Dagonet Abroad

by George R. Sims

But you cannot imagine the monuments and the memorial statuary. You must see them to understand them, because they are so utterly unlike anything we have in our cold, prosaic land. In long marble galleries, open to the air and the sun, the monuments at first give the cemetery the appearance of an art exhibition. You fancy you have wandered into a sculpture gallery by mistake; but the wreaths of flowers with broad silk sashes attached, the swinging lamps, and the memorial tablets undeceive you. Each monument has, as it were, an arch of the gallery to itself, and is placed against the back wall. The figures are rarely allegorical. A man in his habit as he lived stands life-size in white marble above his own tomb. A little girl in a short frock, with her lap full of flowers, seems dancing on the column that records her death. Over another beautiful tomb is a family group, life-size. The father is dying. He lies on his deathbed, and the sculptor has realized every detail of drapery. The wife kneels by the bedside, some of her daughters supporting her. The old mother sits in an easy-chair, her eyes raised to heaven, her lips seeming almost to move in prayer. On the other side of the bed the eldest son stands up and supports one of the daughters, who has utterly broken down. It is a marvellous piece of work. It is the ‘Last Adieu’ realized in marble. It is naturalism and it is art. It is realistic, and so perfect in detail that you would recognise any of that group of mourners if you met them in the street.

One turns from the group, and near it is a dear old lady standing alone above her own tomb. She is wrinkled, and wears a big cap and a woollen shawl over her shoulders. No kindred are near her, but she is sincerely mourned, for she was the friend of the poor. In her hand she holds the bread she was in the habit of distributing to them. She is a dear old-fashioned old soul—a typical English ‘granny’ of the Christmas number—and her puckered, smiling face seems to make one at home in the cemetery directly.

Some of the groups are more imaginative. A magnificent vault is faced with a black-and-gold gate. On the steps leading to it a lad and his sister kneel and gaze heavenward. They are watching their mother being carried up into heaven by the angels. The whole scene is reproduced in sculpture, and so exquisitely is it done that the dead woman and the angels actually seem to be floating upward towards the skies.

Over another tomb, where a husband and wife lie buried together, this old couple sit in two armchairs, holding each the other’s hand. On another a man lies dead on his bed, and the young wife reverently raises the sheet and gazes for the last time upon his face. Over another tomb is the statue of the man who lies within. On the steps of the tomb stands his wife, and she holds their little girl in her arms, and lifts her up as though to kiss the dead papa. The door of another vault is represented as half open. The husband lies dead inside. The wife knocks at the door and listens for her dear one’s voice to call her in.

There are hundreds and hundreds of these beautiful groups in the Campo Santo. What makes them the more extraordinary to the English traveller is that the living and the dead are all habited in modern everyday costume, and no detail is spared to make the groups and the single figures triumphs of realism. One remarkable piece of sculpture I have omitted to mention. It is over the tomb of a beautiful Italian lady who died a short time ago. Her bed is represented with a perfection of detail. The lace on the pillows is perfect. The lady is dead, but the angel has come to fetch her. The angel takes the dead lady’s hand, and the lady gets out of bed to go with the angel to heaven. This is the moment depicted by the sculptor. The lady sits on the edge of the bed, and the angel points upwards in the direction they are to travel together.

All this is very beautiful, but its intense realism may jar on some. It did on me after a time. I felt that something of the sublimity of death was taken away in the process, and I turned with a little sigh of relief to some of the humbler graves which dotted the sunny garden of fragrant roses that lay so bright and beautiful under the blue Italian sky.

Walking in the streets of Genoa one afternoon I met a nice-looking, stout, middle-aged lady in the most wonderful bonnet I ever saw in my life. I was so attracted by the bonnet, which was of the Leviathan order, that I did not notice anything else at first, but presently I saw that she was bowing in answer to many salutes. Then I knew she was a public celebrity, and I inquired who she was. ‘That,’ said my companion, a Genoese, ‘is the daughter of Garibaldi!’

The daughter of Garibaldi is a great favourite in Genoa. She has married a gentleman in the army, but people don’t trouble to remember his name. He is always spoken of as the gentleman who is the husband of the daughter of Garibaldi.

The daughter of Garibaldi is the proud and happy mother of twelve sons. If they are as good as their grandfather, the lady deserves well of her country.

On the same afternoon that I met the daughter of Garibaldi I also met an old gray-haired gentleman and lady trotting quietly along the Via Roma. My Genoese friend pointed them out to me, and told me their story. Twenty years ago a rich Englishman and his wife came to Italy with a foreign courier. In Genoa the gentleman was taken ill and died. He was buried in the town, and his wife stayed on at the hotel. After a time she married the courier, and from that day to this they have lived in Genoa—going in the summer to a villa on the Lake of Como which they purchased. Neither has ever set foot in England for twenty years.