Old age even knows no wingles here! I know that it seems incredible to any one that has never been in warmer climes, but the word beauty has a new meaning here. The glow which is lambent upon the faces of the sons and daughters of this section of sunny Italy, is something that I never saw elsewhere, and that cannot be described. It is a solemn truth, that nine tenths of all the ladies of Turin and Milan are perfect beauties; and I need not say less for the full round forms of the gentlemen. Only after I had observed that several very fair persons, who happened, to pass near me, had gray hair, did I notice that the bloom of youth still glows upon the faces of those who are 35 to 40 years of age! When I first came into this paradise of fairy angels, (for a paradise is the valley of the Po), I mistook this bloom of youth and glow of health and vigor for the lambent flames which flash from the countenances of the intellectual--it seemed to me that I must be surrounded by a halo of literary sages and muses, all gifted alike with every grace and charm that nature can bestow or art improve; but when I observed the youths at work in the fields and the maidens at the garden gates, who turned for a moment from their respective tasks to see our train move along, look as happy, as gay and as beautiful as the belles of the cafes and the beaus of the cities, I concluded that it must be the healthy state of the body that makes every face look rosy and bright in this fair and sunny clime. At Milan I asked some of my companions how far this paradise of beauties extended southward in Italy. "To Florence," was the answer. But I did not find that to be quite correct, for though Florence may have more fair people than any northern city, the proportion of beauties to the whole population, which is perhaps ninety per cent, in Turin and Milan, cannot be more than 20 or 30 per cent, in Florence. In order to be able to correct any false impression that I might have imbibed in my first visit to the valley of the Po, I paid particular attention to the same subject on my return from Egypt. At Milan there was then an immense concourse of people assembled from all parts of Europe to see Emperor William of Germany and King Victor Emanuel of Italy parade the streets of that elegant city, with a retinue of over 20,000 soldiers; the consequence was, that the fair people of Milan were lost in the multitude. But on my return to Turin, I found that her beautiful sons and daughters, again presented the same dream-like and enchanting scene of a pleasure-garden full of fair and merry beings possessed of angelic beauty, and enjoying their blessed existance just as I had seen them a month before.
I met travelers that say the same thing of Nature's children in other sunny lands--Spain for example. The truth seems to be, that in warm climates only, will man attain that perfect healthy and beautiful physical development which has constituted the model of the artist and the theme of the poet, in every age. I have heard some pronounce the statue of Venus de Medici, the ideal perfection of female form and beauty. It is probably as near as sculpture can reach it, but who would suppose that a white stone could do justice to the beauty of a pure child of nature? The marble may present a most perfect form; but what becomes of the glow of life and flush of beauty upon the maiden's cheek, the ruby lips and the grace and elegance of her movements and winning manners? We may speak of ideal beauty in countries where the physical development of the inhabitants is blasted by the severities of the extreme heat and cold of an inhospitable clime, where the blasts of winter make every form shiver for many months of the year; but the superior beauty of the daughters of Northern Italy, if they were placed side by side with Venus de Medici, would laugh that frigid form to scorn! As compared with these, I thought I had seen no others that could either talk or laugh or walk!
The Italians live upon a very simple diet. When I first saw numbers of them make meals of dry bread and fruit, I supposed poverty impelled them to partake of so scant a diet, but by the time I came back from Egypt, I too had learned to sit down and eat dry bread and grapes together, though I could procure meat as cheap in Italy as elsewhere in Europe. It is not advisable to partake of much meat in any warm country. Any one may form an idea of what kind of a consumer of food cold is, when he reflects how much more flesh we consume in winter than in summer. I did not partake of more than half the amount of food in southern Italy and Egypt that I needed in England, Germany or Switzerland, and there is little room for doubt that many Italians do with one third of the amount of food that we require in the severer climate of the Middle States. I was always reminded of the story of "Cornaro the Italian," related in Wilson's Fourth Reader, whenever I saw them eat their simple meals. It is very singular, too, that they should all look full, healthy and robust; and many of us, on the contrary, lean and sickly. Twelve ounces of solid food and thirteen ounces of drink, seems a very spare supply to an American, but I do not believe that it is accounted very extraordinary in Italy.
Milan.
The praises of the magnificence and splendor of the Cathedral of Milan are sung all over the world. It is nearly 500 feet long and 250 feet wide through the transepts, covering an area of almost two acres and three quarters! The height of the nave is 150 feet! Its entire walls, and its pinnacles, spire and roof are all constructed of fine marble. The spire is over 350 feet high. The marble slabs constituting the roof are about three inches thick; how enormous the weight of that roof must be! Each of the 135 pinnacles or smaller spires is crowned with a statue, and throngs of others (some 4,500) ornament the outside of this magnificent building. The interior of this edifice is one of the most imposing in the world. As I looked at the rich decorations and delicate traceries of its high ceiling, 150 feet above me, I felt as if no human being could be worthy of enjoying such a magnificent view. But, "unless a language be invented full of lance-headed characters, and Gothic vagaries of arch and finial, flower and fruit, bird and beast," the beauties and glories of the temples of Italy, and her unparalleled galleries of art, can never be described. From Milan I went to Vicenza, where I spent a sleepless night in skirmishes with the mosquitoes! The number and variety of obnoxious insects multiplies fearfully as one approaches the topical regions. Thence I went to
Venice.
As I was very much disappointed with Venice, I shall not occupy much time in describing this daughter of the sea. The railway bridge which leads to this city is about two miles long. I expected that a city whose streets are canals and whose carriages are all boats, would present a very unique appearance, but when I once saw them, they were so exactly what I had anticipated, that I felt disgusted and left the city without doing justice even to the vast collection of paintings in the Ducal Palace, which alone is worth going a great distance to see.
San Marco.
The church of San Marco is one of the grandest and most wonderful structures in Italy, and I can only refrain from copying Ruskin's very fine description of it, because his account, though true in every particular, would, to one who has never seen any of the architectural glories of Italy, seem more like the attempt of a poet to depict in glowing language the vagaries of a dream, than like the description of an edifice really in existance.
On the Piazza above the portal of San Marco, stand the celebrated bronze horses "which Constantine carried from Rome to Constantinople, whence Marino Zeno brought them hither in 1205; they were taken to Paris by Napoleon in 1797, but restored by the Allies in 1815."