This is the fête of the Virgin. Before leaving Modena, the landlady took some trouble to convince me that the barber opposite, occupied in shaving several black faces, was a Jew, as a good catholic would on no account so labour to-day. Outside the town, we met numbers of peasants carrying the tall cierges intended as offerings at her altars, ornamented with flowers and ribands. The toilette of the women, who wore their best clothes, had an elegance about it, the lace or embroidered handkerchief covering, in guise of mantilla, the head and shoulders, and the clear worked muslin apron tied on over the bright petticoat. On the chapter of beauty, however, their “glory has departed.” Since leaving Milan, we have seen but few females not plain to ugliness, and but seldom among the men one of those dark faces so peculiarly handsome, notwithstanding its doubtful expression. The dirt of the lower classes is so excessive and indescribable, that, as they make their toilette before their cabin doors, the entire breadth of the road seemed scarce sufficient to save from contamination.
Having passed through St. Ambrogio, and over a fine bridge which crosses the Tanaro, we entered on the papal territory. At the barrier we paid two pauls per horse, the same at each of the two bridges, but on carriages the tax falls heavily; and at Castel Franco are the pope’s custom-house and passport office. Truly the subjects of his holiness lack conscience. One touched our baggage; “What have you here?” and to the usual reply, “Linen; will you see it?” rejoined, “On no account, but we will drink your health.” Then came up another to whisper “they were not insieme,” and that the first was a narrow-minded man, who shared nothing with a comrade; and thirdly, a soldier bringing the passport murmured as he delivered it, “Le sue buone grazie.”
Arrived at Bologna as the sun set, passing on the right hand the long brick arcade, which, three miles in length, is carried up the hill to the church containing the Virgin’s most precious picture, painted by St. Luke; and riding beneath an archway which bears an inscription in Napoleon’s honour, whitewashed for the sake of effacing it, but restored by the late heavy rains. We went, as recommended, to the Pellegrino, but it was full and has no stables, and to the Aquila, which had accommodation for our horses, but none for ourselves, a circumstance it did not think proper to communicate till the latter were on the road to their quarters.
A voice in the crowd said “La Pace,” but it was overruled by another answering, “San Marco;” and as the latter was nearest, we went thither, and found it full also. The inn opposite, a branch of this, as belonging to the same master, and called the Tre Mori, had still a disposable room, so said the innkeeper, and, weary of wandering, we agreed to take it if possible. He retreated with a bow within his own premises, and we were consigned to the care of his direttore, the great man’s great man at the Tre Mori. The room, which was small and stifling, and exactly opposite a hall in which domestics were noisily dining, had been occupied, I think, by servants also, and left unarranged at their departure. The only answer to the bell was “Patienza,” a virtue I should have summoned to mine aid till morning, despite the inn’s dirt and incivility, but that D—— came in dismay to say that our poor comrades were lodged in a crowded stable, without space to lie down, and next kicking horses, one of whom had lamed his neighbour the night before. To run the risk of a like accident to ours was not to be thought of—the warlike Fanny, with open mouth and ears laid back, and Grizzle, with her heels, were prepared to resent any insult from the tall carriage horses, or even to take the initiative if necessary; and Italy being a place where even bribes are vain to induce an attendant to practise care, D—— remained standing beside the surly groom, while I sallied forth on a voyage of discovery, having changed my dress, and summoned to conduct me a poor facchino, who had carried our baggage into the inn—a dwarfish wretched being we noticed for his civility, and who had since remained leaning against the wall in the hope of further employment. I desired him to be my guide to La Pace, and we threaded the winding and porticoed streets at a rapid step, as I feared it might grow dark ere our return, and San Marco being at one end of the town, La Pace is at the other, in a broader street, and better air, near the gate we shall pass through going to Florence. Arrived at the hotel, I found with satisfaction that its mistress was a Frenchwoman; and seeing that not only our horses could have a private stable, but that the house in accommodation, as well as in civility, wholly differed from the Tre Mori, we hurried back; the little guide telling his history, and how he had been left an orphan, and with three sisters, he “povero ragazzo” (for the ragazzo is, like the Irish boy, named for life) and they had struggled, and nearly starved for a time, and then established a good character, and got on in the world, till now (in his Sunday attire) he was another man.
We asked for our bill of an hour, and, though explaining the motive of our departure, endured insolence in return, paying with Christian meekness the moor’s exactions, which, for our horses and ourselves, charged such items as might have been fair the next morning. As we walked out, we passed an English gentleman, who stood on the inn steps holding a bill of interminable length, the innkeeper of San Marco and the direttore of the Tre Mori, one on each side, like Scylla and Charybdis, and the Englishman, foaming with the powerless fury of the sea in like situation, for the worthies were uncivil and positive. Escaped from their fangs, our horses led by the ragazzo, we arrived at La Pace at dusk, crossing on our way the fine Piazza Maggiore, most striking in that imperfect light, with the Palazzo Pubblico, and the Palazzo del Podestà, and the unfinished façade of San Petronio, occupying three of its sides, and the giant’s fountain, with its statue of Neptune by John of Bologna, built, not in the centre of the square, but in its angle, or rather on a “place” of its own, a kind of supplement to the Piazza Maggiore, facing the buildings of the Palazzo Pubblico, where they extend beyond it.
I have heard Bologna criticized for its unending arcades, which give it in my opinion a claim to admiration; a studious and solemn character, making it resemble some mighty cathedral and its cloisters. La Pace retains the name it bore when a resting-place for pilgrims on their way to Rome; the large vaulted kitchen was then the refectory, and the upper stories of the building have still the same distribution as in those days. Our hostess has known some of life’s vicissitudes. Her father had a place in, I think, the financial department, whose revenues sufficed for the comforts of his family, but, wishing to retire, he exerted what interest he possessed to get a friend, who promised compensation, named in his stead. Having succeeded, this man not only refused to fulfill his part of the agreement, but having borrowed and given no security for all the ready money the old man possessed, he finally turned into the streets, from the shelter which had been their own, the father and young daughter. The latter wandered over Paris during the day, vainly seeking employment, which, owing to her youth and disbelief in her story, was everywhere refused her. At last, night coming on, and those who passed examining the forlorn girl with curiosity or contempt, in despair, and ashamed to beg, as she crossed the Pont Royal on her way back to the spot where she had left her father, she suddenly resolved on suicide, and was about to throw herself into the river, when her arm was caught by an old officer, who forcibly held her back, gravely remonstrated with her, and passed on. Softened, and her purpose changed, she knocked meekly at several doors, and at last found shelter with a poor portress, who received herself and her father for charity. She next took service with a lady resident in the hotel, and accompanied her to Italy. There, after some years, she married the head-waiter of the inn of San Marco, and they embarked their savings in La Pace. Her father followed when she quitted France, but he had grown childish from misfortune, and died shortly after the change in his daughter’s prospects. He used to wander miles away from the inn, saying he would go back to France. The fat black terrier, who sits so petted and caressed on a chair in the kitchen, was his follower and guardian. One day, after a vain search for the old man, he was found sleeping on a mattress in a peasant’s cabin, with the dog sitting at his head: he had walked farther, thinking to pass the frontier, and fatigued, and unable to speak the language, he sank down at last before the cottage which gave him its hospitality. I think she said it was his last excursion.
The Neptune of John of Bologna holds a place once occupied by a statue, by Raphael, of Pope Julius the Second, and raised by his command shortly after his first conquest of Bologna, in 1406, but the pope was represented with so haughty an aspect, and in so menacing an attitude, that the original of the statue had hardly quitted them, when the indignant Bolognese struck it down. The church of St. Petronio, though unfinished, and likely to remain so, has an imposing aspect, and is of ancient date, as commenced in 1590. It possesses its patron saint’s entire body, the head, which only was wanting, having been bestowed by Pope Benoit the Fourteenth. The presence of this relic caused a strange mistake on the part of the learned German Meibomius, who, believing all the works of the satirical writer Petronius preserved at Bologna, made a long journey thither to behold his manuscripts, and was greatly disappointed when led to the shrine.
In this church was Charles the Fifth, the emperor, crowned king of Lombardy by Clement the Seventh;—kissing the same papal foot he had before held captive, and creating, after the ceremony, two hundred knights, in the list of whom are included the names of several noble families still existing in Bologna.
The palace of King Enzio opposite still bears the same name as when the prison of the unfortunate young man, illegitimate son of the Emperor Frederic the Second, and dethroned king of Sardinia. The Bolognese took him captive, and would never restore his freedom more, for he pined within these walls twenty years, and died in the year 1262. There is a legend which would make the family of Bentivoglio of royal origin: it recites that there was a fair young peasant enamoured of Enzio, and who, by bribes or stratagem, found means to see him in his confinement. She loved, and was faithful to him, and brought forth a son, who, by favour likewise was sometimes allowed to be carried to his father’s arms. The sad prisoner was wont to hold him on his knee, and murmur to the boy while he caressed him, “Ben ti voglio, O ben ti voglio.”
When he died, he left him all his disposable property, and the youth adopted as a family name the words he had so often heard repeated by his father.