Fontana is a man known among the scientific of Europe; his chief work is a treatise upon poisons. His political principles are suspected. He is an intolerant atheist, and is as eager to obtain converts to his own disbelief as bigots are to make proselytes to their belief. Fabroni[145] is a physician, and a sort of rival to Fontana. Don Neri Corsini[146] is the brother of the Prince of that name; he is a pupil of Manfredini, and supporter of the Tuscan neutrality. He is accused of being inclined towards the French faction. Fossombroni[147] is a profound mathematician; he has given in a report full of learning and science in favour of draining some parts of the Val d’Arno. Pignotti[148] is a priggish little Abbé, attached to the House of Corsini; his fables are well known and have much merit. Delfico[149] is a Sicilian; he has written a dissertation upon the Roman law. His conversation strongly savours of the new principles. Greppi[150] is a Milanese. It was of his father that Arthur Young said as a public collector of the revenue the course he took in that country conducted him to wealth and titles, but would in England have brought him to the gallows. He is a lively, mischievous man, full of laughable stories against the governments he has lived under.
The evenings I generally spent at home. Ld. Holland used to read aloud. He read me Larcher’s translation of Herodotus, a good deal of Bayle, and a great variety of English poetry. Madame d’Albany’s society was a pleasant relief from the sameness of the Italians. Alfieri, when he condescended to unbend, was very good company.
Feb. 9th, 1796.—Set off with all my children, Gely, and accompanied by Ld. H., to Rome, with the intention of seeing Loreto. Slept the first night at Levane, dined the next day at Arezzo. The effects of the recent earthquake were not so apparent as the exaggerated accounts of it at Florence had taught us to expect; the alarm had been great, the injury slight—indeed none but the fright occasioned to some old nuns, who ran out of their convent, glad even to see the world upon such terms. A few walls in the building were split. I went to see the picture of the ‘Martyrdom of St. Donato,’ by a young Aretin called Benvenuto,[151] who studies at Rome, and is admired and protected by the old compère. The picture is well coloured, but the artist is the most barefaced plagiarist, for not content with taking from pictures, he has pilfered arms, legs, and torsi from half the statues in Rome. Reached Rome 18th. Ly. Plymouth had taken lodgings for me in ye Palazzo Corea (?), Strada Pontifice.
STATUES IN ROME
The following day I went with Ly. Plymouth, Amherst, and Ld. H., to see my old acquaintances in the Museum Clementinum. Even since last year there are alterations in the dispositions of the statues. The Laocoon seems even grander than ever. The Apollo is always miraculous, though it may be criticised, but its defects are mere artifices to give more spirit to the attitude, but nevertheless are deviations from correct truth. The legs are allowed to be faulty, if not of modern restoration. The new Antinous, discovered by Hamilton, and destined for the D. Braschi’s [sic] Palace, is among the finest things in Rome. It is of colossal size, and almost perfect; the restorations are very judicious, particularly the drapery. It is at present at Sposino’s, the sculptor, a man who has made a lasting monument of Ld. Bristol’s bad taste, and the merit of originality of thought is not his. Pitt is represented as the infant Hercules strangling the serpents, the heads of which are the portraits of Mr. Fox and Ld. North, the Coalition; Pitt’s head is of the natural size upon the body of an infant. The whole performance is like some of the uncouth decorations in the middle ages of our English cathedrals. The idea was taken from a caricature. The English artists all to a man refused to execute this puerile conceit. I went with Ly. Plymouth and Amherst to Tivoli; we stayed a couple of days.
St. Peter’s contains a statue I never observed before, but which for beauty is equal to any representation of female perfection; indeed, the effect it produced upon an enraptured artist was such as to demand drapery. The sculpture is not remarkable: the artist was Della Porta, a scholar of M. Angelo’s.[152] There is also another female saint whose cold charms roused to passion the imagination of a French artist.
Ld. Macartney came, and Ld. H. and I saw a good deal of him. The first day of March, 1796, I set off to go to Naples, merely to see my friend Italinski. I conveyed Smith, the American, an ennuyeux, in my carriage. Slept the first night at Velletri, and the second at Terracina, where both on account of the measles which prevails at Naples, and the want of passports for the French persons with me, I left Gely and my two youngest children and my cook at the pretty inn, and pursued my journey accompanied only by Smith, Hortense, and Webby.
The principal object of my excursion was to see my old friend Italinski, who in consequence of the bad conduct and dismissal of Cte. Golophin was appointed sole Chargé d’Affaires. I had the pleasure of finding him well, and sincerely rejoiced to see me. The four days I passed were totally with him. Ld. Bristol was there dangerously ill. As soon as the physician declared him in danger he sent to Italinski for my picture, adding that though he had refused him a copy, he could not deny a dying man anything. Italinski was embarrassed, but sent the picture. As soon as it came he had it placed upon an easel at the foot of his bed, and round it large cires d’église, and for aught I know to the contrary he may still be contemplating my phiz. What makes this freak the more strange is, that it is not from regard to me, as he scarcely knows me, and never manifested much liking to me; probably it reminds him of some woman he once loved, and whose image occupies his mind in his last moments.
VESUVIUS
The change in the figure of Vesuvius is very disadvantageous to it in point of beauty. It is now lower than Somma, and the crater is apparently flattened.[153] Torre del Greco presents a curious spectacle, both to the naturalist and ye moralist. The stratum of fresh lava has raised the coast near fifty feet above its former level. The lava is of a peculiar texture, more charged with metallic particles than any of the other strata from Vesuvius, though not equal in specific gravity to that at Ischia. In many places it is still smoking, and the cavities are filled by little beggars who seek warmth there. After a fall of rain the evaporation is curious, for the density of the atmosphere marks the course of the lava. The infatuation of the people is wonderful; they prefer rebuilding upon that spot to accepting lands offered by the King, and not content with that absurdity they add to it by immediately commencing, and I actually saw myself a house just finished, which was built within three inches (for I measured them) of a hole from whence the smoke issued, and upon which I could not bear my hand from the excessive heat. This surely is verifying that curious, novel, and true maxim of Adam Smith’s, that every man believes to a superstitious excess in his own good luck.