '' of this glorious display of God's justice ?" And he launched out into a thundering invective against " the Revolu- tion," and pointed out the evidence of God's wrath against its authors, enumerating the floods, the storms, the mortality among children, all the scourges by which Providence visited the deeds of the spoilers of the Church. With a grim jocularity he even compared the cholera setting in from one side and the earthquake from the other, with the ''Right" and '^Left" of the Chamber of Deputies, which was just then dispossessing religious cor- porations. ''Ha!" the Pope said, substantially, " you rob the Church, do you, gentlemen ? Take that ! " As if he himself wielded and hurled the earthquake. " Really, Monsignore," I observed, " I believe FROM ROME TO FLORENCE. 13 the Pope would never have allowed that Allocution to appear in print, if he had been well advised. Poor old gentleman ! I can feel for him. I am told he is subject to frequent fits of depression ; that there are moments he is not quite sure of himself, and talks like one who does not know what he is saying. Surely he must see that his desperate clinging to earthly power, his preposterous aspira- tions to infallibility, have rather damaged than benefited the Church." I felt I trod on safe ground in venturing thus far, for I knew I was speaking to a Catholic '' born, not made," — one of those who would never have brought forward ''the Dogma" for discussion at the Council, and who, even when the " Converts" carried it by a packed majority, were " convinced against their will." " I do not even know," I went on, " how much the Holy Father may have reason to congratulate himself on his good fortune in sur- viving Peter's years. Perhaps he may feel, with many other men, that he has lived too long ; and that the violation of an order of things to which so long a series of precedents had almost imparted the force of a natural law portended evil rather than good, and the power which he wielded for more than twenty-five years was destined to break in the hands of him who was permitted to exceed that fated number. " You best know, Monsignore, whether the Pope, at his age, has sufficient strength to nerve him 14 ITALY REVISITED. against superstitious appreliensions ; whether he does not himself believe in that Jettatura with which he is taunted by certain persons" (with a glance at our fellow travellers), " that * evil eye ' which brings misfortune on all around, upon those the Pope is most anxious to befriend, upon those by whom he hopes to be befriended and upon himself" I offered these remarks, with all due deference, and Monsignore listened with a bland, well-bred smile, without assenting, yet without interrupting ; for he is placed by his office too near the person of the Pontiff to consider '' Infallible," synonymous with '' faultless." No Pope is a saint in the esti- mation of his household prelate. I therefore turned to the subject of the Belluno earthquake, and said: — ''Since men whom His Holiness calls ' wicked ' have taken from him those temporalities which men certainly not less wicked had given him, the Pope sees ' the Finger of Provi- dence ' in all the ills flesh is heir to. It would seem as if there had never before been floods in Lombardy or earthquakes in Calabria; as if Vesuvius never ravaged the environs of Bourbonist Naples, or the Tiber never overflowed its banks in Papal Rome till now ; as if intense hard work never shortened a man's life before Cavour's, or affected a man's brain before Farini's. It is true, many of the men who waged war against the Temporal Power are dead, and the Pope lives. But should not that rather sweeten than sour the Holy Father's temper? FROM ROME TO FLORENCE. 15 Should he not learn and teach that God's will is to be adored and not discussed, or even interpreted ? Is it not folly to ask how it is that — * Lisbonne est en poussilre et Ton danae ^ Paris'? There sits Victor Emmanuel ; there are his Ministers, Senators, and Deputies deliberating — the guilty ones who have ' robbed the Church ' — all at hand, in Rome itself, or not far from it. Why should the Pope's Avenger have gone so far to seek His victims among the guiltless boors of Feletto, at worship, on their knees before Him. There stand Monte Citorio and Palazzo Madama, the two Houses of the Italian Parliament ; would they not have made, grander ruins than the inibbish of a poor parish church and the cracks of an old cathedral in Friuli?" Monsignore continued silent, for he evidently has too much sound English sense to share the violent prejudices of an Ultramontane, or the animosities of a convert. We had now gone through the tunnels from the rich territory of Arezzo into the not less fertile district of the Upper Val d'Arno. The drought of summer had not yet set in ; the land was verdant, luxuriant, a very garden of the olive, the vine, and the mulberry, with the signs everyivhere of an advanced cultivation and a dense population, and of that taste and elegance which give evidence ot widely-spread and deeply-seated well-being. 16 ITALY REVISITED. '^ See there, Monslgnore ! " I cried out, pointing to right and left. " This is the country upon which Pope Pius once invoked Heaven's blessings, and upon which he is now heaping his curses. Can you tell me whether it be his earlier or his later prayers that have been listened to ? How are we to know which of our sublunar events are to be called providential ? ' Non si muove foglia che Iddio non voglia,' says the pious Italian proverb, and in Eng- land they say, ' What is, is for the best.' Where else would, in history, be the end of God's work, and where the beginning of the Devil's ? Why should Pepin and Charlemagne have been instru- ments in the Almighty's hand in building up the Papal throne, and not Cialdini and Cadorna in overthrowing it ? " The answer of Monsignore, just as he was about to vouchsafe it, was interrupted by the shrieks of the engine announcing our arrival at Florence, and by the hurry and bustle of the travellers bundling themselves and their bags from the carriages. The noble prelate however did not leave me without shaking hands and '' hoping to see me again," a proof either that the divergence of views between us was not very great or that his good-breeding was proof against the free expression of opinions which might happen to clash with his own. ROME AND FLORENCE. 17 CHAPTER II. ROME AND FLORENCE. Italian Cities — Rome — Florence — Val d'Arno and Catnpagna — Florence the Fair — The Arno — Italian Rivers — Wood and Water — Rivers and Forests — The Evil and its Remedy. From Florence to Rome there is only a ten hours' journey, yet nothing is more striking than the con- trast exhibited by what is now, and what it was four years since, when the capital of Italy. All Italian cities have their peculiar type and character, and it seemed especially designed by Providence that a country which was to be en- dowed with the ''fatal gift of beauty" should derive its main charm from variety. One travels from Genoa, perched on a rock, to Venice floating on a marsh ; from Turin, compassed by hills, to Milan lording it over a flat ; from Verona, cramped in a gorge, to Bologna reclining on a slope. Ancona projects on a headland ; Naples hugs a bay in her bosom ; Palermo is embosomed in a shell ; Siena, Perugia, Spoleto, Orvieto and a hundred more, crown the heights, but not one diadem is like the other, either in shape or in the majesty and VOL. II. c 18 ITALY REVISITED. grace with which it towers on the brow or slouches from it. The quaintness of the interior everywhere corre- sponds to the originality of the outward appearance. Every place has its own mark in the style of its buildings. Here it is the heavy dome, there the slender spire, the massive square tower, the battle- mented bastion, or the blank convent-wall that pre- dominates. You go from landmark to landmark ; from the Ghirlandina of Modena to the Torrazzo at Cremona ; from one leaning tower at Pisa to two of them running up at angle at Bologna. There is no spot but has its own wonder to boast of; if not a church within the walls like the Cathedral of Orvieto, then one in the neighbourhood like the Ccrtosa of Pavia ; if not a town-hall with the largest saloon, as at Padua, then one with an un- cqualed fa9ade, as at Piacenza. The pride of each Italian locality was always aiming at something that could diversify it from all other localities. As Milan, when building a cathedral, exhausted her powers in ornamenting the roof, so Siena, when busy at the same task, exerted all her ingenuity in inlaying the pavement. Rome and Florence have little more than this in common, that they both lie in a valley and have a river flowing through them. But the valley in Rome is closed in by hills which time and man have almost obliterated, and the river is only seen from the bridges, unless glimpses of it are caught KOME AND FLORENCE. 19 at ix few out-of-tlie-way spots like Ripa Grande or Ripetta. The position of Rome is, perhaps, the grandest in the world, but the town itself is the meanest. From culminating points you have views of unrivalled magnificence; but the town itself is nowhere seen to advantage. There is nowhere a coup d' ceil such as the "Boulevards," the "Ring," or " the Unter den Linden," which other great cities boast; nowhere such an expanse of broad streets and squares, such open quays, such clusters of stately edifices as befit a great capital. The name of churches and palaces in Rome is legion, but they are scattered at random in different quarters, and hide themselves out of sight as if conscious of the ugliness which, with very few exceptions, charac- terizes their external architecture. Modern, as well as ancient Rome, aimed at effect through grandeur ; it attained its object in the interior, but took no heed of the style of the exterior. Rome is the city of the Seicento ; it dates from the worst epoch of Italian intellectual and moral corruption. Papal architects, the men who worked for Borghese, Pamphili, Barberini, and other Nepotists, seem to have done their utmost to mar the fronts and roofs of old Basilicas, by sprawling saints, unmeaning wreaths and curls, and rococo ornaments, while the nephews enriched by those Popes, who rifled ancient monuments of marbles wherewith to rear their own mansion, as if anxious to conceal their theft, left their outer walls so plain and rustic, that the c 2 20 ITALY REVISITED. Borgliese Palace, for instance, has little in its out- ward look to distinguish it from the common run of Manchester warehouses. There is nothing to cheer a man's eye as he rambles through Rome. The Palace of Venice, the Farnese, and the Cancelleria, are alone venerable. The facade of every church, St. Peter's itself not excepted, is an eye-sore. The pretensions of Florence are by no means as high as those of Rome. It aspires to no greatness, but is always faithful to its instinct of beauty. The long winding sweep of its lovely Lung' Arno was always a pleasant breathing ground ; but since the demolition of the walls, the whole town is out in the air ; many of the streets have been widened, and the new quarters round the Fortezza da Basso, about Piazza d'Azeglio, and Porta Piuti, as well as the hills all the way up to San Miniato, have been laid out in flower-beds and flower-walks. Look at the town and country from any point, and all is open before you, courting your attention, challenging your admiration. The city is old, even ancient, but it shows no ruins, it exhibits no symptoms of decay. It is all fresh and sound and gay, tidy in its mediaeval massiveness, sober in its modern elegance, true to its old civilization, yet not un- mindful of the exigencies of the new. Tlie city is one in plan and design, like a well-contrived drama or epic poem. The severe genius which built the Palazzo Vecchio and Santa Maria del Fiore runs through it all. You have here a traditional style, a ROME AND FLORENCE. 21 local law of order and harmony; a people whose education has been the work of centuries; a com- munity in which the beautiful is an affair of State, where assthetic enjoyment is the first want, and art the main business of existence. The Florentines will rather leave the front of a church unfinislied for six centuries, aye, and to the end of time, than run the risk of committing an architectural solecism. Outside the walls the balance between the two cities is more even. There can be nothing in the world lovelier than the Val d'Arno, nothing more lively than the sight of those cypress-crowned hills, of those white villas glittering all over the land- scape, " budding from the soil which seems all teeming with them," as was sung by the poet, who expressed a wish to bring them together and '' make two Romes out of them." But the country round Florence is too much like a city, and its villas are too many and too close upon one another ; and there is nothing in all its tidiness and fruitful ness to compare with the magni- ficent desolation of the Roman Campagna. The Florentine territory is a garden ; its smile is irre- sistible; its variety inexhaustible. But it lacks grandeur. Those hills of Fiesole and San Miniato press upon it too much like a garden-fence ; they shut you in, they take away your breath, they somehow dwarf the world around you. Florence strikes you as a place intended for what it has 22 ITALY REVISITED. always been — the head of a narrow territory, the capital of a petty Republic, of a Duchy, or little Grand-Duchy ; not the queen of a world, or even of a great country. It is only at Rome, one would say, that there is room for a Metropolis ; room within and without. Round the Seven Hills has always been the seat of Empire. There is waste ground unlimited to be reclaimed for all imaginable pur- poses ; there are ruins of fallen power sufficient for a basis of boundless future greatness. Florence was capital of the Italian Kingdom only for seven years, yet it is astonishing how much hay the thrifty Tuscan city managed to gather in during that short period of metropolitan sunsliine. Had it continued to be the centre of national life for five or six years longer, daylight would have penetrated through the few clusters of narrow streets which are still stopping the way about tlie purlieus of the Mcrcato Vecchio and Nuovo ; the Lung'Arno would have been finished on the left as well as on tlie riglit bank of the river ; fresh water would have been brought in, and the city, whether or not it ad- mitted of indefinite increase of area or po2:)ulation, would have loft nothing to desire on tlie score of beauty, healtliiness, and (convenience. How beautiful is Florence, and liow lovely every- thing in it looks at this time of the year ! October has just set in, but the heat is still intense, and the country is shrivelled and parched as it never was in July or August. The sun blazes out in all pomp ROME AND FLORENCE. 23 and majesty from a cloudless sky, and it takes more than all the length of an equinoctial night to lower the temperature for at least a few of tlie early houi's of the morning. The season has been un- usually late this year throughout the Continent, and even on the Alpine Passes not a single flake of snow has yet fallen. Strangers from the north bask in this broiling sun with a salamandnne delight, and fat old Russian ladies sit in the sweltering railway carriages wrapped to the chin in their thick furs, lest they should lose one particle of the precious heat for which they have been so devoutly longing. ^' How beautiful is Florence ! " is the cry of even those fat ladies, as emerging from all their swad- dlings, they look from the carriage-window, and see the Dome, and the Belfry, and the Cascine woods, and the Fiesole hills. Every stone within these old walls bears the stamp of genius ; every house in the narrow streets has its legend ; every spot beyond the stately gates boasts a panorama. Gian Gastone, the last of the Medici, when plied by his confessor on his deatli-bed with gorgeous visions of the Eden which awaited him above the stars, meekly replied that "he was well satisfied with the Boboli Gardens." I suspect that there are not many well-to-do Florentines in a hurry for any better Paradise than tlicir darling Val d'Arno ; and the ''good Yankee," who wlien he has turned shoddy into gold is rewarded by transmigration to the bliss 24 ITALY REVISITED. of Paris, seems now to have suffered anotlier trans- formationj and deserting Meurice's in Rue Rivoli, musters here in great force in that genial hostelry, the name of which reminds him of Wall Street and Long Island — the New York, in the Lung' Arno. This Arno however is the one blemish in this fairest of all fair cities. 