We went thence to visit the ancient Teatro Farnese, which joins the Accademmia delle Belli Arti, and entered it, having ascended two flights of the wide stair. In the time of Alessandro Farnese, it was an armoury, and by him, or by Ranuccio, his son, on the occasion of a daughter’s marriage, transformed into a theatre, of which it is the very beau idéal. The centre, lined with lead, which the French, when they came hither, took up for shot, was changed at will to a lake, the pit, which in amphitheatre surrounds it, and the boxes above, would contain nine thousand spectators: the stage, to which steps ascend, being far smaller in its opening than the width of the building, the whole audience could see perfectly. On either side of the proscenium, placed high on their chargers, are the statues of the two Farnese, originally only plaster, covering a wooden framework, and now crumbling away. The front of each box being a high open arch, shut in by a gilded chain only, the effect must have been brilliant when they were crowded with gorgeously dressed courtiers and ladies. Some of these chains are still suspended from arch to arch, dark and rusty. The ceiling was painted wood, representing historical subjects, and of this but a portion remains here and there, hanging ominously over the heads of the curious. Napoleon, when at Parma, unfortunately did not see this theatre, (so said our guide,) and it was left to decay during eighteen years—a fault which, as it was built wholly of wood, could not afterwards be repaired.
There are doors on either side of that opening into this theatre; on the right conducting to the ducal library, on the left to the picture gallery, which was a theatre likewise, and transformed to a museum by the Arch-duchess Maria Louisa, whose splendid bust by Canova occupies the further end, which a visitor, with but an hour to spare, should seek at once; for there, on the right hand, is the St. Jeronimo, Correggio’s masterpiece, of which Sir Thomas Lawrence said, it might be studied, never copied. Three times, during the day he spent at Parma, he returned to the contemplation of this picture; and truly painting never produced its superior, scarcely its rival. The Holy Child sits in his mother’s lap, with an angel beside him, who smiles as he exhibits to the Magdalen the page on which her sins were inscribed, now white as snow, and the Magdalen kisses the Saviour’s foot, and looks still repentant but consoled. St. Jeronimo occupies the foreground, a noble old figure, the limbs in such relief that he seems to stand forth from the canvass, yet still with the softness of flesh, and the “modesty of nature.”
The picture opposite this, of the Madonna alla Scodella, is a beautiful, though less perfect, picture, by Correggio also, as is the Descent from the Cross by its side, which was painted when he was but nineteen. The face of the Saviour appears small, and wants expression, as the attitude lacks dignity; but the Virgin, fainting from her excess of agony, is perfect. There are other good paintings by various masters, though all inferior to the St. Jeronimo. You will notice also two alti relievi of the thirteenth century, found in a convent some miles off. They are in pure white marble, the small figures exquisitely carved. The subject of the last and most remarkable is the Birth of Christ. He sits below on his mother’s knee, surrounded by figures in adoration, their heads off, alas! for the French were lodged one night in the convent. Above this group, and supposed to be between earth and heaven, is a cluster of flying angels, who mark the middle region. In heaven sits the Almighty, receiving from a kneeling female the infant she offers; and up to him are riding by a zigzag road, which commences at the bottom of the composition, the happy souls of the elect, on horseback, and in the costume of the thirteenth century!
We rode on, the short stage to Borgo, where the hostess and one-eyed waiter came running to meet us, wondering at the prompt return, which we so little expected when we passed. They tell us the Po has done awful damage, having swept away during the night the crazy bridge of boats, over which, as I told you, we rode doubtfully, sweeping from the meadows it rushed over, cottages, men, and cattle, of whom it is unknown how many perished. The bodies of a young soldier and old priest were picked up not far from the city; and floating on the surface of the wild water was discovered, the morning after the disaster, one of the wooden cradles of the country, and, being taken up by a boatman, there was found within an infant of a month old, asleep. Where might be its parents—or what was its name—there was none to tell; it was conjectured that it belonged to one of those wretched dwellings, or rather inhabited recesses serving for such, which we noticed when we passed the bridge, and that the same torrent which burst its father’s door, and stifled its mother’s cry, floated it forth in its tiny ark unharmed. They tell me the rain has fallen ever since we quitted Borgo, and it falls now with a violence which I trust may cease ere morning.
24th.
Left Borgo early. The rain had become mist, and the mist cleared by degrees, and we have sun and flies, though the air is not stifling as heretofore. The passport receiver at the gate remembered our riding through before, and asked many questions as to our movements, in a fit of curiosity which I gratified; and he wished me good-bye, saying, “A rivederla, signora, fra qualche anno.” Again at St. Marco.
25th.
Started late from Piacenza, taking our host’s word for the stage’s being a short one. We crossed, at no great distance from the city, Maria Louisa’s splendid bridge of twenty-two arches over the Trebbia, which at this moment is a narrow stream in the midst of a wide stony desert. The receiver of the twenty-four centesimi said we had but thirty miles to ride, but this is little consolation in a country where to teach the meaning of distance seems impossible; each person we met giving a different account thereof, and after the first hour increasing instead of diminishing the number.
At a most dirty country inn we stopped to feed the horses. No oats were to be had, and we paid for bran as if it had been some scarce known rarity. We gave the hostler the sum demanded, desiring him to pay his master the fair price, and take the remainder for buona mano; an order to which he grinned assent, and I had the satisfaction to see the dispute commenced as we rode away. A large building at which we arrived soon after, was the Sardinian douane, and the frontier passed, the country grows interesting, and is backed by wooded hills, an improvement on Maria Louisa’s treeless plains; but the roads and broken pavement of the wretched villages through which we passed are a disgrace to his majesty. The latter, with their mud cabins, and casements not glazed but papered, and their inhabitants squalid and half clothed, reminded us of their prototypes in Ireland. Though the morning had been cold and foggy, the sunshine, which succeeded, was painfully burning, as in August. We had lingered on the way, believing the distance inconsiderable, but the sun set in a heavy bank of clouds, predicting bad weather for to-morrow, and the twilight yielded to darkness, so total, and unrelieved even by a star, that D—— dismounted and led his horse before Fanny, as the road was bad beyond description, and we were glad to keep to the path by its side. I do not like riding in the dark in Italy. The character of the country is, in the first place, hardly so good as to render it desirable, and its waggoners all travel without light, and straggling from one side to the other of roads which have a ditch on each. With all our precautions we had nearly made unpleasant blunders, for not far from our destination, a new portion of road, lately made to improve the approach to the town, but not yet completed, is closed by a high bank of loose stones on which we had almost ridden. Saved from this mistake, we failed to see the Po till arrived on the very edge of the high bank which hangs over its water; and the horses, rather than our eyesight, guided us to the long, narrow and crooked bridge which crosses it, and on which we fortunately met neither cart nor traveller. This passed, Fanny quickened her step, for we saw the lights of Voghera through the trees, and soon arrived at its entrance, but rode the whole length of the nasty town to arrive at the Moro. The horses found a quiet stable after their forty mile journey, for the mile of Piedmont reckons as two of Italy. We ourselves were weary, and glad to see our dinner served in the enormous hall, which, but for the frescoes daubed on its walls, resembled a barn in dirt and desolation, and to lie down in the sleeping chamber which was, they said, the only one remaining unoccupied, and in which the iron bedsteads, a deal table, and wicker chair, were the sole articles of furniture.
26th.