I left Florence about three o’clock on Tuesday afternoon, and went in a vettura to the Maschere; a poor little inn, about eighteen miles distant; there we slept, but I let my companions proceed without me the next day, meaning to follow them on foot. A wet morning detained me some time, and when at length I set off, the clouds were still hanging low on the mountains. I had dressed myself as lightly as possible, and I felt it rather cold. The walk was however delightful. The scenery everywhere fine, but so equally so, that it did not tempt the pencil; cultivated valleys, sloping hills, and woody mountains, succeeded one after another. The highest point of the pass is called the Fiuta; it has the reputation of being always windy, and when I crossed it, fully maintained its fame. I was much amused by the figures who passed me, closely wrapped up in their cloaks, with their hats tied fast upon their heads, and shrinking from the blast. The northern side is more wild than the south. There is less wood, and more rock, and one or two remarkable crags. They are however ragged crags, and have nothing of the solidity of the Alpine masses. Further on are considerable cliffs, which are kept naked and perpendicular, by the action of water at the bottom. These produce a very different effect on the mind from the precipices of the Alps, whose firmness seems to defy vegetation. I left the road before reaching Pietra Mala, in order to see what is called the Volcano. I was directed to a tract of broken ground of no great extent, but though frequently within a hundred yards of the spot, it was a considerable time before I discovered the flames, putting my hand in the meanwhile to every crack in the soil, to try if I could feel any warmth, and imagining from time to time that I perceived a sulphureous smell; at last however, I succeeded, and it was certainly very curious to see a portion of a field on fire without any apparent cause. The flames issued from a space twenty-two feet long and five feet wide, and there were traces of its action for about four times that space. It is always of more consequence in winter and wet weather, than it is in summer. A plant was growing within a yard of the flames, and corn within about two yards, evidently ripened by their warmth beyond the rest of the field. There was no visible smoke, not the least smell of sulphur, but that of a clear coal fire; no soot is deposited, but a trifling white efflorescence is observable on some of the stones exposed to the flames. The soil about it seemed to be clay mixed with fragments of limestone, and the flames issued from among these fragments, or perhaps partially among rocks of the same nature in situ, but I think they were all detached pieces. The cliffs at a little distance appeared to be also of limestone, but in some little brooks which the road passes, the rock had rather the appearance of a grit. There are likewise some black ragged crags in the neighbourhood.
From this place I passed through Pietra Mala, and went to the boiling spring, which deserved its name still less than the volcano, for there was no water. Its situation was marked by a little spot of bare ground, not three yards in diameter, in the midst of a meadow; and in the middle of this is a small saucer-shaped hollow, about three feet in diameter, in which the earth retained a little moisture. On the application of a candle to the edges of this saucer, they took fire, which showed that a vapour was issuing from the spot, but I could perceive no smell, either before or after the application of flame. My guide had filled some bottles with water at a brook by the way, in order to fill them with the gas at the spring, but the total absence of water disappointed him. Such bottles of air are kept corked up by the people of the inn, who, when they wish to show the effect to strangers, apply a light to the mouth, pouring water at the same time into the bottle. I slept at Scarica l’Asino, and returned to my old quarters at Bologna, but the bed-room I had used before was occupied by a Roman marquis, commissioned, as I understood, from the Holy See, to correct some abuses in the collection of the taxes. Another therefore was assigned to me, within that of the master and mistress, who told me that I should find the doors always open, and might pass through it whenever I pleased, without occasioning any inconvenience. The Roman gentleman, and another, a lawyer from Ancona, were always of the dinner party, and instead of dressing for the meal, as in England, we always undrest, pulling off the coat which had been used for walking about in the city, and generally the waistcoat and neckcloth, and putting on a nankin jacket. Dinner is not a company meal, that is, not one at which persons make an exhibition to their friends of the luxuries they have the means of furnishing to them, but it is by no means a solitary one, and here, besides the persons living in the house, seven in number, there was generally some friend to partake of it.
Of Bologna I have already said all that occurs to me. I left it on the 19th, and went to Modena, where I hardly found so much to interest me as I had anticipated. There is a large ducal palace, and a Gothic cathedral, which is not handsome. Internally, the lower arches seem to be circular, and most of the upper ones pointed: there is a wheel, or marigold window over the entrance, where the rays are formed of little columns, and finish in pointed arches. The choir is elevated, and in the sub-choir below it, we find a forest of little shafts, some of which rest on figures of animals. The front columns at the doorways, both of the west and south entrance, are supported on animals. The principal front consists of a higher gable in the middle, and a sloping roof on each side, the middle division occupying about half the entire extent: and it has a large wheel window, already mentioned, in the upper part.
There is sometimes a simplicity and good proportion in the general design of a façade of an Italian Gothic, which is very pleasing;
and in some instances the disposition of the smaller parts is well managed. I would not recommend that they should be copied altogether, but they afford useful hints for design. Most of these are unfinished, and by this at least we avoid having the building spoilt by bad details. The usual ornament consists of ranges of little arches under the cornices. There is a Gothic cathedral at Reggio, but it has been nearly all modernized, and hardly deserves notice. The Madonna di Consolazione is a very handsome modern church. The form is a Greek cross, with arms, whose depth is equal to the breadth, and a semicircle is added to form the choir. At Parma there is a cathedral built in the eleventh century, and dedicated in 1105; not Gothic, since there are no pointed arches in the original work. The vaulting of the nave is elliptical: a circumstance I do not remember having met with elsewhere in a building of this era. The whole is darkly painted; the vaulting of the nave by Girolamo Mazzola, and the walls by a Lactantius Gambara. The dome at the intersection is ornamented with one of the most celebrated productions of Coreggio, and I am willing to believe that it is very fine; but it is lighted by a set of little windows just below the painting, which render a good view of it impossible; it has also been damaged by the wet. The choir is elevated, and there is a chapel beneath it full of columns, more considerable than that at Modena, and presenting some very picturesque effects. The front here forms one large gable, plentifully adorned with horizontal and inclined ranges of small arches, and minute ornamental arches under the raking cornice, such as I have before described to you at Milan and Verona. It has no leading feature, and I much prefer the division into three parts. The shafts of the doorway rest as usual on animals. This front has no circular window.
Just by the cathedral is the Baptistery, a high octagonal building, erected about 1196, by an architect of the name of Antelmi, or Antélami. On the outside the entrance is formed by a large arch, with three shafts on each side, as in Gothic buildings, and four colonnades, one above another, of small shafts over it, with a wide and nearly plain band between each. The upper, a fifth range, has still smaller shafts, placed closer together, and pointed arches; it is probably an addition to the original design; but as the building was certainly not completed before 1260, it may never have been finished in any other manner. The angles are rounded, or rather, they are truncated, and replaced by two plane surfaces, and finished at the summit by turrets, but the upper part of these is not coeval with the rest of the building. The inside is sixteen-sided.
There is another cupola finely painted by Coreggio, at the church of St. John the Evangelist, and this, though liable to a similar objection in the mode of lighting, yet is more intelligible than that at the cathedral, from the smaller number and greater size of the figures. The church is somewhat in the Brunelleschi style. I next went to the Steccata, said to be a work of Bramante. Some portions of the tribune were painted by Parmegiano, not the whole, for having received a considerable portion of the money agreed upon, and not proceeding as fast as the monks expected, they imprisoned him in order to oblige him to complete his contract, at which he was so enraged that he spoilt great part of what he had executed, and quitted the place. The church is a Greek cross, with very short arms, and a semicircular end to each. It is very darkly painted; the internal proportions are fine, and there is something of a pleasing solemnity in its gloomy appearance. On the outside, the central dome rests on a drum, ornamented with small columns and arches, which has a good effect, but the rest is not worth criticism.
There is a very fine collection of paintings at the academy at Parma; some of them have been at Paris, but I believe all have been restored to Parma to which it had any claim. Among these is the exquisite picture of St. Jerome, by Coreggio, which you must have seen at the Louvre, and several other admirable paintings by that artist, but nothing which can be compared to this. There are also many fine productions of the Lombard and Bolognese schools. Here is also an interesting museum of antiques, consisting principally of objects found at Velleia, a city destroyed by the fall of a mountain, about the end of the fourth century; and a public library, containing eighty thousand volumes; the cases are about fifteen feet high, and the moveable steps as much as nine, but the librarian assured me that this disposition was not found inconvenient. All these are contained in a great palace, intended by the dukes of Parma for their residence, but certainly not on a scale corresponding with the extent of their dominions. Only about half of the design has been erected, and great part of that is still unfinished, yet besides the establishments already mentioned, it contains a great theatre, 300 feet long, which in fact is neither beautiful nor convenient, but very remarkable on account of the distinctness with which one hears even a low voice on the stage through every part; it is all of wood, and all the planks are disposed vertically, which is not consistent with the plan usually adopted for the distant propagation of sound. There is also another smaller theatre, and I know not what besides, all upon the first floor. I have resolved not to tire you with accounts of paintings, otherwise I should be tempted to say a little more of those which form the great boast of this city. The language here is a mixture of Milanese, Bolognese, and Venetian, “Se vol vder nteck chais,” said a boy to me, who wanted to obtain a little money by shewing me the Baptistery, to which I certainly did not want his guidance. You are to pronounce the letters as if you were reading English. The police officer who took my passport at the gate was startled at its length, “tutt quest passport,” and to save himself the labour of reading it, requested to know if I were “posdent o ngoziant,” and when I had satisfied him on that point, begged for something to buy “npocdpan.”
From Parma I proceeded to Mantua. In this part of Italy the vines are frequently supported on elms, but the elms are small, and universally pollards. The Indian corn was just showing its silky filaments, but all the sorts of grain you have in England were cleared away. We crossed the Po by a ferry; the water was muddy, as I believe it always is; the banks are a sandy loam, and the water is continually eating away the earth on one side, and depositing its silt on the other. These changes of its bed are said to be productive of frequent litigations. I cannot say much for the pleasantness of the road, which lay entirely on a dead flat, but in a fertile and highly cultivated country. Mantua is situated very low, and in the midst of the waters, and the fortifications have none of that show, which one is apt to expect from their military reputation: but I believe this lowness, and want of appearance, is one source of its strength. I observed on the road, parties of women winding silk out of a large cauldron, where the water was kept nearly boiling by a fire underneath it.