From Brenner to Verona.
Of the people I can say but little, and that is not very favorable. On my descent from the Brenner, I discovered, as soon as day came, a decided change of form, and was particularly displeased by the pale brownish complexion of the women. Their features indicated wretchedness, the children looked equally miserable;—the men somewhat better. I imagine that the cause of this sickly condition may be found in the frequent consumption of Indian corn and buckwheat. Both the former, which they also call "Yellow Blende," and the latter, which is called "Black Blende," is ground, made into a thick pap with water, and thus eaten. The Germans on this side, pull out the dough, and fry it in butter. The Italian Tyrolese, on the contrary, eat it just as it is, often with scrapings of cheese, and do not taste meat throughout the year. This necessarily glues up and stops the alimentary channels, especially with the women and children, and their cachectic complexion is an indication of the malady. They also eat fruit and green beans, which they boil down in water, and mix with oil and garlic. I asked if there were no rich peasants. "Yes, indeed," was the reply. "Don't they indulge themselves at all? don't they eat anything better?" "No, they are used to it." "What do they do with their money then? how do they lay it out?" "Oh, they have their ladies, who relieve them of that." This is the sum and substance of a conversation with mine host's daughter at Botzen.
I also learned from her, that the vine-tillers were the worst off, although they appeared to be the most opulent, for they were in the hands of commercial towns-people, who advanced them enough to support life in the bad seasons, and in winter took their wine at a low price. However, it is the same thing everywhere.
My opinion concerning the food is confirmed by the fact, that the women who inhabit the towns appear better and better. They have pretty plump girlish faces, the body is somewhat too short in proportion to the stoutness, and the size of the head, but sometimes the countenances have a most agreable expression. The men we already know through the wandering Tyrolese. In the country their appearance is less fresh than that of the women, perhaps because the latter have more bodily labour, and are more in motion, while the former sit at home as traders and workmen. By the Garda Lake I found the people very brown, without the slightest tinge of red in their cheeks; however they did not look unhealthy, but quite fresh and comfortable. Probably the burning sunbeams, to which they are exposed at the foot of their mountains, are the cause of their complexion.
FROM VERONA TO VENICE.
Verona, Sept. 16th.
Well then, the amphitheatre is the first important monument of the old times that I have seen—and how well it is preserved! When I entered, and still more when I walked round the edge of it at the top, it seemed strange to me, that I saw something great, and yet, properly speaking, saw nothing. Besides I do not like to see it empty, I should like to see it full of people, just as, in modern times, it was filled up in honour of Joseph I. and Pius VI. The Emperor, although his eye was accustomed to human masses, must have been astonished. But it was only in the earliest times, that it produced its full effect, when the people was more a people than it is now. For, properly speaking, such an amphitheatre is constructed to give the people an imposing view of itself,—to cajole itself.
When anything worth seeing occurs on the level ground, and any one runs to the spot, the hindermost try by every means to raise themselves above the foremost; they get upon benches, roll casks, bring up vehicles, lay planks in every direction, occupy the neighbouring heights, and a crater is formed in no time.
If the spectacle occur frequently on the same spot, light scaffoldings are built for those who are able to pay, and the rest of the multitude must get on as it can. Here the problem of the architect is to satisfy this general want. By means of his art he prepares such a crater, making it as simple as possible, that the people itself may constitute the decoration. When the populace saw itself so assembled, it must have been astonished at the sight, for whereas it was only accustomed to see itself running about in confusion, or to find itself crowded together without particular rule or order, so must this many-headed, many-minded, wandering animal now see itself combined into a noble body, made into a definite unity, bound and secured into a mass, and animated as one form by one mind. The simplicity of the oval is most pleasingly obvious to every eye, and every head serves as a measure to show the vastness of the whole. Now we see it empty, we have no standard, and do not know whether it is large or small.