On the 27th of March, I left Florence for Rome, by way of Sienna, in company with an English gentleman, Mr. W. S⸺, and two Italians. It rained very hard, and the roads were consequently heavy, but our coach was large and comfortable; the horses were indifferent ones, and I observed one of our Italian companions express his dissatisfaction, on finding that we were not to be carried forward by mules, which are more capable of undergoing fatigue, and, I believe, in this country, twice as valuable as horses. We did not halt for breakfast until two o’clock in the afternoon, and as I had taken nothing before leaving Florence, I was really so unwell about twelve o’clock, that I entreated the driver to allow me to partake of a piece of bread, which I heard him eating, but he told me he had just finished it; I felt however sufficiently revived after a hearty breakfast of mutton-chops, coffee, &c. to be able to walk a few miles, which we could do at times, as the weather in the afternoon cleared up. One of our Italian companions was a Roman, and professed himself attached to mineralogy, and a great traveller, having been amongst the Turks, Greeks, Egyptians, Persians, and also over the greater part of Europe: he had, however, yet to visit England, from which he promised himself great gratification. The plain English of this probably was, that he was an itinerant dealer in precious stones. Towards evening the rain came on again, and we had a very heavy journey to Sienna, which we did not reach until after nine o’clock, when we made a hearty supper, and retired to bed.
Sienna is described as a pleasant summer residence, but it must from its vicinity to the Apennines be very wet and cold in winter. There are several good public as well as private buildings; the streets are tolerably handsome, but many of them exceedingly steep. The inhabitants are stated to be hospitable and polished, and to speak the purest Italian of any modern state. There are said to be many English residents. The present pope Pius VII. is a native of this place. The cathedral is magnificent, and particularly famous for its pavement of white marble, inlaid with Scripture pieces of grey marble, amongst which is Abraham’s intended sacrifice of his son Isaac. Another piece, representing Moses striking the Rock, is also greatly admired: the whole, indeed, are of exquisite workmanship, which it took ages to complete. But as I can give little other personal account of this place, than what I might derive from my dreams, having passed nearly the whole of the short time I continued here in bed, I shall say no more respecting it. At six in the morning we recommenced our journey, notwithstanding which early hour, our good and pious coachman had been to mass to pray for a safe journey.
We breakfasted at Buono Convento, where the Emperor Henry VII. was poisoned by a monk with the sacramental wafer, in the year 1314.
The morning was again wet, and the roads rendered very heavy, but in the afternoon the weather cleared up, and we were enabled to walk for a couple of hours. At six in the evening, we arrived at an auberge, named La Scala, where we were to spend the night; it was a single house, placed at the foot of the hill, and leading up to the village of Radicofani, situated considerably farther up the mountain, of that name, at a point inaccessible for carriages; still higher up beyond the village is a rock of singular form projecting over it, on the top of which stands the castle Radicofani, the whole forming a most picturesque scene.
Before our arrival at La Scala, a servant had preceded us, and secured the best apartments for the use of a lady and her family, who were travelling in another voiture. The lady was stated to be Madame Frimont, wife of the Austrian general of that name, on her way from Milan to join her husband at Naples; it is probable, however, that this might be only a ruse de guerre, to secure greater attention; we were glad, however, to get a supper as we could, and I was obliged to sleep in the same room with our vittureno, otherwise the poor fellow must have lain down with his horses in the stable, which it would have been cruel to have compelled him to have done, particularly as he was the most civil and accommodating driver I had yet met with; indeed I would sooner have given up the whole room, than deprived him of half of it.
In the morning, we set off at five o’clock with six horses to ascend the tremendous hill of Radicofani, and a very severe duty it was for them; nor could we reasonably relieve them of part of their weight by walking, as it both rained heavily, and the wind was at the same time boisterous, and, as we approached the summit, extremely cold. At nine o’clock, when we had partly descended on the other side, we stopped at the last village in the Tuscan states, where custom-house officers are stationed to examine the baggage and passports of travellers; we escaped however inspection of the former by the payment of a paul each; after this we proceeded to enter the earthly dominions of his holiness the pope. Soon after the road became execrably bad, and we stuck so fast in the mud and ruts, that the poor horses had the greatest difficulty in dragging the carriage forward; I am informed that this place is in winter frequently quite impassible; we attempted to walk, but could not proceed without the risk of being half buried, so that before we resumed our places, our Italian companions began to cry out for St. Antonio, and half a score more saints, to come to their assistance.
About noon, we reached the first post in the Roman states, where we breakfasted at a miserable inn, Madame Frimont making her appearance soon after us. The day now turned out uncommonly fine, and we proceeded in good spirits; we were shortly after checked by the custom-house officers belonging to his holiness, whose scruples, however, were readily silenced by the sight of a paul from each of us. Shortly afterwards we were detained, to have our passports examined, at the village of Aquapendente, famous for being the birth-place of the great anatomist Fabricius. This detention mortified us exceedingly, as in the interim, Madame Frimont, of whom we had previously the start, passed without interruption, and thus got irretrievably a-head of us. This exemption our driver attributed to the military connexion of the lady, and I believe that, on the same score, I might have refused an examination of my passport; they had, however, the assurance to charge us a paul for inspecting them. The road now became very good, and enabled us to walk for a considerable distance; and the conversation of the party, who all spoke French, proved very agreeable. We met, however, with some unpleasant incidents on the way; amongst which I may name the mangled limbs of a fellow creature who had been executed, exposed on the road side. This unfortunate wretch had no doubt been a robber, perhaps a murderer, and a disgrace to human nature; but granting all this, it appears repugnant to Christian feeling, to exhibit so disgusting a spectacle to the purer part of the community. To check the progress of crime, it is doubtless necessary to inflict punishments, and to make the example more efficacious, to accomplish this before the public eye; but when the penalty has been paid, surely it would be preferable to withdraw the remains of mortality, and place them where they may unoffensively mingle with their parent dust, rather than to leave
“What better to oblivion were resign’d,
Still hung on high to poison half mankind.”
Our detention at Aquapendente caused the evening to close in upon us before we expected, and it became so dark, when we were about a league from our destined resting-place for the night, that the driver was obliged to walk at the head of his horses, and guide them in the right road. Before we had proceeded far in this way, we were obstructed by a number of persons with lights in front of us. We had received various intimations of the dangerous nature of the country we were now in, as infested with banditti, and which no doubt is attributable to the poverty of the peasantry, and number of fishermen inhabiting the borders of the lake of Bolsena, which we were passing at no great distance. We were, however, relieved from our fears, on finding that the circumstance arose from a vehicle having broken down in the middle of the road, and which had detained even our consort voiture, that had passed us at Aquapendente. It was some time before we could proceed, and we were then obliged to be guided on our way with lights for two miles, until we reached the town of Bolsena.