After S. Zeno, I visited the church of San Bernardino, where is a beautiful little circular chapel of the Pellegrini family, built by Michele Sanmicheli, who ranks among the best architects of this part of Italy; probably inferior only to Palladio. He was born in 1484, thirty-four years before that artist, and died in 1559. His fame is still greater as a military engineer than as an architect; since to him we owe the invention of the modern system of fortification, where every part is flanked by some other. His first work of this sort was in 1527, and as might be expected, imperfect; but in his later works, we find almost all the arrangements afterwards employed by the French engineers. To return to the chapel of Pellegrini; it is perhaps too high in proportion to its size. It has spirally fluted columns, and many other defects might be pointed out in the details; but though Sanmicheli furnished the designs, it was not finished under his direction; and he is said, indeed, to have been very much dissatisfied with the execution. Such as it is, however, every body admires it; it speaks to our feelings rather than to our judgment; a language of which it is very difficult to be master. The arabesques with which the pilasters are adorned are very elegant.
Among the churches at Verona is a little one called San Giovanni in Valle, which has an antique subterranean church, pretending to contain the bodies of the two apostles, St. Simon and St. Jude. Maffei says, probably very correctly, that towards the end of the fourteenth century, an ancient sarcophagus was discovered containing bones; and it immediately obtained currency in the city that these were the bodies of St. Simon and St. Jude. The top of this sarcophagus, he continues, is comparatively modern, but it could not have been carved with any reference to these apostles, because it represents two men in monkish habits, one older and wearing a beard, one younger and without one, and behind these, is a child. I bought a little book at the place for twenty centesimi (two pence), published this year, which gives a much more detailed account, and as it is written by Marco Dorna, Vicario della Chiesa di San Giovanni in Valle, it becomes a legitimate specimen of the present mode of reasoning. The work begins with a history of these apostles, and how they converted Egypt and Mesopotamia to the Catholic faith, and then went together into Persia; where, after converting numbers of the people and princes from their former errors; destroying temples, and overturning the heathen images with their own hands; they received the crown of martyrdom. What immediately became of their bodies is uncertain, but it is well ascertained that these were afterwards carried to Rome, and deposited in a sumptuous altar prepared for them in the Basilica of St. Peter, where they are reputed still to remain. “If then,” continues my author, “these relics are in the Basilica at Rome, how can they be in the church of San Giovanni in Valle, at Verona? This question is too rational to be neglected, and after the researches I have made, the answer will be easy.
“In the Catalogue of Italian Saints, written in Latin by Fra Filippo Ferrario Alessandrino, of the order of the servants of the Virgin Mary, printed at Milan in the year 1613, by Girolamo Bordonio, is found an index pointing out those bodies of saints which are said to be in different places at the same time, and in it are these words. ‘The bodies of St. Simon and St. Jude are in the church of St. Peter at Rome, and in that of S. Giovanni in Valle, at Verona.’ This author prefixes to the index a short preface, in which he contends ‘that it may be said, and with truth, that the bodies of saints are, at the same time, in different places. It may really be so,’ says he, ‘because the term body is applied to any considerable part of the body, and such relics are venerated as entire bodies; as for example, the body of the apostle St. James the Great, is said to be in Galicia, and also in his church on the hill of Griliano in this neighbourhood; nor is this a solitary example; indeed there are so many others, that Monsignore Sarnelli, in the eighth letter of his third volume, considers it as an established custom in the church, and our own cardinal, bishop Valerio, makes a similar observation, calling it a pious extension (pia estensione). In the same manner the bishop Marco Gradenigo expresses himself. In short, it is sufficiently evident that we may justly say, that the bodies of St. Simon and St. Jude may be at Rome, and yet also in this church of S. Giovanni, transported there in time of war by some one of the faithful.
“‘In the second place, if not so in fact, it may, nevertheless, be justly said,’ contends the already cited Ferrario, ‘that the bodies of saints are in different places at the same time, when there exists a holy belief that they are in one place, while they really exist at the other, having been secretly stolen from the first and carried to the latter; and he adds that he could cite a great many instances, but he abstains from doing it, lest he should give offence.’” The writer then goes on to state that he will not presume to affirm that these bodies are in Rome only by a holy belief, but he adduces some evidence to prove that this is the case; nor will he assert that they are wholly and entirely at Verona; because, as they are only seen by means of a small hole in the sarcophagus, it is impossible to decide that question. After this he proceeds to give the more recent history of these bones.
I will spare you the further detail of the author’s arguments; his position is, that these bones were stolen from Rome about the end of the twelfth century, and hidden at Verona, where they were found in 1395, with an inscription on the sarcophagus which pointed out to whom they had belonged. Unfortunately for this theory, not only there is now no such inscription on the sarcophagus, but the whole is covered with figures which bear all the character of the early ages of Christianity, and yet have no reference to any part of the known, or imagined story, of St. Simon and St. Jude. To get over this difficulty the author has recourse to a series of gratuitous hypotheses, which shew his confidence in the easy faith of his readers; “and thus,” continues he, “having brought my work to its termination, it is, I believe, useful to observe, that from the year 1395, when the holy bodies of our apostles were first discovered, down to the present time, the memory of their existence in the above-mentioned marble chest, in the crypt of this church, has always been more or less preserved; and thus more than five centuries[[33]] have concurred to consecrate such a tradition; on which account, I maintain, that it deserves every possible respect, whatever may have been said, or thought, to the contrary; and it deserves also, that here the faithful should run together every year to pay their vows to these great saints; and principally on the Sunday included in their octave, on the fourth day of Lent, in the triduo which precedes their festival, and on the 28th of October, which is the day of the festival itself.” He then laments, that owing to bad times, and continual revolutions, this festival had not been celebrated as it ought to have been, and professes his resolution to observe it in future with all possible magnificence.
One more church and I have done with the Gothic architecture of Verona, or rather, with the architecture of the middle ages, for which we want a convenient term; the word Gothic having been appropriated to the modification of the pointed style, which prevails in our own country. Many other buildings of these times, well worth examination, might perhaps be found here; but I have not time to enter more extensively into the subject. The church I mean is that of San Fermo, built in 1313. It is of brick with a good deal of ornament, and the rows of little arches are some of them trefoil-headed. The door of the façade is round headed, with a profusion of ornamented mouldings. It has no rose in the front, but instead, are four lancet windows with trefoil heads, and the parts seem more consistent on this account, as the rose window rarely unites well with the numerous intersecting lines of this style of building. Over these is a smaller window, divided by little shafts into three parts, and a small circular opening on each side of it. There is no tracery. The building ends in a gable whose cornice is loaded with ornament, and three pinnacles rise above it. Internally, the ceiling is of wood and not handsome. When seen from the bridge behind the church, a little polygonal building, each face of which terminates in a high gable, composes very richly. As I was about to come away, an old woman pressed me very earnestly to stay and hear the mass, which was just about to be performed, as it might contribute to the salvation of my soul. It does not seem to be considered any sort of intrusion to go about these churches, even during the performance of the religious ceremonies. One frequently sees the Italians doing so themselves, and in the larger churches, the attendants, who hope to make something of your curiosity, take you about to all parts, and talk as loudly as if there were not a soul present. In general, however, they are very careful to bend one knee on passing opposite the high altar, and frequently make a similar obeisance at some of the side altars. There are people on their knees at all times in the morning, and though they are much more numerous during the celebration of the mass, yet they do not then kneel all together, at particular parts of the service, but some at one time and some at another. During the whole time of the ceremony, perhaps more than half the congregation are kneeling, but there is hardly any period at which many of those who seem to be attending to what is going forward, as part of their religion, may not be seen standing or sitting.
Before turning to the modern architecture of Verona, I must just mention to you the three principal tombs of the Scaligers. That of Can Grande, the second dog of the race, is not a very sumptuous monument; two square pilasters against the wall of a church, with foliage on the capitals, support a platform, and over this is a Gothic canopy with trefoil-heads, but with little other ornament; above the canopy is a pyramid crowned with a figure on horseback, representing, probably, Can Grande himself, who is also extended below, under the canopy. The second is entirely detached, with precisely the same arrangement, but with more ornament, and higher and more graceful proportion; this contains the remains of Mastino II. (the Mastiff). The third is of Can Signorio, which is much more highly ornamented, but the disposition is the same, except that it forms a hexagon on the plan. The pyramid is disagreeably truncated in all, in order to admit the equestrian figure on the summit. These dogs seem to have deserved the name; the first died in 1328, the second in 1350, and the third, who erected his tomb in his own lifetime, in 1375. The desire of the Italians to introduce something resembling the columns and entablatures of the Roman architecture, renders these monuments much inferior to our own Gothic crosses.
I have already mentioned to you Sanmicheli; in 1525 or 1526, he left the service of Clement VII. for that of the republic of Venice, and was immediately employed in fortifying Verona. The works executed prior to his time have round towers instead of bastions; these and the gates have most of them inscriptions with dates; the last of the ancient style are the bastion of St. George, built in 1523, and the gate of St. George, 1525. The bastion of the Magdalen was the first erected by Sanmicheli, and bears date 1527. He has made it polygonal but small, and perhaps more like a tower than a modern bastion; but in the succeeding ones, all the particulars unite to give them the complete character of bastions. The Porta del Palio, built also by this artist, is very beautiful as a piece of architecture. It presents internally a range of arches, between doubled Doric columns; but it was left unfinished at his death, and has never been completed. I do not know how it is, but though I always condemn coupled columns in theory, they nevertheless occur in many of the buildings I most admire. The Porta Nuova was also by Sanmicheli; it is not so good, nor do any of his palaces equal in grace and purity of design, this Porta del Palio; yet they are all fine buildings. His usual defect seems to be in not putting his stories well together, generally making the lower too high, in relation to the upper, or else putting under the second order a double pedestal, and thus leaving too much space between the columns. Taking each order singly the proportions are beautiful.
Every Englishman who comes to Verona goes to see what he is told is the tomb of Juliet. It is a plain sarcophagus without a cover, which has been made use of as a cistern, and now lies neglected in a garden. You are told on the spot, that she was deposited there after having taken the sleepy potion; it may be so, but the entire want of internal evidence, and of all accompaniments, leaves the imagination unsatisfied.