In commercial towns, where every body finds employment, and is agitated by the bustle of business, the minds of the inhabitants are apt to be so much engrossed with the affairs of this world, as almost to forget that there is another; and neither the true religion nor false ones, have such hold of their minds, as in places where there is more poverty, and less worldly occupation. In the first, they consider the remonstrances of priests and confessors as interruptions to business; and, without daring to despise the ceremonies of religion, like the speculative Sceptic or Infidel, the hurried trader huddles them over as fast as possible, that he may return to occupations more congenial with the habit of his mind. The preachers may cry aloud, and spare not; they may lift up their voices like trumpets, proclaiming the nothingness of this world, and all which it contains; it is in vain. Men who have been trained to the pursuit of money from their childhood, who have bestowed infinite pains to acquire it, and who derive all their importance from it, must naturally have a partiality for this world, where riches procure so many flattering distinctions; and a prejudice against that in which they procure none: but in towns where there is little trade, and great numbers of poor people, where they have much spare time, and small comfort in this world, the clergy have an easier task, if they are tolerably assiduous, in turning the attention of the inhabitants to the other. In Roman Catholic towns of this description, we see the people continually pacing up and down the streets, with wax tapers in their hands. They listen, with fond attention, to all the priest relates concerning that invisible country, that Land of Promise, where their hopes are placed; they ruminate, with complacency, on the happy period when they also shall have their good things; they bear their present rags with patience, in expectation of the white raiment and crowns of gold, which, they are told, await them; they languish for the happiness of being promoted to that lofty situation, from whence they may look down, with scorn, on those to whom they now look up with envy, and where they shall retaliate on their wealthy neighbours, whose riches, at present, they imagine, insult their own poverty.
This town being exposed, by the nature of its commerce with Turkey, to the contagious diseases which prevail in that country, Clement XII., as soon as he determined to make it a free port, erected a lazzaretto. It advances a little way into the sea, is in the form of a pentagon, and is a very noble, as well as useful, edifice. He afterwards began a work, as necessary, and still more expensive; I mean the Mole built in the sea, to screen the vessels in the harbour from the winds, which frequently blow from the opposite shore of the Adriatic with great violence. This was carried on with redoubled spirit by Benedict XIV. after his quarrel with Venice, has been continued by the succeeding Popes, and is now almost finished. This building was founded in the ruins of the ancient Mole, raised by the Emperor Trajan. The stone of Istria was used at first, till the exportation of it was prohibited by the republic of Venice, who had no reason to wish well to this work. But a quarry of excellent stone was afterwards found near Ancona, as fit for the purpose; and a kind of sand, which, when mixed with lime, forms a composition as hard as any stone, is brought from the neighbourhood of Rome; and no other is used for this building, which is above two thousand feet in length, one hundred in breadth, and about sixty in depth, from the surface of the sea. A stupendous work, more analogous to the power and revenues of ancient, than of modern, Rome.
Near to this stands the Triumphal Arch, as it is called, of Trajan. This is an honorary monument, erected in gratitude to that Emperor, for the improvements he made in this harbour at his own expence. Next to the Maison Quarrée at Nîmes, it is the most beautiful and the most entire monument of Roman taste and magnificence I have yet seen. The fluted Corinthian pillars on the two sides are of the finest proportions; and the Parian marble of which they are composed, instead of having acquired a black colour, like the Ducal palace of Venice, and other buildings of marble, is preserved, by the sea vapour, as white and shining as if it were fresh polished from the rock. I viewed this charming piece of antiquity with sentiments of pleasure and admiration, which sprang from a recollection of the elegant taste of the artist who planned this work, the humane amiable virtues of the great man to whose honour it was raised, and the grandeur and policy of the people who, by such rewards, prompted their Princes to wise and beneficent undertakings.
LETTER XXXI.
Loretto.
The road from Ancona to this place runs through a fine country, composed of a number of beautiful hills and intervening vallies. Loretto itself is a small town, situated on an eminence, about three miles from the sea. I expected to have found it a more magnificent, at least a more commodious, town for the entertainment of strangers. The inn-keepers do not disturb the devotion of the pilgrims by the luxuries of either bed or board. I have not seen worse accommodations since I entered Italy, than at the inn here. This seems surprising, considering the great resort of strangers. If any town in England were as much frequented, every third or fourth house would be a neat inn.
The Holy Chapel of Loretto, all the world knows, was originally a small house in Nazareth, inhabited by the Virgin Mary, in which she was saluted by the Angel, and where she bred our Saviour. After their deaths, it was held in great veneration by all believers in Jesus, and at length consecrated into a chapel, and dedicated to the Virgin; upon which occasion St. Luke made that identical image, which is still preserved here, and dignified with the name of our Lady of Loretto. This sanctified edifice was allowed to sojourn in Galilee as long as that district was inhabited by Christians; but when infidels got possession of the country, a band of angels, to save it from pollution, took it in their arms, and conveyed it from Nazareth to a castle in Dalmatia. This fact might have been called in question by incredulous people, had it been performed in a secret manner; but, that it might be manifest to the most short-sighted spectator, and evident to all who were not perfectly deaf as well as blind, a blaze of celestial light, and a concert of divine music, accompanied it during the whole journey; besides, when the angels, to rest themselves, set it down in a little wood near the road, all the trees of the forest bowed their heads to the ground, and continued in that respectful posture as long as the Sacred Chapel remained among them. But, not having been entertained with suitable respect at the castle above mentioned, the same indefatigable angels carried it over the sea, and placed it in a field belonging to a noble lady, called Lauretta, from whom the Chapel takes its name. This field happened unfortunately to be frequented at that time by highwaymen and murderers: a circumstance with which the angels undoubtedly were not acquainted when they placed it there. After they were better informed, they removed it to the top of a hill belonging to two brothers, where they imagined it would be perfectly secure from the dangers of robbery or assassination; but the two brothers, the proprietors of the ground, being equally enamoured of their new visitor, became jealous of each other, quarrelled, fought, and fell by mutual wounds. After this fatal catastrophe, the angels in waiting finally moved the Holy Chapel to the eminence where it now stands, and has stood these four hundred years, having lost all relish for travelling.