Mr. Barry returned alone, touching at Cyprus, and thence coasting along Asia Minor. Rhodes naturally attracted his notice by the curious contrast of its former and present aspects. The old church of St. John (then a mosque), the Grand Master’s house still bearing traces of its original character, the old escutcheons embedded in the walls, spoke of the days of Christianity and Western civilization. The docks and trade of the place, engrossed by Greeks and Europeans, and the insolence and ignorance of the Turkish soldiery, gave a melancholy picture of the present. At Boudroon (Halicarnassus) he managed, not without difficulty, to see the famous marbles embedded in the walls. Yerunda brought back a reminiscence of Egypt by a temple with an avenue of seated figures, 600 yards in length, “clearly Egyptian in origin, but only a feebly executed copy of the original.” Patmos, at which they next touched, was entirely Greek. The great convent near the “Cave of the Apocalypse” was the first object of interest. A good library neglected, with curious MSS. very carelessly kept, was its reproach; a flourishing Greek school its best evidence of activity. Thence he made his way to Smyrna, passing the ruins of Ephesus; and at last (August 16th, 1819) he bade farewell to the East, and sailed (with Messrs. Godfrey and Wyse) to Malta and Sicily.
A quarantine of twenty days at Malta left him only time for a hasty examination of Valetta and its buildings, before passing on to Syracuse. In Sicily he spent two months of great activity and enjoyment, studying the superimposed strata of Greek, Roman, Saracenic, and Gothic architecture, which give a visible epitome of the history of the island.
Syracuse attracted notice for the sake of the past rather than the present. The very cathedral was formed out of the old temple of Athene; the fountain of Arethusa, shorn of its glories, appeared only as “a great pool, full of washerwomen;” the town itself, shrunk to the little island of Ortygia, was but a symbol of the wretched and degraded state in which the island then was.[17] The two harbours (“the smaller paved with marble, with rings for the fastening of galleys”) and the distinct traces of the other quarters of the old city were the only objects of much interest.
Taormina (Tauromenium) struck them more forcibly by its magnificent position, and its strange juxta-position of the great Greek theatre, Roman baths, Saracenic tombs, and Franciscan convent.
Messina, putting aside its beauty of situation, showed them little except the great hospitals (grand in conception, scale, and revenue, but miserable in arrangement, and restricted in usefulness), and the great prison, with its horrible dungeons and torture chambers, full of memories of recent cruelty, and even then unworthy of a civilized Government.
At Girgenti (Agrigentum) the profusion of remains, and the magnificent scale of the temples, especially the great temple of the Olympian Zeus, invited very careful study and criticism, in which are clearly seen the effects of his Egyptian travels.
But of all places in Sicily, Palermo was clearly far the richest in interest, and not unworthy “of one of the finest situations in the world.”[18] The cathedral at Palermo, and the palace and chapel at Monreale, gave him his first introduction to that peculiar architecture, full of Saracenic and Byzantine influence, which is so interesting to all students of the early Gothic styles. He was much struck with its picturesque character, and especially with the richness of the mosaic decorations, and the use of external colours. It hardly approved itself to his taste; for it was too irregular, and too merely picturesque. Still it was examined with a care and respect, which showed the growing importance of Gothic in his mind, and the recollection probably bore fruit in after-times. But the choicest records of his Sicilian expedition were unhappily lost. A large portfolio of sketches (probably some of the best he ever made) was stolen from the vessel in which he was to return home; and, in spite of all inquiry and search, no trace of it was ever recovered.
He crossed over to Italy, passed through Naples, again visiting Pompeii, and arrived at Rome at the end of January, 1820, under very different auspices from those under which he left it. In fact, he was one of the lions of the day, especially in the English society of Rome; and his letters show that he heartily enjoyed his condition, and entered with great zest into the occupations and amusements which it afforded. It was not his nature to do things by halves; his spirits were naturally high and sanguine; and he could not but feel proud in the thought, that his position had been fairly won by his own talent and exertion. But, as usual, he did not allow all this to interfere for a moment with his main object. All dissipation was kept for the evening: the day was sacred to work, and that work was now entered into with matured taste and new powers, both of origination and criticism. In this work he found an unexpected coadjutor. In a letter (dated Feb. 24th, 1820) he says,—“A Mr. Wolfe, an architect and pupil of Mr. Gwilt, has just arrived, and I have made his acquaintance with great pleasure. He is an enthusiastic admirer of art.” The acquaintance went on apace. At Easter, 1820, he continues—“In my first interview with him, I saw immediately that he was a man with whom I could coalesce and become intimate; and the result is that I now reckon him among the few sincere friends that one can hope to obtain in the world.” Never were anticipations more fully realized. The friendship, there begun, continued till the day of his death, with a rare warmth and perfectness of sympathy. The very dissimilarities of the two friends (as is usually the case when there is identity of principle and feeling) only strengthened their union, by giving each power to help the other. Art was the one thought of both; but it was pursued in very different ways. Mr. Wolfe’s mind was more educated, was naturally more scientific and philosophical, and pre-eminently distinguished by cool and well-balanced judgment. It was exactly the mind to influence Mr. Barry’s at this stage of his professional career, and to induce him to study, systematically and with a view to first principles, the treasures of Italian architecture which were before his eyes, find the rich variety of ideas and objects, with which his travels and his sketches had stored his mind.
He was often oppressed by the idea (apparently a very groundless one) that he had wasted much of his time by the discursiveness of his occupations, and especially by his preference of the artistic to the scientific element of study. The truth probably was, that the materials were gathered, and that the task of arrangement and organization now alone remained. In that task the two friends resolved to work in common; and each altered his arrangements that they might be together in their study of Rome, Florence, Vicenza, Venice, and Verona.[19]
The devotion to Greek architecture with which he left England had been somewhat shaken by his intense admiration of the Egyptian. Although he looked upon the latter as a thing essentially of the past, yet recollections of it would haunt his imagination and influence his principles of design.