Last evening our concert took place in the theatre della Pergola. The Grand-duke, to whom I brought a letter from his brother Rudolph, and who has received me several times very graciously at his residence, honoured it with his presence, accompanied by his whole family. The small though select auditory was very animated, and after having greeted the Grand-duke with the usual recognitions, were not restrained from a loud expression of applause of my performances. The music had a very good effect in the spacious and sonorous theatre; but the accompaniment was not of the best.—To-day I have received a great number of invitations to give a second concert next week, from which I am promised a better result. I shall make the venture, although the Grand-duke, who goes to-morrow to Pisa to meet his brother Rainer, will not be here. Yesterday’s concert, exclusive of the Archduke’s present to me, did not bring in more than the evening’s expenses, which were, as they always are, very considerable; the price of admission being only three paoli, and all disposition over the sale of a single box being again denied me. A very favorable notice of my concert appeared this afternoon in the newspaper.
November, 12.
As we have now been several times to the picture-gallery, and attentively observed all that it contains, I will commit to paper a few words, not upon the truly splendid works of art which it contains, for they have already been frequently and well described, but also the expression of the impression which they made upon me. I must first of all give due praise to the admirable custom, one by no means usual in Italy, of admitting the public to the gallery free. At the entrance one finds a notice in four or five languages, that the guardians of the gallery are forbidden under the penalty of the loss of their situation, to take the smallest present. Though perhaps they may not altogether adhere too strictly to this injunction, one is at least fully secured from the importunate begging, with which one is everywhere pursued in Italy, and in this place, made sacred by art, gives oneself peacefully up to the enjoyment.
To assist my memory hereafter I have sketched a plan of the gallery and marked the position where the works of art stand which made the greatest impression upon me. As I never make use either of a guide or a book to find the objects worthy of observation in a city (I am averse to all dictation as what I should admire, and never permit myself to be deprived of the pleasure of finding for myself the works of art in a gallery which are known to me by reputation), therefore it is very possible that I have erred in many instances. On the first day I looked for a long time and with attention at the works of art which are in the gallery proper, before the apartments were opened in which the most choice are situated. I am even now glad I did so, as afterwards, when I had seen the most perfect specimens of art, I could never again remain for any length of time with the works exhibited in the gallery. One exception to this was the group of the Laocoon, which I always contemplated with renewed admiration. When the sanctuary of art was thrown open we first beheld the celebrated Medicean Venus, whose perfect and surpassingly beautiful form is yet more thrown out by the large curtain of red-velvet suspended behind her. In the same rotunda with her are the greatest master-pieces ever produced by the chisel and by the brush: the Apollo del Belvedere[23] and Raphael’s St. John. To contemplate and admire in these three works of art the highest ideal of human beauty is an enjoyment quite peculiar in its kind. After reiterated contemplation and long hesitation I gave the palm for beauty to the St. John. Any thing more charming and at the same time more noble than the whole form of this Youth cannot be imagined by the most lively fancy. What may have contributed somewhat to this decision on my part is the circumstance that the Apollo as well as the Venus are of a three-quarter-life size, a proportion which seems to be not quite happily chosen, as the figures being so nearly the real size of life, always appear to be wanting in something, which, if they were smaller, would not be the case. The Apollo has nevertheless a rather too feminine beauty, which not I alone, but my wife also and several other persons present remarked. In this apartment are numerous other master-pieces, among which a head by Raphael, the Venus of Titian; and a group of gladiators in marble, excited most our admiration. Of the pictures arranged according to the schools in the side apartments, the head of a female, by Carlo Dolce, pleased me most; but one soon returns again to the gems of the whole collection. On the other side of the building, in two apartments, is the collection of Bronzes, among which the celebrated flying Mercury excites the most admiration. In another saloon is a collection of Niobes, among which are some beautiful works of art. Besides these we saw innumerable portraits of celebrated masters, for the most part painted by themselves.
November 13.
Behind the residence of the Grand-duke is a large garden called, I know not why, Boboli. It is open to all on Sundays and Fridays. Last Sunday we went there for the second time, and afterwards heard mass in the Court-chapel. The Grand-duke, who has a collection of between three and four-hundred masses of celebrated masters of every period, had given out upon this occasion one of Michael Haydn’s for performance; it was executed with tolerable precision, but it was found necessary to play a very simple solo for the tenor-trumpet upon the viol. The musicians asked me afterwards whether we had players on the trumpet in Germany who could execute such soli as that!
Upon our way back our hired lacquey pointed out to us the covered passage leading from the Grand-ducal residence to the water side, which passes through several streets at a considerable height, and after being carried across the river Arno over one of the bridges, and through a few more streets, abuts at the government buildings in which the gallery is also situated. This gallery, which is at least a quarter of an hour’s walk in length, is used by the Grand-duke when in wet weather he attends the sittings of the privy council.
November 15.
Our concert yesterday was not better attended than the first and therefore brought in nothing. I am now convinced that an instrumental-musician, even under the most favourable circumstances, can earn nothing in Florence; for in the first place the Italians esteem and like instrumental music too little, and in the second the price of admission is much too low in proportion to the considerable expenses. I must here observe, as somewhat worthy of note, that one part of the orchestra, namely, all the violinists, took no payment, which for people who must live from their daily earnings, and for Italians who, wherever possible, extort three times the price of every thing, is certainly very astonishing. For the rest, my play was received with still greater applause yesterday than the first time. Madame Georgi sang exceedingly well the admired cavatina (sung everywhere in Italy) in Rossini’s “Tancredi,” with the following theme: