LETTER XIII.
Vienna—Palaces and Gardens—Mosaic Copy of Da Vinci’s “Last Supper”—Collection of Warlike Antiquities; Scanderburg’s Sword, Montezuma’s Tomahawk, Relics of the Crusaders, Warriors in Armour, the Farmer of Augsburg—Room of Portraits of Celebrated Individuals—Gold Busts of Jupiter and Juno—The Glacis, full of Gardens, the General Resort of the People—Universal Spirit of Enjoyment—Simplicity and Confidence in the Manners of the Viennese—Baden.
At the foot of a hill in one of the beautiful suburbs of Vienna, stands a noble palace, called the Lower Belvidere. On the summit of the hill stands another, equally magnificent, called the Upper Belvidere, and between the two extend broad and princely gardens, open to the public.
On the lower floor of the entrance-hall in the former palace, lies the copy, in mosaic, of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper,” done at Napoleon’s order. Though supposed to be the finest piece of mosaic in the world, it is so large that they have never found a place for it. A temporary balcony has been erected on one side of the room, and the spectator mounts nearly to the ceiling to get a fair position for looking down upon it. That unrivalled picture, now going to decay in the convent at Milan, will probably depend upon this copy for its name with posterity. The expression in the faces of the apostles is as accurately preserved as in the admirable engraving of Morghen.
The remaining halls in the palace are occupied by a grand collection of antiquities, principally of a warlike character. When I read in my old worm-eaten Burton, of “Scanderburg’s strength,” I never thought to see his sword. It stands here against the wall, along straight weapon with a cross hilt, which few men could heave to their shoulders. The tomahawk of poor Montezuma hangs near it. It was presented to the emperor by the king of Spain. It is of a dark granite, and polished very beautifully. What a singular curiosity to find in Austria!
The windows are draped with flags dropping in pieces with age. This, so in tatters, was renowned in the crusades. It was carried to the Holy Land and brought back by the archduke Ferdinand.
A hundred warriors in bright armour stand around the hall. Their visors are down, their swords in their hands, their feet planted for a spring. One can scarce believe there are no men in them. The name of some renowned soldier is attached to each. This was the armour of the cruel Visconti of Milan—that of Duke Alba of Florence—both costly suits, beautifully inlaid with gold. In the centre of the room stands a gigantic fellow in full armour, with a sword on his thigh and a beam in his right hand. It is the shell of the famous farmer of Augsburg, who was in the service of one of the emperors. He was over eight feet in height, and limbed in proportion. How near such relics bring history! With what increased facility one pictures the warrior to his fancy, seeing his sword, and hearing the very rattle of his armour. Yet it puts one into Hamlet’s vein to see a contemptible valet lay his hand with impunity on the armed shoulder, shaking the joints that once belted the soul of a Visconti! I turned, in leaving the room, to take a second look at the flag of the crusade. It had floated, perhaps, over the helmet of Cœur de Lion. Saladin may have had it in his eye, assaulting the Christian camp with his pagans.
In the next room hung fifty or sixty portraits of celebrated individuals, presented in their time to the emperors of Austria. There was one of Mary of Scotland. It is a face of superlative loveliness, taken with a careless and most bewitching half smile, and yet not without the look of royalty, which one traces in all the pictures of the unfortunate queen. One of the emperors of Germany married Philippina, a farmer’s daughter, and here is her portrait. It is done in the prim old style of the middle ages, but the face is full of character. Her husband’s portrait hangs beside it, and she looks more born for an emperor than he.
Hall after hall followed, of costly curiosities. A volume would not describe them. Two gold busts of Jupiter and Juno, by Benvenuto Cellini, attracted my attention particularly. They were very beautiful, but I would copy them in bronze, and coin “the thunderer and his queen,” were they mine.
Admiration is the most exhausting thing in the world. The servitor opened a gate leading into the gardens of the palace, that we might mount to the Upper Belvidere, which contains the imperial gallery of paintings. But I had no more strength. I could have dug in the field till dinner-time—but to be astonished more than three hours without respite is beyond me. I took a stroll in the garden. How delightfully the unmeaning beauty of a fountain refreshes one after this inward fatigue. I walked on, up one alley and down another, happy in finding nothing that surprised me, or worked upon my imagination, or bothered my historical recollections, or called upon my worn-out superlatives for expression. I fervently hoped not to have another new sensation till after dinner.
Vienna is an immense city (two hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants), but its heart only is walled in. You may walk from gate to gate in twenty minutes. In leaving the walls you come upon a feature of the city which distinguishes it from every other in Europe. Its rampart is encircled by an open park (called the Glacis), a quarter of a mile in width and perhaps three miles in circuit, which is, in fact, in the centre of Vienna. The streets commence again on the other side of it, and on going from one part of the city to another, you constantly cross this lovely belt of verdure, which girds her heart like a cestus of health. The top of the rampart itself is planted with trees, and, commanding beautiful views in every direction, it is generally thronged with people. (It was a favourite walk of the Duke of Reichstadt.) Between this and the Glacis lies a deep trench, crossed by draw-bridges at every gate, the bottom of which is cultivated prettily as a flower garden. Altogether Vienna is a beautiful city. Paris may have single views about the Tuileries that are finer than anything of the same kind here, but this capital of western Europe, as a whole, is quite the most imposing city I have seen.
The Glacis is full of gardens. I requested my disagreeable necessity of a valet, this afternoon, to take me to two or three of the most general resorts of the people. We passed out by one of the city gates, five minutes’ walk from the hotel, and entered immediately into a crowd of people, sauntering up and down under the alleys of the Glacis. A little farther on we found a fanciful building, buried in trees, and occupied as a summer café In a little circular temple in front was stationed a band of music, and around it for a considerable distance were placed small tables filled just now with elegantly dressed people, eating ices, or drinking coffee. It was in every respect like a private fête champètre. I wandered about for an hour, expecting involuntarily to meet some acquaintance—there was such a look of kindness and unreserve throughout. It is a desolate feeling to be alone in such a crowd.
We jumped into a carriage and drove round the Glacis for a mile, passing everywhere crowds of people idling leisurely along and evidently out for pleasure. We stopped before a superb façade, near one of the gates of the city. It was the entrance to the Volksgarten. We entered in front of a fountain, and turning up a path to the left, found our way almost impeded by another crowd. A semi circular building, with a range of columns in front encircling a stand for a band of music, was surrounded by perhaps two or three thousand people. Small tables and seats under trees, were spread in every direction within reach of the music. The band played charmingly. Waiters in white jackets and aprons were running to and fro, receiving and obeying orders for refreshments, and here again all seemed abandoned to one spirit of enjoyment. I had thought we must have left all Vienna at the other garden. I wondered how so many people could be spared from their occupations and families. It was no holiday. “It is always as gay in fair weather,” said Karl.
A little back into the garden stands a beautiful little structure, on the model of the temple of Theseus in Greece. It was built for Canova’s group of “Theseus and the Centaur,” bought by the emperor. I had seen copies of it in Rome, but was of course much more struck with the original. It is a noble piece of sculpture.
Still farther back, on the rise of a mount, stood another fanciful café, with another band of music—and another crowd! After we had walked around it, my man was hurrying me away. “You have not seen the Augarten,” said he. It stands upon a little green island in the Danube, and is more extensive than either of the others. But I was content where I was; and dismissing my Asmodeus, I determined to spend the evening wandering about in the crowds alone. The sun went down, the lamps were lit, the alleys were illuminated, the crowd increased, and the emperor himself could not have given a gayer evening’s entertainment.
Vienna has the reputation of being the most profligate capital in Europe. Perhaps it is so. There is certainly, even to a stranger, no lack of temptation to every species of pleasure. But there is, besides, a degree of simplicity and confidence in the manners of the Viennese which I had believed peculiar to America, and inconsistent with the state of society in Europe. In the most public resorts, and at all hours of the day and evening, modest and respectable young women of the middle classes walk alone perfectly secure from molestation. They sit under the trees in these public gardens, eat ices at the cafés, walk home unattended, and no one seems to dream of impropriety. Whole families, too, spend the afternoon upon a seat in a thronged place of resort, their children playing about them, the father reading, and the mother sewing or knitting, quite unconscious of observation. The lower and middle classes live all summer, I am told, out of doors. It is never oppressively warm in this latitude, and their houses are deserted after three or four o’clock in the afternoon, and the whole population pours out to the different gardens on the Glacis, where till midnight, they seem perfectly happy in the enjoyment of the innocent and unexpensive pleasures which a wise government has provided for them.
The nobles and richer class pass their summer in the circle of rural villages near the city. They are nested about on the hills, and crowded with small and lovely rural villas more like the neighbourhood of Boston than anything I have seen in Europe.
Baden, where the Emperor passes much of his time, is called “the miniature Switzerland.” Its baths are excellent, its hills are cut into retired and charming walks, and from June till September it is one of the gayest of watering-places. It is about a two hours’ drive from the city, and omnibuses at a very low rate, run between at all times of the day. The Austrians seldom travel, and the reason is evident. They have everything for which others travel, at home.