The Italians are true lovers of art, and sometimes carry it to a ridiculous degree. It bespeaks a man’s taste if he has the goddess of dancing or music painted on his house, but to see the same figures on a stone cart, or bouquets of flowers on a manure cart, we certainly think too, too æsthetic.
One of the many things that struck me in the streets of Naples were the vehicles, and more especially the harness. The horses draw from the breast, and therefore wear no collar; the harness, which is very ornamental in shape, is covered with brass, tassels, &c. They don’t groom their horses and mules, but clean their brass very carefully. They yoke a horse and donkey together, a donkey and an ox, a donkey and mule, or three donkeys and a mule. One day I observed a horse, an ox, and a donkey drawing a cart of stones, all with bells clanging.
In some few things they are in advance of us, for instance, we don’t have a cow driven to our door, and see our quart of milk drawn, as we did in the Via Roma, the Regent Street of Naples. You may have goat’s milk if you like that better.
The outskirts of Naples are pretty undulating, you can never for long lose sight of the bay or Vesuvius. By a drive of three or four miles to the west, along the bay, you get a fairly good view of Naples, embracing Pompeii and Herculaneum nestling insecurely at the foot of Vesuvius, but not equal to the one as you enter the bay.
We were told the churches were not so gorgeous and rich as those of Genoa, Pisa, or Rome, so we did not visit them. The only public building of great interest is the Museum of Ancient Sculpture and Paintings; it is large and well appointed, and contains more than any other public building in Italy. I never was an enthusiast of sculpture until now, but it was quite plain to see that the magnificent ideas arose from the old heathen worship. The gods as heroes of strength; the Farnese Hercules slaying the bull; the Gladiators achieving wonderful feats of their scientific skill; Bacchus at his feasts; Adonis wooing Venus; Venus in her various graceful attitudes; Bacchus in his youthful revelry; Silenus, the fat jolly old man; the Dancing Graces, the Apollos, the Jupiters, the colossal figures of horses and lions, hundreds of Roman senators, statues in white marble draped in black or coloured marble; statues buried for a thousand years, some sadly mutilated and placed in position; ancient inscriptions, Mosaic work of wonderful effect, galleries of pictures of immense canvas, huge libraries, rooms full of papyri, coins, antique jewellery, bronzes, crystals, and cameos. We spent some time in inspecting these, but we should have had a week, or even a month.
POMPEII.
