Letters from Switzerland and Travels in Italy

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We have gone carefully through, the city. The style of architecture resembles for the most part that of Naples; but the public buildings, for instance the fountains, are still further removed from good taste. Here there is no artistic mind to regulate the public works; the edifices owe both their shape and existence to chance accidents. A fountain, which is the admiration of the whole island, would, perhaps, never have existed, had not Sicily furnished a beautiful variegated marble, and had not a sculptor, well practised in animal shapes happened to be in favour precisely at the time. It would be a difficult matter to describe this fountain. In a moderately-sized site stands a round piece of masonry, not quite a staff high (Stock hoch). The socle, the wall, and the cornice are of variegated marble. In the wall are several niches in a row, from which animals of all kinds in white marble, are looking with stretched-out necks. Horses, lions, camels, and elephants, are interchanged one with another; and one scarcely expects to find, within the circle of this menagerie, a fountain, to which, through four openings, marble steps lead you down to draw from the water, which flows in rich abundance.

The same nearly may be said of the churches, in which even the Jesuits' love of show and finery is surpassed—but not from design or plan, but by accident—just as artist after artist, whether sculptor or carver, gilder, lackerer, or worker in marble chose, without taste or rule, to display on each vacant spot his own abilities.

Amidst all this, however, one cannot fail to recognize a certain talent in imitating natural objects; for instance, the heads of the animals around the fountains are very well executed. By this means it is, in truth, that the admiration of the multitude is excited, whose artistic gratification consists chiefly in comparing the imitation with its living prototype.

Towards evening I made a merry acquaintance, as I entered the house of a small dealer in the Long Street, in order to purchase some trifles. As I stood before the window to look at the wares, a slight breeze arose, which eddying along the whole, street, at last distributed through all the windows and doors the immense cloud of dust which it had raised. "By all the saints," I cried, "whence comes till the dust of your town—is there no helping it? In its length and beauty, this street vies with any in the Corso in Rome. On both sides a fine pavement, which each stall and shop-holder keeps clean by interminable sweeping, but brushes everything into the middle of the street, which is, in consequence, so much the dirtier, and with every breath of wind sends back to you the filth which has just before been swept into the roadway. In Naples busy donkeys carry off day by day the rubbish to the gardens and farms. Why should you not here contrive and establish some similar regulation?"

Sicily—Palermo.

"Things with us are as they are," he replied; "we throw everything out of the house, and it rots before the door; you see here horse-dung and filth of all kinds—it lies there and dries, and returns to us again in the shape of dust. Against it we are taking precautions all day long. But look, our pretty little and ever-busy brooms, worn out at last, only go to increase the heap of filth before our doors."

And oddly enough it was actually so. They had nothing but very little besoms of palm-branches, which, slightly altered, might have been really useful; but as it was, they broke off easily, and the stumps were lying by thousands in the streets. To my repeated questioning, whether there was no board or regulations to prevent all this; he replied, "A story is current among the people that those whose duty it was to provide for the cleansing of our streets, being men of great power and influence, could not be compelled to disburse the money on its lawful objects; and besides that there was also the strange fact that certain parties feared that if the dirty straw and dung were swept away, every one would see how badly the pavement beneath was laid down." And so the dishonesty of a second body would be thereby exposed. "All this, however," he remarked, with a most humorous expression, "is merely the interpretation which the ill-disposed put upon it." For his part, he was of the opinion of those who maintained that the nobles preserved this soft litter for their carriages, in order that, when they take their drive for amusement in the evening, they might ride at ease over the elastic ground. And as the man was now in the humour, he joked away at many of the abuses of the police,—a consolatory proof to me that man has always humour enough to make merry with what he cannot help.

S. Rosalia, the patron saint of Palermo, is so universally known, from the description which Brydone has given of her festival, that it must assuredly be agreeable to my friends to read some account of the place and the spot where she is most particularly worshipped.

Monte Pellegrino, a vast mass of rocks, of which the breadth is greater than the height, lies on the north-west extremity of the Bay of Palermo. Its beautiful form admits not of being described by words; a most excellent view of it may be seen in the Voyage Pittoresque de la Sicile. It consists of a gray limestone of the earlier epoch. The rocks are quite barren, not a tree nor a bush will grow on them; even the more smooth and level portions are but barely covered with grasses or mosses.

In a cavern of this mountain, the bones of the saint were discovered, at the beginning of the last century, and brought to Palermo. The presence of them delivered the city from a pestilence, and ever since S. Rosalia has been the Patron Saint of the people. Chapels have been built in her honour, splendid festivals have been instituted.