Italian Days and Ways

by Anne Hollingsworth Wharton

adding, "But I don't see where the poetry comes in."

Although Zelphine, amiable as she is, is quite capable of withering and shrivelling with a glance any one who speaks slightingly of Robert Browning's poetry, she turned to the girl and said quite pleasantly, "No, there are no rhymes or jingles, only the deep thought of a great poet who loved Italy truly."

"Oh," exclaimed the girl, "I did not understand."

"Evidently," said Zelphine, as we rowed out into the Grand Canal, "and for the same reason that Kipling's girl of 'the rag and the bone and the hank of hair' did not understand."

We really should have become used to people who do not understand, we meet so many of them.

Riva San Lorenzo, Verona,

Sunday, June 5th.

You will be surprised to learn that we have quitted our beloved Venice, and quite suddenly, which is, I believe, the only way that we could have disentangled ourselves from the allurements of that fairy city. In the last week quite a number of our friends arrived from Florence and elsewhere, and there have been afternoon teas at the Lido and at Mrs. Allen's little apartment on the Grand Canal nearly opposite the palace of his superseded majesty, Don Carlos of Spain, water-parties every night, and just as we were stepping into a gondola yesterday morning, en route for Padua, a note was handed to Zelphine containing a charming invitation from Mrs. B., to take tea and spend the afternoon with her at the Palazzino Tasso. She has been at Borca in the Dolomites for a fortnight, and wrote that she would be at home in time to receive us on Monday afternoon. So you see how difficult it was for us to get away from this fascinating place; but having planned to take this little giro with Miss Morris, we set our faces resolutely westward.

We spent a day at Padua, which is on the way to Verona, as there are some frescoes by Mantegna, Titian, Giotto, and Palma Vecchio that Miss Morris was particularly anxious to see. Our visit to the Basilica of St. Anthony of Padua, which with its seven domes is larger than San Marco, was not entirely satisfactory, as a high mass was being celebrated before the altar above which are the Donatello bronzes, and we were obliged to return in the afternoon or give up all thought of seeing those superb reliefs. At the Scuola del Carmine we were abundantly compensated for all other disappointments, as here we found a series of frescoes representing events in the life of the parents of the Blessed Virgin, as realistic in design and as frank in execution as the Giotto paintings in Assisi. We wondered in what fertile brain had originated the pathetic story here represented by Giotto and his pupils. Miss Morris says that she intends to look up the story of Joachim and Anna in the lives of the saints, assuring us that we shall find a continuation of their domestic trials and experiences on the walls of the Brera at Milan. No frescoes except those at Assisi have interested us as much as these, not on account of their beauty, but for their human feeling. These early Paduan masters treated sacred subjects with realistic simplicity and yet with perfect reverence and devotional spirit.

On the piazza of the Cappella San Giorgio is Donatello's fine bronze statue of General Gattamelata. This statue, the Marcus Aurelius in Rome, and the Colleoni in Venice are considered the greatest equestrian statues in the world. Beautiful as is this Gattamelata, which possesses all the spirit and grace of Donatello, it does not compare with the Colleoni. No man of bronze or marble ever sat his horse with the strength and ease with which the grand, dominant figure of the Italian condottiere sits his superb charger and rides out boldly into space. Miss Morris says that we may be pleased to know that Mr. Ruskin quite agreed with us about the Colleoni.