Having ridden in safety, but some dread, across this uneven and trembling bridge, we left our passport at the gate, and the douaniers came smilingly forward. “What is in this valise?” “Linen.” “And in this?” “Linen also; will you look at it?”
The douanier smiled, and shook his head, but made an almost imperceptible sign of thirst, and D—— gave a silver coin to satisfy it. There is a frankness about this conduct which is exceedingly agreeable. One is sure of giving in the right place, and without offence, and also of saving trouble at small cost, for it happened that the only change we possessed was an Austrian lira, which, translated, means seventeen sous, three centimes; and though we were almost ashamed to offer it, it seemed to content the custom-house officer perfectly.
The sombre streets of this saddest of towns led us to San Marco, an inn neither good nor bad, though certainly better than its Milan namesake, and having fine rooms and broad staircase, which common cleanliness would make objects of admiration. Our sleeping chamber with its dome is of such elegant form that I should like to transport it afar, but spoiled with gaudy frescoes on wall and ceiling, by dirty floor, and ragged furniture. The eating room, a noble hall, with a range of pillars down its centre, and hung round with paintings for sale—some few good, several curious; luxury and poverty, dirt and elegance, everywhere blended—even in the yard, which is an abomination, yet where a coved trellis-work forms a roof which a splendid vine covers with its thick leaves, making the loveliest of ceilings.
We walked to the cathedral—a dark red heavy building, built almost entirely of brick, with one high tower; an open gallery surmounting its façade, which exhibits, one above the other, three ranges of porticoes, the pillars of the lowest and central one springing from the loins of guardian lions. Within, above the principal entrance, is some curious carving. The church is large without being handsome; two thirds of the roof, glaring with fresh whitewash, contrast with the dark grey columns. The choir has its frescoes still; and there is a subterranean church which we admired—sombre and solemn, its arched roof sustained by numerous pillars, as light and elegant as those above are massive. We were driven from the cathedral by two or three guides, who, next to beggars, persecute strangers in Italy, following with a pertinacity which defies repulse, forcing on you a new version of history, and concluding each sentence by saying, with extended hand, “Le sue buone grazie.”
In the cathedral, the famous Cardinal Alberoni (born at the village of Firenzuola, which we shall pass through on our way, and a gardener’s son) was clerk and bell-ringer. An open piazza surrounds the square, which we left in search of the citadel, once the palace and stronghold of Pier Luigi Farnese, who, invested with the duchy in the year 1545, by his father Pope Paul the Third, built for his defence what proved his tomb. Notwithstanding Paul’s affection for him, he was a man stained with all vices, and capable of all crimes. The nobility of his new states, who under the ecclesiastical sway had enjoyed great independence, were bowed to the rank of vassals; and, making his laws retrospective in their severity, (while he deprived them of arms, limited their privileges, and forced them to reside within his city and power,) he commanded a strict investigation of their past conduct, and punished its derelictions with heavy fines or confiscation of property, exercising the same tyranny of which he had given proof when five years before he had been sent by the pope to subdue his revolted province of Perugino, the birthplace of Raphael’s master; for having reduced it to obedience, he devastated its territory, and put its chief citizens to the most cruel deaths. The nobles of Placentia, roused to desperation, at last conspired against him, demanding and obtaining the aid of Ferdinand of Gonzagua, who detested Farnese also. It is said that a man celebrated for divination of the future presented himself before Pier Luigi to warn him of his fate, desiring him to examine one of his own coins struck at Parma, as thereupon, and contained in the same word, he would find the initials of the conspirators’ names and the destined place of his assassination. The prophecy was little attended to at the time, but it was afterwards observed, that as Plac—— signified Placentia, it also contained the initials of Pallavicini, Landi, Anguissola, and Confalonieri. On the 10th of September, 1547, between thirty and forty conspirators, in peaceful garb, but with concealed arms, arrived at the palace as if to pay their court to Farnese, who, an old man before his time, lay in his sick chamber, incapable of defence or exertion. While they guarded the approaches, and prevented succour, Anguissola sought it and stabbed him. Apprized of his death by the firing of two cannon, agreed on as a signal, Ferdinand of Gonzagua despatched to Placentia a reinforcement of troops, and followed himself to take possession in the emperor’s name.
It is said that they flung the corpse from the balcony into the piazza, and guide-books aver the balcony is still shown; but of the windows of the still unfinished exterior, which bears the ciphers of Pier Luigi and his successor, and look on the square, not one opens on a balcony. The inner courts are invisible to strangers, the citadel being converted to a barrack, and the other side of the edifice looks on gardens. A washerwoman, whose door stood open, allowed me to obtain a view of it by entering her dirty territory, after we had made a long and vain tour, for the purpose, among hot stone walls and ill-scented alleys.
The old municipal palace, built in the thirteenth century, with its quaint architecture, dark and imposing, forms one side of the place which contains the two equestrian statues in bronze, and of colossal size, of Alessandro and Ranuccio Farnese.
Opposite is the Palazzo del Governo, where, forming part of an effaced inscription, I could distinguish the word Napoleone. Beneath the arcades of the first fortress-looking palace, and around the pedestals of the duke’s statues, were grouped the market-women, with their heaps of fruit and baskets of flowers, as if they were offerings to propitiate the stern warriors who frown above on their battle-steeds. Engraved on each pedestal is an inscription, equally flattering, though deserved differently.
Alessandro, brought up at the court of Philip the Second of Spain, soon distinguished by his brilliant courage and military talent, became, after the decease of Duke John of Austria, governor of the Netherlands, and profiting by the religious dissensions there, won over to Spain almost all the resident catholics. The United Provinces had called to defend them the Duke of Anjou, brother of Henry the Third of France. Alessandro, whose triumphs had continued almost uninterruptedly, receiving news of the loss of his father Octavio, and become by this event Duke of Parma and Placentia, solicited of the Spanish court permission to return and take possession of his sovereignty. Philip refusing the leave he asked, he prosecuted, with unabated success, the war in Flanders, till that in France came to create a diversion. At the sieges of Paris and Rouen the prince of Parma was opposed to Henry the Fourth, and returning from the latter, he was wounded in the arm before Caudebec, and died at Arras of the consequences of this neglected injury, having never seen again the province of which he had become master.
His son Ranuccio was his lieutenant in Flanders when he expired: though he had shown courage in battle, he inherited none of his father’s heroic qualities. In his early youth in Rome his life had been in danger of closing violently. Pope Sixtus the Fifth, informed, that, despite his severe order against concealed arms, young Ranuccio secretly carried pistols, commanded his arrest, and it took place as he entered the halls of the pontifical palace to seek an audience. The Cardinal Farnese, his uncle, craved his liberation on the instant, but in vain. Returning at nightfall to the presence of his holiness, he renewed his solicitations even more earnestly. At ten o’clock the inflexible pope sent to the castle of St. Angelo his mandate for the young man’s execution. Unacquainted with the subject of the message, the cardinal continued to implore, and at eleven obtained from the hand of Sixtus a second order,—bearing that, on its receipt, Ranuccio Farnese should be set free. Provided with this last, the cardinal arrived breathless at the castle of St. Angelo, where, to his astonishment and terror, he found his young relative kneeling before his confessor, and heard that the execution had been deferred only on his instant prayer for more time to reconcile himself with God. Whether the pope had intended merely to terrify his prisoner to future obedience, or whether he thought, in the hour which had elapsed, his first command must have been fulfilled, the cardinal did not wait to inquire, and the governor yielding up Ranuccio in the belief that Sixtus had been softened, he forced him to depart from the papal states without delay. Reigning as duke in Parma, Ranuccio strove to inspire his subjects with fear of him, and aroused, instead, their hatred. When apprised of the discontent of the nobles, he feigned belief in a wide-spreading conspiracy, seized on the representatives of the first families of his duchy, and rid himself of their future opposition by secret trials and the block, while he dragged to the gibbet their adherents and vassals.