OUR TOUR IN NORTH ITALY.
By TWO LONDON BACHELORS.
THE CERTOSA.
On the Monday afternoon, while No. 1 was resting, the elder bachelor sallied out by himself to see one or two of the important old churches. By the aid of a map of the town, he found his way to the dirty old church of St. Maurizio, where he saw some strangely beautiful paintings of Aurelio and Bernardino Luini. He greatly wondered if the abject poor, at their silent devotions—for there was no service at the time—were as greatly influenced by art as were their predecessors in the less enlightened days. But without wasting his time further in worthless dreamings, which could better be done at another time, he passed out of the stuffy and ugly little church into the glorious sunlight, and proceeded to the more famous church of Santa Maria della Grazie, to see the most popular picture ever painted—namely, “The Last Supper,” by Leonardo da Vinci.
The church was entered first; and here again were groups of the poorest at their private devotions. Rapture sublime seemed now and then to illumine the face of a dirty beggar as he or she glanced at a crucifix or a relic which was exposed to view over the altar of the Lady Chapel. Could such worship be wrong if it softened, and so greatly softened, hearts like these, in bodies ill-fed and ill-clothed, making a repulsive exterior glorified by a countenance of secret joy? But disappointment came by means of a surly sacristan, a veritable Judas with a bag, who roughly attended the worshippers, and pocketed pence in return for wiping their pocket handkerchiefs (for such we perforce call their dirty rags) on the glass case on the altar containing the relic before mentioned. To see the emotion of the deluded creatures, who kissed their rags with ecstatic bliss on receiving them again, was a strange sight, and struck us as widely different from that of the woman who kissed the blue fringe on Christ’s garment as He passed her—for what “virtue” could come out of the operation in the Church of Santa Maria della Grazie? The act of devotion and lowly love in the Gospel story was not done from force of habit, nor was the privilege given in return for money—and, oh! how different the Object and the intention!
THE LAST SUPPER.
From the painting at Milan, showing its present condition.
The greatest painting in the world (“The Last Supper”) is to be seen in an old outhouse which was used by the reverend monks as a refectory before the dissolution of the monastery, and which has since been used as a stable by French dragoons.
The painting is in a sad state of dilapidation, caused by damp and attempted restorations in 1770, and also by the bad treatment it has had at the hands of tourists. But much of the genius of the painting is still seen, and we bow in lowly reverence before a work which surely has been productive of much religious elevation in many generations and nations.
The Dominicans, in dining in this old refectory, must have been wonderfully impressed at seeing Christ at the other end of the room taking His Last Supper with them; for the accessories of table-cloth, glasses, etc., in the painting resemble the identical articles used by the monks, and all helped the great illusion. But again a disillusion! for, as will be seen on a reference to the picture, the reverend fathers committed the sacrilege of forming a doorway in a part of the picture—actually cutting off the legs of the chief Figure—in their desire to have their dinner warm!
The illness of the younger bachelor, which had threatened to ruin our holiday, was not nearly so serious as the doctor had led us to expect. On the second day the fever much abated, and we determined to resume our journey after the third day. The doctor, however, advised us not to go to either Cremona or Mantua, as these cities, especially the former, are unhealthy, and might bring on a renewal of the fever. This was a disappointment, as we were anxious to see Cremona, which, apart from its cathedral and other buildings, has always been renowned for the manufacture of violins and other stringed instruments. To see fiddles of every shape and size hung out in the open air to dry like so many clothes after washing, was too novel a sight to miss without a bitter pang.
We determined to make up for our disappointment in not seeing Cremona and Mantua, by visiting the town of Pavia and the magnificent monastery or Certosa close to it.
So we arranged to make the excursion to the Certosa and Pavia, to return to Milan for a visit to the Brera Gallery, to dine, and to get our trunks, and finally depart for Verona, if possible, on the same day. This was rather an extensive programme, especially as one of us had just recovered from an illness; but we determined if possible to abide by it.
The great Lombard plain is relieved from monotony by being cut-up with canals and ditches, running between avenues of willows and poplars, reminding one of the scenery in Dutch pictures.
Of course the Certosa is in many respects an exquisite building. The magnificence of the materials of its altars, screens, pavements, &c., and the enormous wealth of sculpture lavished over every portion of it, render this church one of the most remarkable structures in the world. But when one comes to study it and to think it well over, the question arises whether this immense amount of costly material, this vast amount of labour and skill, ought not to have produced something far more “striking” in general effect. In fact, it rather reminds one of the so-called French dinners, which English people are in the habit of giving, from which one comes away thoroughly unsatisfied, with only a confused recollection of a great number of costly dishes. It almost appears as if in the Certosa the sculptors had been set to do the architecture and the painters to execute the sculpture; each has so attempted to overdo and over-elaborate his portion of the work that he has “strained” his art, until it has lost those wholesome restrictions which the æsthetic principles, both of classic and mediæval times, had placed upon it. Thus we find the architectural outlines broken up and lost in a forest of detail, and the sculptured panels have elaborated backgrounds more suited for pictorial works than for carving.
The façade, which our girls perfectly know by photograph, was designed by Borgognone, far better known as a painter, and was commenced about 1473.
One really sees nothing of the church until entering the large gate, covered on the outside with damaged frescoes; the wonderful façade presents itself on the other side of the quadrangle.
As can well be imagined, the first sight of this wonderful front nearly took our breath away, so vast is the amount of sculpture and so elaborate the designs. The upper portion is far less elaborate than the lower; indeed, we thought that they were by different architects.
The most richly decorated portion of the façade is that on the level of the portico, the two windows on either side of the latter being completely enclosed by a vast amount of sculpturesque ornament. This elaboration is carried out to such an extent that the mullions of the windows, instead of being simply moulded, are carved into imitations of candelabra, with foliage, lizards, and little cupids in the act of climbing, and ornamenting every portion.
The subjects which pleased us the most were the pictures of sculpture, a little above the level of a man’s head, representing scenes in religious history. These are very beautiful and perfect, though some of the heads and attitudes of the figures are, to say the least, grotesque.
We may mention that a great number of the most eminent Italian masters for nearly two centuries had a hand in the elaboration of the façade, including the great Donatello.
Before entering the church, we visited the two cloisters, which are very picturesque. The arches of the first one are full of terra-cotta ornamentation. It is approached from the church by a magnificent white marble doorway.
The great cloister is very large, and is surrounded by cells, which remind one that the Certosa was once a monastery, and belonged to the Carthusians. This curious order of men never see one another, except in church. Each man has four rooms and a little garden entirely to himself. He has his bedroom, his study, his workshop, and his toolroom. These Carthusians were extremely fond of gardening, and we have received many benefits from their knowledge of horticulture. They also invented the well-known liqueur, Chartreuse. Hence their name. This was invented as a medicine, and is most wholesome and beneficial for certain illnesses; but it is now, of course, more used for its gastronomic than its medicinal qualities.
The church was commenced in the latter part of the fourteenth century; it is in form a Latin cross, and in style a mixture of Romanesque and Gothic. The whole of the interior is very richly decorated, all kinds of material being used, and the altars are beautifully inlaid and studded with precious stones, gold, etc. There are, however, scarcely any fine pictures, the few good ones having been removed, and the great number remaining scarcely add to the beauty of the interior.
There are seven chapels on either side of the nave, which are railed off from the latter. These were shown to us by a guide, not by a monk, as the guide-books say.
The Certosa is magnificently kept, and in order to make it even more “smart,” the old pavement has been replaced by a very bright mosaic one, which reflects the church like glass. But of all, the choir is the most magnificent, the tabernacle and altar-screen being sumptuous sixteenth century Renaissance work, and on either side of the altar the walls are decorated with rich sculpture.
In the transepts are two monuments, viz., those of Gian-Galeazzo Visconti, the founder of the church, and of Ludovico Moro and his wife, Beatrice d’Este.
Gian-Galeazzo Visconti was the most celebrated of the great Lombard family of Visconti, who practically ruled Milan for over a century and a half. So great was the power of this family, that they at times subjected nearly the whole of Northern Italy, and Gian-Galeazzo, after completely defeating an army sent against him by the Emperor of Germany, and after having captured by degrees the whole of Lombardy, was about to declare himself King of Italy, when death put an end to his ambition in the year 1402.
Gian-Galeazzo Visconti was the founder of Milan Cathedral and the Certosa of Pavia, and, as before mentioned, a superb monument has been erected to his memory in the latter church; but this monument was more than half a century in construction, by which time the people had forgotten where the prince had been buried; and thus the body of this great man, who had defeated numberless armies and caused to be erected two of the most sumptuous buildings in Europe, lies no one knows where.
The son of Gian-Galeazzo ruled in Milan upon his father’s death, after which the Sforza family succeeded, and held power until the middle of the sixteenth century, when the emperor, Charles V., who was practical master of Italy, handed over the duchy of Milan to his son Philip.
After leaving the Certosa, the two bachelors hired one of the light one-horse carriages, of which there are always a number outside the church, and drove to Pavia. That drive was most pleasant. It was a lovely spring day, with a brilliant sun, though not too hot, and the country was all aglow with bright colour.
Pavia is a very curious old place. Of all the old garlic-smelling, dirty, and badly-drained cities of North Italy, it is the most garlic-smelling, the dirtiest, and the worst drained; but it is very quaint withal. The old marketplaces, the projecting roofs, and the curious outdoor shops give it a wonderfully “old-world” appearance, and we enjoyed this ramble through the old city greatly, notwithstanding the horrible smells and the difficulty we had to find our way about the place. After wandering for some little time, we came to the Piazza del Duomo, which is most picturesque, and the effect was much enhanced when we were there, as it was market time. The vast quantity of old women, dressed in the most quaint manner, selling the oddest of wares, added no little to a scene which must always be paintable to a degree. The cathedral, rising on one side of the piazza, with its huge campanile, though picturesque, can scarcely be called beautiful. It has never been finished, and when we were there it was in a terrible state of dilapidation. Of the interior we could see nothing except a heap of scaffold-poles, as it was in course of restoration, and even the shrine of the great St. Augustine was concealed from view.
The most interesting church in Pavia is San Michele, and, though we were rather pressed for time, we determined to see it.
San Michele is an early Romanesque church of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and is very beautiful, both externally and internally. The façade is richly ornamented with bands of carving and small open galleries, and the chancel internally is on a much higher level than the nave, and is approached by a great flight of steps, giving it a most dignified appearance.
After leaving San Michele we tried to find our way to the station; no easy matter, as we found to our cost. We think we must have made the circumference of the city three times before an Italian boy, rather more intelligent than his fellows, at last pointed us out a place which proved to be the station, from whence we returned to Milan.
The Brera Gallery contains a magnificent collection of pictures. In an article like this it is impossible to give a detailed description of these paintings, and a mere list of works of art is both uninteresting and uninstructive; besides which no description of pictures is of any value unless it is prefaced by an account of the various schools to which the artists belong—a task which has been admirably done already by Miss Emily Macirone in the pages of this magazine. However, we may mention that the gallery is a complete history of Italian art.
To commence with, we find a good example of Giotto, who (as our girls will see from the excellent chart of the chief painters of the various schools of art, page 629 of our Annual for 1886) flourished in the commencement of the fourteenth century. As on a future occasion we shall have to speak of this painter, when describing the Arena Chapel at Padua, all we shall say at present is that one should not attempt to criticise him or the works of this early Italian school by mere isolated pictures found in galleries. Of course in the days of Giotto Italian art was more or less in its infancy, and the mechanical knowledge possessed by these fourteenth century painters was meagre, therefore we must not expect to find grand effects of chiaroscuro, neither is the rich colour of the later school to be discovered.
Of the more perfected early Italian school we find works by Luca Signorelli, Giovanni Bellini, whom we shall find far better represented in Venice, and the excellent Francia, whose lovely picture of “Mater Dolorosa” in our National Gallery is so well known to our girls. We find, also, works of Raffaelle, Leonardo da Vinci and his pupil, Luini. But the best represented painters in the Brera are the later Venetian school, especially Titian, Tintoretto, and Paul Veronese. The great glory of the collection is Raffaelle’s picture of the marriage of the Virgin. The arrangement of this picture at first struck us as being extremely formal. We find in the background a twelve-sided temple crowned with a dome, standing directly in the middle of the picture. The architecture of this temple has been severely criticised; but it by no means follows that because Raffaelle thought the structure suitable for his picture he would ever have built anything like it. In front of the temple is a very formal pavement divided into large squares. All the figures are grouped together immediately in the foreground. The High Priest stands in the centre, holding the hands of Mary and Joseph. Behind Joseph are many youths, and behind Mary are a number of women—five in each group, thus keeping up the symmetrical arrangement which runs throughout the whole picture. There is a charming grace about the head of Mary and the two women standing immediately behind her. May we call them the bridesmaids?
Joseph and the youths who accompany him are represented with rods, but it will be noticed that Joseph’s rod is crowned with five blossoms, probably of the almond. Several explanations have been given of this. The most poetical supposes it refers to an ancient legend that Mary had several suitors, as would be almost certain to be the case of a maiden of the house of David, possessed, moreover, of great personal beauty. The legend records that the various suitors each cut a rod, which they laid in the temple, and that after a time Joseph’s rod was discovered to have blossomed. Some writers suppose that the youths breaking the rods refer to an ancient custom practised in Jewish marriages.
The picture is extremely beautiful in colour, brilliant and well preserved. We venture to suggest that the very symmetrical and formal arrangement of the picture may have resulted from its having been intended as the centre portion of a group of compositions.
Titian is best represented by the frequently engraved picture of St. Jerome—a work full of grand power and magnificent chiaroscuro. Leonardo da Vinci’s work in the gallery is one of very great interest, as it is a study for the head of the Saviour for his mighty work of the Last Supper.
As the evening approaches, we dine at one of the perfect ristoranti of Milan and proceed by rail to Verona. On our way we were captivated by the charming manners of the peasantry; for we travelled third class, and thus had a capital opportunity of judging. It was a fête day at some of the towns our train called at, and there were fireworks, and every evidence of village festivity. But although there was great demand for seats in the train, we saw nothing of drunkenness nor heard coarse language, or anything resembling a vulgar cockney crowd—or, for the matter of that, the vulgar, well-dressed competitors for best seats who visit such civilising entertainments as the Monday or Saturday Popular and other London concerts! No, the Italian peasantry could teach wonderful lessons in kindness and self-respect to their betters of England! We reached Verona at midnight, and put up at a delightfully old world hotel and slept the sleep of—well, the tired, until the sun next morning reminded us of another happy day in store for us.
And now there arises before us a scene which will never be absent from the recollection of either bachelor. A broad and rapidly-flowing river, spanned by a lofty bridge, pierced by a great circle between the centremost arches, like the eye of some vast Cyclops. Banks covered with ancient tiled-roofed houses, above which rise an indescribable mass of domes, towers, spires, pinnacles, and lofty walls, crowned by forked battlements; the whole backed up by undulating hills, clad with the deep green of the cypress groves, amongst which arise the round towers of a strange-looking castle. Is this the recollection of some picture we have seen, some place we have dreamt of, or is it a reality?
The question seems further from being solved as we wander through the streets and squares of the poetical city. Every step brings us in the presence of some wondrous recollection of the past, and there is nothing to fasten down our ideas to the present time. Fresh dreams arise in every street. What is this vast oval structure, with its countless arches, reminding one of the great Colosseum at Rome? Ruinous, it is true; but as we enter it, strange to say, it seems to have suddenly awakened from its dream of sixteen centuries. Alas! it awakens us also, for what do we see but in the centre of this great arena the hanky-panky tricks of modern horsemanship and hear the stale jokes of a modern English clown! Let us, however, leave this singular scene of anachronism and again wander and dream.
This time there rises before us a series of lofty sculptured tombs, each crowned by a spire, surmounted by the figure of a man on horseback, separated from the roadway by some delicate metal work, wrought by the hand of a thirteenth-century blacksmith into a bewildering combination of quatrefoils, and supported by graceful marble columns, each bearing the image of a saint or angel. To complete the picture, the whole is backed up by a venerable-looking church, with a low, tile-covered steeple and roof, plain enough but for a beautiful marble monument placed above the doorway. It is difficult to imagine anything more enchanting in the way of architecture than this extraordinary cemetery, filling up the centre of one of the small squares of the city.
We wander on again, and find ourselves in front of a noble Gothic church, with a façade shaded by two mighty arches, one over the other, and beneath the lowermost a richly-carved doorway. We enter, and a superb picture is presented to our view. A Gothic church of exquisite proportion and rich detail, gleaming with coloured decoration, to which the softening touch of time has lent harmony and mellow tints. A pavement of variegated marble is beneath our feet. Two queer little statues, supporting holy water basins, attract our attention, and a voice seems to whisper in our ear, “I Gobbi.” Need we say that this is the Church of St. Anastasia in Verona.
It would be impossible to give our girls anything like a description of the very interesting objects in this beautiful city, or adequately to express the feelings with which one wanders about its streets. It is said that “Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast,” and the man must indeed be a savage who would not feel the same soothing influence in looking at Verona.
Everything, from its sweet-sounding name, seems to breathe poetry and music into the mind.
One seems to exist in a realm of fancy, and little imagination is required to people it again with Montagues and Capulets.
How strange it is that our great poet should have managed to have so thoroughly embodied the ideas which Verona impresses upon the mind in Romeo and Juliet, without having seen the place! When one reads the play who has seen Verona, it seems almost impossible to believe that Shakespeare did not draw his picture from the place itself.
(To be continued.)
LITTLE KARIN.[1]
Translated from the Swedish by the Rev. LEWIS BORRETT WHITE, D.D.
Among the serving maidens
In the young king’s royal Hall,
None shone like little Karin,
A star among them all.
Just like a star she shone forth,
Among the serving folk,
And thus the young king, smiling,
To little Karin spoke.
“Oh, hear thou, little Karin,
Oh, say thou wilt be mine;
Grey horse and golden saddle
Shall surely then be thine.”
“Grey horse and golden saddle,
They are not meet for me;
To thy young queen oh, give them,
Leave me with honour free.”
“Oh, hear thou, little Karin,
Oh, say thou wilt be mine,
My crown all bright and golden
Shall surely then be thine.”
“Thy crown so bright and golden,
It is not meet for me;
To thy young queen oh, give it,
Leave me with honour free.”
“Oh, hear thou, little Karin,
Oh, say thou wilt be mine;
The half my royal kingdom
Shall surely then be thine.”
“The half thy royal kingdom,
It is not meet for me;
On thy young queen bestow it,
Leave me with honour free.”
“Oh, hear thou, little Karin,
If thou wilt not be mine,
There is a spikéd barrel
I’ll have thee placed within.”
“Though there’s a spikéd barrel,
And I am placed within,
God’s angels will behold me,
That I am free from sin.”
So placed they little Karin,
In spikéd barrel bound,
And the king’s cruel horseboys,
They rolled it round and round.
Then two white doves from Heaven
Came down so peacefully,
They took up little Karin,
And then the doves were three.
