“At last, in the afternoon,” he writes, “I succeeded in meeting one of the living wonders of Italy, the librarian Mezzofanti, with whom I had only spoken for a few moments in the gallery, when I passed through Bologna before: I now spent a couple of hours with him, at his lodgings in the university building, and at the library, and would willingly, for his sake alone, have prolonged my stay at Bologna for a couple of days, if I had not been bound by contract with the vetturino as far as Venice. His celebrity must be an inconvenience to him; for scarcely any educated traveller leaves Bologna without having paid him a visit, and the hired guides never omit to mention his name among the first curiosities of the town. This learned Italian, who has never been so far from his birthplace, Bologna, as to Florence or Rome, is certainly one of the world’s greatest geniuses in point of languages. I do not know the number he understands, but there is scarcely any European dialect, whether Romanic, Scandinavian, or Slavonic, that this miraculous polyglottist does not speak. It is said the total amounts to more than thirty languages; and among them is that of the gipsies, which he learned to speak from a gipsy who was quartered with an Hungarian regiment at Bologna.
“I found a German with him, with whom he was conversing in fluent and well sounding German; when we were alone, and I began to speak to him in the same language, he interrupted me with a question in Danish, ‘Hvorledes har det behaget dem i Italien?’ (‘How have you been pleased with Italy?’) After this, he pursued the conversation in Danish, by his own desire, almost all the time I continued with him, as this, according to his own polite expression, was a pleasure he did not often enjoy; and he spoke the language, from want of exercise, certainly not with the same fluency and ease as English or German, but with almost entire correctness. Imagine my delight at such a conversation! Of Danish books, however, I found in his rich and excellent philological collection no more than Baden’s Grammar, and Hallage’s Norwegian Vocabulary; and in the library Haldorson’s Icelandic Dictionary, in which he made me read him a couple of pages of the preface as a lesson in pronunciation. Our conversation turned mostly on Northern and German literature. The last he is pretty minutely acquainted with; and he is very fond of German poetry, which he has succeeded in bringing into fashion with the ladies of Bologna, so that Schiller and Goethe, whom the Romans hardly know by name, are here read in the original, and their works are to be had in the library. This collection occupies a finely-built saloon, in which it is arranged in dark presses with wire gratings, and is said to contain about 120,000 volumes. Besides Mezzofanti, there are an under librarian, two assistants, and three other servants. Books are bought to the amount of about 1000 scudi, or more than 200l. sterling, a year. Mezzofanti is not merely a linguist, but is well acquainted with literary history and biography, and also with the library under his charge. As an author he is not known, so far as I am aware; and he seems at present to be no older than about forty. I must add, what perhaps would be least expected from a learned man who has been unceasingly occupied with linguistic studies, and has hardly been out of his native town, that he has the finest and most polished manners, and, at the same time, the most engaging good nature.”[391]
Herr Molbech is still the chief secretary of the Royal Library in Copenhagen. He is one of the most distinguished writers on Danish philology; his great Danish Dictionary[392] is the classical authority on the language; and, in recognition of his great literary merits, he has been created a privy councillor and a commander of the Danebrog order.
CHAPTER VII.
[1820-1828.]
Mezzofanti’s regular studies suffered some interruption in the early part of 1820. Debilitated by the excessive and protracted application which has been described, his health had for some time been gradually giving way, and at last he was peremptorily ordered to suspend his lectures, and to discontinue his private studies for six months.[393] During this interval he employed himself chiefly in botanizing, a study in which he is said to have made considerable progress. He also made a short excursion to the beautiful district of Mantua, and afterwards to Modena, Pisa, and Leghorn.[394] In the course of this journey he found an opportunity of making himself acquainted with the Hebrew Psalmody as followed in the modern synagogues, and with the practical system of accentuation of the ancient Hebrew Language now in use among the Jews of Italy. The object of his visit to Leghorn was, that, from the Greek sailors of that port, he might acquire the pronunciation of modern Romaic.[395]
After a short time his health was perfectly restored, with the exception of a certain debility of sight from which he never afterwards completely recovered; and he resumed his ordinary duties in the university about the middle of the year 1820.
The solar eclipse of the 20th of September in that year attracted many scientific visitors to Bologna and the neighbouring cities. Being annular in that region, the eclipse was watched with especial interest by all the astronomers of Northern Italy, by Plana at Turin, by Santini at Padua, by Padre Inghirami at Florence, and by Padre Tinari at Siena. At Bologna the director of the observatory at this time was Pietro Caturegli, editor of the Bolognese Efemeridi Astronomiche, and one of Mezzofanti’s most valued friends.
Caturegli’s reputation and the excellent condition of his observatory, induced the celebrated Hungarian Astronomer, Baron Von Zach, who, after a career of much and varied adventure, was at that time engaged in editing at Genoa the Correspondance Astronomique, (a French continuation of his former German Journal Monatliche Correspondenz für Erz- und Himmels-Kunde,) to select Bologna as the place from which to observe this interesting phenomenon. He was accompanied by a Russian nobleman, Prince Volkonski, a man of highly cultivated literary and scientific tastes, and by Captain Smyth of H. M. Ship, Aid, who had just completed his survey of the Ionian Islands. Notwithstanding numerous and urgent applications from other quarters, these three distinguished foreigners, together with his friend Mezzofanti, were the only persons whom Caturegli admitted to the observatory during his observations of the eclipse.
The Baron published in his Journal[396] a very full account of the phenomena of the eclipse, to which he appended as a note the following sketch of his companion on the occasion.