CENTRAL ITALY—FLORENCE.
Bologna, July 6, 1851.
"See Naples and die!" says the proverb: but I am in no hurry to "shuffle off this mortal coil," and rather weary of seeing. I think I should have found a few choice friends in Naples, but my time is limited, and the traveling through Southern Italy neither pleasant nor expeditious. Of Vesuvius in its milder moods I never had a high opinion; and, though I should have liked to tread the unburied streets of Pompeii, yet Rome has nearly surfeited me with ruins. So I shortened my tour in Italy by cutting off the farther end of it, and turned my face obliquely homeward from the Eternal City. What has the world to show of by-gone glory and grandeur which she cannot at least equal?
Let no one be sanguine as to his good resolutions. I as firmly resolved, when I first shook from my feet the dust of Civita Vecchia, that I never again would enter its gates, as I ever did to do or forbear any act whatever. But, after a tedious and ineffectual attempt to make up a party of Americans to come through from Rome to Florence direct, I was at last obliged to knock under. All the seats by Diligence or Mail on that route were taken ahead for a longer time than I could afford to wait; and offers to fill an extra coach if the proprietors would send one were utterly unavailing. Such a thing as Enterprise is utterly unknown south of Genoa, and the idea of any obligation on the part of proprietors of stage-lines to make extra efforts to accommodate an extra number of passengers is so queer that I doubt whether Italian could be found to express it. So some dozen or more who would gladly have gone through by land to Florence were driven back upon Civita Vecchia and Leghorn—I among the number.
Three of us left Rome in a private carriage at noon on Tuesday the 1st, and reached Civita Vecchia at 10 minutes past 9 P. M.—the inner gate having been closed at 9. One of my companions was known and responsibly connected at the port, and so was enabled to negotiate our admission, though the process was a tedious one, and our carriage had to be left in the outer court, or between the two walls. Here I left it at 10; it may have been got in afterward. We found all the rooms taken at the best Hotel (Orlandi), and were driven to accept such as there were left. The boat (Languedoc) was advertised to start for Leghorn at 7 next morning, by which time I succeeded in getting my Passport cleared (for no steamboat in these waters will give you a permit to embark until you have handed in your Passport, duly cleared, at its office, as well as paid for your passage); but the boat was coolly taking in water long after its advertised hour, and did not start until half past eight.
We had an unusually large number of passengers, about one hundred and fifty, representing nearly every European nation, with a goodly number of Americans; the day was cloudy and cool; the wind light and propitious; the sea calm and smooth; so that I doubt if there was ever a more favorable passage. I was sick myself, a result of the night-air of the Campagna, bad lodging and inability to obtain a salt-water bath in the morning, by reason of the Passport nuisance, but for which I should have been well and hearty. We made Leghorn (120 miles) in about eleven hours, which is very good time for the Mediterranean. But reaching the harbor of Leghorn was one thing, getting ashore quite another; an hour or more elapsed before any of us had permission to land. I was one of the two first who got off, through the preconcerted interposition of a powerful Leghorn friend who had procured a special permit from the Police, and at whose hospitable mansion we passed the night. I was unwell throughout; but an early bath in the Mediterranean was the medicine I required, and from the moment of taking it I began to recover. By seasonable effort, I recovered my Passport from the Police office, duly viséd, at 10 A. M. and left by Railroad for Florence at 10½, reaching the capital of Tuscany (60 miles) about 1 o'clock, P. M.
Florence (Italian Firenzè) is pleasantly situated on both sides of the Arno, some forty miles in a direct line from its mouth. The river is here about the size of the Hudson at Sandy Hill or the Mohawk at Canajoharie, but subject to rapid swellings from rains in the Apennines above. One such occurred the night I was there, though very little rain fell at Florence. I was awakened in the night by the rushing and roaring of its waters, my window having only a street between it and the river, which subsided the next day, without having done any material damage.
That day was the 4th of July, and I spent most of it, under the guidance of friends resident at Florence, in looking through the galleries devoted to Paintings and Statuary in the two famous palaces of the reigning family and in the Academy. Although the collections embrace the Venus de Medicis and many admirable Paintings, I cannot say that my expectations were fully realized. Ill health may in part account for this; my recent acquaintance with the immense and multiform treasures of Art at Rome may also help explain my obtuseness at Florence. And yet I saw nothing in Rome with greater pleasure or profit than I derived from the hour I spent in the studio of our countryman Powers, whose fame is already world-wide, and who I trust is now rapidly acquiring that generous competence which will enable him to spend the evening of his days in ease and comfort in his native land. The abundance of orders constantly pouring in upon him at his own prices does not induce him to abandon nor postpone his efforts in the ideal and more exalted sphere of his art, but rather to redouble those efforts; and it will yet be felt that his "Greek Slave" and "Fisher Boy," so widely admired, are not his loftiest achievements. I defy Antiquity to surpass—I doubt its ability to rival—his "Proserpine" and his "Psyche" with any models of the female head that have come down to us; and while I do not see how they could be excelled in their own sphere, I feel that Powers, unlike Alexander, has still realms to conquer, and will fulfill his destiny. If for those who talk of America quitting her proper sphere and seeking to be Europe when she wanders into the domain of Art, we had no other answer than Powers, that name would be conclusive.
Greenough is now absent from Florence. I met him at Turin, on his way to America, on account (I casually heard) of sickness in his family. But I obtained admission to his studio in Florence, and saw there the unfinished group on which he is employed by order of Congress, to adorn one of the yet empty niches in the Capitol. His execution is not yet sufficiently advanced to be judged, but the design is happy and most expressive.
I saw something of three younger American Sculptors now studying and working at Florence—Hart of Kentucky, Galt of Virginia, and Rogers of New-York. (Ives is absent—at Rome, I believe, though I did not meet him there.) I believe all are preparing to do credit to their country. Hart has been hindered by a loss of models at sea from proceeding with the Statue of Henry Clay which he is commissioned by the Ladies of Virginia to fashion and construct; but he is wisely devoting much of his time to careful study and to the modeling of the Ideal before proceeding to commit himself irrevocably by the great work which must fix his position among Sculptors and make or mar his destiny. I have great confidence that what he has already carefully and excellently done is but a foretaste of what he is yet to achieve, and that his seeming hesitation will prove the surest and truest efficiency.