We left Leghorn on the 18th, and, two hours after, arrived at Pisa. We remained there the rest of the day, and had just time to take a cursory view of the wonderful Leaning Tower, the celebrated Brazen Gates of the Cathedral, the Dome, the College, and the Chapel of the Knights of St. Stephen, &c. &c. Early next morning, we resumed our journey, and, at four in the afternoon, arrived at this elegant city.
From Leghorn to Florence is sixty-three miles, or, in the Italian style, eight posts, for each of which, with a pair of horses, you pay four shillings, and the driver is entitled to a fifth, which custom has increased to eighteen pence. The Italian miles being near a fourth shorter than the English, you generally go a post in an hour and a few minutes; but this depends very much upon what you give the postilions, who always take care to enquire from those they relieve. The road is good and level, and remarkably pleasant, the whole of it being in the populous and fertile vale of Arno, and almost constantly close to the river.
In the barbarous ages, after the subversion of the Roman empire, Tuscany underwent many revolutions, and remained in a state of subjection till the time of the Guelphs and Gibbelines, when the feuds of those factions, and the contests between the Pope and the Emperor, enabled the Tuscans to shake off the yoke. They were again subdued by Charles V. who, having married his natural daughter to Alexander of Medicis, he gave him the Dukedom of Tuscany: but Alexander, being a tyrant, was soon assassinated, and Cosmo, son of John of Medicis set up in his place, and formally crowned Grand Duke of Tuscany by Pope Pius V.--A. D. 1570.
It is to this immortal Prince that we are indebted for the revival of the fine arts, and for the foundation of the Gallery of Florence, which each of his descendants increased and improved. The dukedom remained in their line for the space of near two centuries, when the Medicis being extinct by Duke Gaston dying without issue, it revolved to the Emperor, and is now governed by his brother.
The arts and sciences suffered no loss from this change. Peter Leopold is their most distinguished patron; and the Gallery is as much indebted to him as to the most elegant of his predecessors.
Formerly, people of humble fortunes were secluded from the view of these treasures, by the extortion of the attendants; but their salaries have been lately increased, and they are prohibited from accepting presents, on pain of losing their places. The poorest peasant has now a right to amuse himself at his leisure in every part of the Gallery, and admittance is refused to nobody but servants. It affords matter of surprise to an Englishman, that valets de chambres, and footmen, who have so much influence every where else, are here excluded from places that are open to the lowest of every other tribe.
I have not troubled myself about the private character of Peter Leopold; but the face of his country, the industry and morality of his subjects, and the pleasing signs of an happy and increasing population, prove him a great and a good Prince. The morals of his people are one of his principal objects, in which he has so happily succeeded, that, in the general free mart of Leghorn, where formerly the trade of a harlot was as much permitted and in as high repute as any other, the houses of ill fame are reduced to a very small number; and, in a short time, prostitution will be as completely rooted out there as it already is out of every other part of Tuscany.
By a law, as uncommon as it is just, a breach of modesty is as severely punished in the male as in the female sex; and a seducer, be his rank what it will, is obliged to marry the object he has polluted. None of either sex are permitted to shut themselves up in convents; and marriage is highly encouraged. Such, indeed, is this Prince's success in promoting morality, and preventing vice among his people, that, different from most capitals, the women are innocent and healthy, as well as beautiful; and assassinations and robberies are here no longer heard of.
What a satisfaction will the philanthrope enjoy, when he finds that this public happiness and virtue has been produced by the most laudable means. Peter Leopold thinks the lives of his subjects too valuable to sacrifice even one to the gallows or the scaffold; but if a citizen is guilty of any transgression, he atones for his crime by labouring on the public works, for the general good, with a label on his back, expressing his crime and his punishment.
This being the Holy Week, the Gallery will not be open for some days, which is no great disappointment, since the fine taste of the Medicis was not confined to their palaces only. The town is ornamented with many celebrated pieces of sculpture; the principal of which are, the group of Hercules rescuing Dejanira from the Centaur, by Michael Angelo; and the Rape of the Sabines, by John Bologna; a superb fountain, with Neptune in the center, drawn by four horses, surrounded by as many persons, each attended by two fawns or satyrs; a noble equestrian of Cosmo, and many other excellent statues and columns, and a triumphal arch, erected in honour of the reigning family. I should be guilty of great injustice to Peter Tacca, if I passed over his famous boar in the market-place. He forms a kind of fountain on the ground, slabbering out water in so natural a manner, that, at first, I actually took him for a hog, too lazy to remove from the wet.