ÆGROTANTIUM
SANITATI
MORTUORUM
INSPECTIONE
VIVENTES
PROSPICERE
POSSINT
HUNC
ΣΚΕΛΕΤΟΝ
P.
A MS. of the Consolations of Philosophy, very finely written in the tenth century, and kept in elegant preservation;—a private common-place of Leonardo da Vinci never shewn, full of private memoirs, caricaturas, hints for pictures, sketches, remarks, &c.; it is invaluable. But there is another treasure in this town, the præfect tells me, by the same inimitable master, no other than an alphabet, pater noster, &c. written out by himself for the use of his own little babies, and ornamented with vignettes, &c. to tempt them to study it. I shall not see it however, as Conte Trivulci is out of town, to whom it belongs. I have not neglected to go see the monument erected to one of his family, with the famous inscription,
Hic quiescit qui nunquam quievit;
preserved by father Bouhours. The same day shewed me the remains of a temple to Hercules, with many of the fine old pillars still standing. They are soon to be taken down we hear for the purpose of widening the street, as Carfax was at Oxford.
My hunger after a journey to Pavia is much abated; since professor Villa, whose erudition is well known, and whose works do him so much honour, informed me that the inscription said by Pere Mabillon still to subsist in praise of Boethius, is long since perished by time; nor do they now shew the brick tower in which it is said he was confined while he wrote his Consolations of Philosophy: for the tower is fallen to the ground, and so is the report, every body being now persuaded that they were composed in a strong place then standing upon the spot called Calventianus Ager, from the name of a noble house to which it had belonged for ages, and which I am told Cicero mentions as a family half Placentian, half Milaneze. The field still goes by the name of Il Campo Calvenziano; but, as it now belongs to people careless of remote events, however interesting to literature, is not adorned by any obelisk, or other mark, to denote its past importance, in having been once the scene of sufferings gloriously endured by the most zealous christian, the most steady patriot, and the most refined philosopher of the age in which he lived.
I have seen a fine MS. of the Consolations copied in the tenth century, not only legible but beautiful; and I have been assured that the hymns written by his first wife Elpis, who, though she brought him no children, as Bertius says, was yet fida curarum, et studiorum socia[46], are still sung in the Romish churches at Brescia and Bergamo, somewhat altered from the state we find them in at the end of Cominus’s edition of the Consolations.
Tradition too, I find, agrees with Procopius in telling that this widow of Boethius, Rusticiana, daughter of Symmachus, spent all the little money she had left in hiring people to throw down in the night all the statues set up in Rome to the honour of Theodoric, who had sentenced her husband to a death so dreadful, that it gave occasion to many fabulous tales reported by Martin Rota as miraculous truths. His bones, gathered up as relics by Otho III., were placed in a chapel dedicated to St. Austin in St. Peter’s church at Pavia four hundred and seventy-two years after his death, with an epitaph preserved by Pere Mabillon, but now no longer legible.
We are now cutting hay here for the last time this season, and all the environs smell like spring on this 15th September 1786. The autumnal tint, however, falls fast upon the trees, which are already rich with a deep yellow hue. A wintery feel upon the atmosphere early in a morning, heavy fogs about noon, and a hollow wind towards the approach of night, make it look like the very last week of October in England, and warn us that summer is going. The same circumstances prompt me, who am about to forsake this her favourite region, to provide furs, flannels, &c. for the passing of those Alps which look so formidable when covered with snow at their present distance. Our swallows are calling their clamorous council round me while I write; but the butterflies still flutter about in the middle of the day, and grapes are growing more wholesome as with us when the mornings begin to be frosty. Our deserts, however, do not remind us of Tuscany: the cherries here are not particularly fine, and the peaches all part from the stone—miserable things! an English gardener would not send them to table: the figs too were infinitely finer at Leghorn, and nectarines have I never seen at all.
Well, here is the opera begun again; some merry wag, Abate Casti I think, has accommodated and adapted the old story of king Theodore to put in ridicule the present king of Sweden, who is hated of the emperor for some political reasons I forget what, and he of course patronises the jester. Our honest Lombards, however, take no delight in mimicry, and feel more disgust than pleasure when simplicity is insulted, or distress made more corrosive by the bitterness of a scoffing spirit. I have tried to see whether they would laugh at any oddity in their neighbour’s manner, but never could catch any, except perhaps now and then a sly Roman who had a liking for it. “I see nothing absurd about the man,” says one gentleman; “every body may have some peculiarity, and most people have; but such things make me no sport: let us, when we have a mind to laugh, go and laugh at Punchinello.”—From such critics, therefore, the king of Sweden is safe enough, as they have not yet acquired the taste of hunting down royalty, and crowing with infantine malice, when possessed of the mean hope that they are able to pinch a noble heart. This old-fashioned country, which detests the sight of suffering majesty, hisses off its theatre a performance calculated to divert them at the expence of a sovereign prince, whose character is clear from blame, and whose personal weaknesses are protected by his birth and merit; while it is to his open, free, and politely generous behaviour alone, they owe the knowledge that he has such foibles. Paisiello, therefore, cannot drive it down by his best music, though the poor king of Sweden is a Lutheran too, and if any thing would make them hate him, that would.