Sicily—Palermo.
The courier now took us out of the city to the catacombs, which, laid out on a regular architectural plan, are anything but quarries converted into burial places. In a rock of Tufa, of tolerable hardness, the side of winch has been worked level and perpendicular, vaulted openings have been cut, and in these again are hewn several tiers of sarcophagi, one above the other—all of the natural material without masonry of any kind. The upper tiers are smaller, and in the spaces over the pillars are tombs for children.
Palermo, Thursday, April 12.
To day we have been shown Prince Torremuzza's cabinet of medals. I went there in a certain degree against my will. I am too little versed in these matters, and a mere curiosity-mongering traveller is thoroughly detested by all true connoisseurs and scholars. But as one must in every case make a beginning, I made myself easy on this head, and have derived both gratification and profit from my visit. What a satisfaction, even cursorily, to glance at the fact that the old world was thickly sown with cities; the very meanest of which has bequeathed to us in its precious coins, if not a complete series, yet at least some epochs, of its history of art. Out of these cabinets, there smiles upon us an eternal spring of the blossoms and flowers of art—of a busy life, ennobled with high tastes, and of much more besides. Out of these form-endowed pieces of metal the glory of the Sicilian cities, now obscured, still shines forth fresh before us.
Unfortunately, we in our youth had seen none but family coins, which say nothing, and the coins of the Cæsars, which repeat to satiety the same profile—portraits of rulers, who are to be regarded as any thing but models of humanity. How sadly had our youth been confined to a shapeless Palestine, and to a shape perplexing Rome! Sicily and Nova Grecia give me hopes again of a fresh existence.
That on these subjects I should enter into general reflections, is a proof that as yet I do not understand much about them: yet that, with all the rest, will in degrees be improved.
Palermo, Thursday, April 12, 1787.
Yesterday evening, a wish of mine was gratified, and that in a very singular fashion. I was standing on the pavement of the principal street, joking at the window with the shop-keeper, I formerly mentioned, when suddenly, a courier, tall and well-dressed, came up to me, and quickly poked a silver salver before me, on which were several copper coins, and a few pieces of silver. As I could not make out what it all meant, I shook my head, and shrugged my shoulders, the usual token by which in this country you get rid of those whose address or question you either cannot, or do not wish, to understand.