LETTER XL.
EXCURSION FROM VENICE TO VERONA—TRUTH OF BYRON'S DESCRIPTION OF ITALIAN SCENERY—THE LOMBARDY PEASANTRY—APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY—MANNER OF CULTIVATING THE VINE ON LIVING TREES—THE VINTAGE—ANOTHER VISIT TO JULIET'S TOMB—THE OPERA AT VERONA—THE PRIMA DONNA—ROMAN AMPHITHEATRE—BOLOGNA AGAIN—MADAME MALIBRAN IN LA GAZZA LADRA—CHEAP LUXURIES—THE PALACE OF THE LAMBACCARI—A MAGDALEN OF GUIDO CARRACCI—CHARLES THE SECOND'S BEAUTIES—VALLEY OF THE ARNO—FLORENCE ONCE MORE.
Our gondola set us on shore at Fusina an hour or two before sunset, with a sky (such as we have had for five months) without a cloud, and the same promise of a golden sunset, to which I have now become so accustomed, that rain and a dark heaven would seem to me almost unnatural. It was the hour and the spot at which Childe Harold must have left Venice, and we look at the "blue Friuli mountains," the "deep-died Brenta," and the "Rhœtian hill," and feel the truth of his description as well as its beauty. The two banks of the Brenta are studded with the palaces of the Venetian nobles for almost twenty miles, and the road runs close to the water on the northern side, following all its graceful windings, and, at every few yards, surprising the traveller with some fresh scene of cultivated beauty, church, palace, or garden, while the gondolas on the stream, and the fair "damas" of Italy sitting under the porticoes, enliven and brighten the picture. These people live out of doors, and the road was thronged with the contadini; and here and there rolled by a carriage, with servants in livery; or a family of the better class on their evening walk, sauntered along at the Italian pace of indolence, and a finer or happier looking race of people would not easily be found. It is difficult to see the athletic frames and dark flashing eyes of the Lombardy peasantry, and remember their degraded condition. You cannot believe it will remain so. If they think at all, they must, in time, feel too deeply to endure.
The guide-book says, the "traveller wants words to express his sensations at the beauty of the country from Padua to Verona." Its beauty is owing to the perfection of a method of cultivation universal in Italy. The fields are divided into handsome squares, by rows of elms or other forest trees, and the vines are trained upon these with all the elegance of holyday festoons, winding about the trunks, and hanging with their heavy clusters from one to the other, the foliage of vine and tree mingled so closely that it appears as if they sprung from the same root. Every square is perfectly enclosed with these fantastic walls of vine-leaves and grapes, and the imagination of a poet could conceive nothing more beautiful for a festival of Bacchus. The ground between is sown with grass or corn. The vines are luxuriant always, and often send their tendrils into the air higher than the topmost branch of the tree, and this extends the whole distance from Padua to Verona, with no interruption except the palaces and gardens of the nobles lying between.
It was just the season for gathering and pressing the grape, and the romantic vineyards were full of the happy peasants, of all ages, mounting the ladders adventurously for the tall clusters, heaping the baskets and carts, driving in the stately gray oxen with their loads, and talking and singing as merrily as if it were Arcadia. Oh how beautiful these scenes are in Italy. The people are picturesque, the land is like the poetry of nature, the habits are all as they were described centuries ago, and as the still living pictures of the glorious old masters represent them. The most every-day traveller smiles and wonders, as he lets down his carriage windows to look at the vintage.
We have been three or four days in Verona, visiting Juliet's tomb, and riding through the lovely environs. The opera here is excellent, and we went last night to see "Romeo and Juliet" performed in the city renowned by their story. The prima donna was one of those syrens found often in Italy—a young singer of great promise, with that daring brilliancy which practice and maturer science discipline, to my taste, too severely. It was like the wild, ungovernable trill of a bird, and my ear is not so nice yet, that I even would not rather feel a roughness in the harmony than lose it. Malibran delighted me more in America than in Paris.
The opera was over at twelve, and, as we emerged from the crowded lobby, the moon full, and as clear and soft as the eye of a child, burst through the arches of the portico. The theatre is opposite the celebrated Roman amphitheatre, and the wish to visit it by moonlight was expressed spontaneously by the whole party. The custode was roused, and we entered the vast arena and stood in the midst, with the gigantic ranges of stone seats towering up in a receding circle, as if to the very sky, and the lofty arches and echoing dens lying black and silent in the dead shadows of the moon. A hundred thousand people could sit here; and it was in these arenas, scattered through the Roman provinces, that the bloody gladiator fights, and the massacre of Christians, and every scene of horror, amused the subjects of the mighty mistress of the world. You would never believe it, if you could have seen how peacefully the moonlight now sleeps on the moss-gathering walls, and with what untrimmed grace the vines and flowers creep and blossom on the rocky crevices of the windows.
We arrived at Bologna just in time to get to the opera. Malibran in La Gazza Ladra was enough to make one forget more than the fatigue of a day's travel. She sings as well as ever and plays much better, though she had been ill, and looked thin. In the prison scene, she was ghastlier even than the character required. There are few pleasures in Europe like such singing as hers, and the Italians, in their excellent operas, and the cheap rate at which they can be frequented, have a resource corresponding to everything else in their delightful country. Every comfort and luxury is better and cheaper in Italy than elsewhere, and it is a pity that he who can get his wine for three cents a bottle, his dinner and his place at the opera for ten, and has lodgings for anything he chooses to pay, can not find leisure, and does not think it worth the trouble, to look about for means to be free. It is vexatious to see nature lavishing such blessings on slaves.
The next morning we visited a palace, which, as it is not mentioned in the guide-books of travel, I had not before seen—the Lambaccari. It was full of glorious pictures, most of them for sale. Among others we were captivated with a Magdalen of unrivalled sweetness by Guido Carracci. It has been bought since by Mr. Cabot, of Boston, who passed through Bologna the day after, and will be sent to America, I am happy to say, immediately. There were also six of "Charles the Second's beauties,"—portraits of the celebrated women of that gay monarch's court, by Sir Peter Lely—ripe, glowing English women, more voluptuous than chary-looking, but pictures of exquisite workmanship. There were nine or ten apartments to this splendid palace, all crowded with paintings by the first masters, and the surviving Lambaccari is said to be selling them one by one for bread. It is really melancholy to go through Italy, and see how her people are suffering, and her nobles starving under oppression.
We crossed the Appenines in two of the finest days that ever shone, and descending through clouds and mist to the Tuscan frontier, entered the lovely valley of the Arno, sparkling in the sunshine, with all its palaces and spires, as beautiful as ever. I am at Florence once more, and parting from the delightful party with whom I have travelled for two months. I start for Rome to-morrow, in company with five artists.