BERGAMO
Is built up a steep hill, like Lansdown road at Bath; the buildings not so regular; the prospect not inferior, but of a different kind, resembling that one sees from Wrotham hill in Kent, but richer, and presenting a variety beyond credibility, when it is premised that scarce any water can be seen, and that the plains of Lombardy are low and flat: within the eye however one may count all the original blessings bestowed on humankind,—corn, wine, oil, and fruit;—the inclosures being small too, and the trees touffu, as the French call it. No parterre was ever more beautifully disposed than are the fields surveyed from the summit of the hill, where stands the Marquis’s palace elegantly sheltered by a still higher rising ground behind it, and commanding from every window of its stately front a view of prodigious extent and almost unmatched beauty: as the diversification of colouring reminds one of nothing but the fine pavement at the Roman Pantheon, so curiously intersected are the patches of grass and grain, flax and vines, arable and tilth, in this happy disposition of earth and its most valuable products; while not a hedge fails to afford perfume that fills the very air with fragrance, from the sweet jessamine that, twisting through it, lends a weak support to the wild grapes, which, dangling in clusters, invite ten thousand birds of every European species I believe below the size of a pigeon. Nor is the taking of these creatures by the roccolo to be left out from among the amusements of Brescian and Bergamasc nobility; nor is the eating of them when taken to be despised: beccaficos and ortolans are here in high perfection; and it was from these northern districts of Italy I trust that Vitellius, and all the classic gluttons of antiquity, got their curious dishes of singing-bird pye, &c. The rich scent of melons at every cottage door is another delicious proof of the climate’s fertility and opulence,—
Where every sense is lost in every joy,
as Hughes expresses it; and where, in the delightful villa of our highly accomplished acquaintance the Marquis of Aracieli, we have passed ten days in all the pleasures which wit could invent, money purchase, or friendship bestow. The last nobleman who resided here, father to the present lord, was cavalier servente to the immortal Clelia Borromæo, whose virtues and varieties of excellence would fill a volume; nor can there be a stronger proof of her uncommon, almost unequalled merit, than the long-continued esteem of the famous Vallisnieri, whose writings on natural history, particularly insects, are valued for their learning, as their author was respected for his birth and talents. Letters from him are still preserved in the family by Marchese Aracieli, and breathe admiration of the conduct, beauty, and extensive knowledge possessed by this worthy descendant of the Borromæan house; to whose incomparable qualities his father’s steady attachment bore the truest testimony, while the son still speaks of her death with tears, and delights in nothing more than in paying just tribute to her memory. He shewed me this pretty distich in her praise, made improviso by the celebrated philosopher Vallisnieri:
Contemptrix sexus, omniscia Clelia sexum,
Illustrat studio, moribus, arte metro[44].
The Italians are exceedingly happy in the power of making verses improviso, either in their old or their new language: we were speaking the other day of the famous epigram in Ausonius;
Infelix Dido, nulli bene nupta marito,
Hoc moriente fugis, hoc fugiente peris[45].