December 29.
Last evening I went with Meyerbeer to hear “Tancredi” at the Argentino theatre. I never witnessed a more wretched performance. The singers, with the exception of Paris the elder, are very mediocre; the prima donna, the younger Paris, is yet quite a beginner, the basso was frightful, the orchestra worse than in the smallest provincial town in Germany, and in a word, it is an assemblage of folks such as had all Italy been ransacked for the purpose, it would have been difficult to find worse. God help the composer whose work falls into such hands! They disfigured it in such a manner that one can no longer recognise it. The only one person who distinguished herself, was the elder Paris, who, in the part of “Tancredi,” displayed a powerful, healthy contralto voice and a cultivated execution. It would be unjust after such a representation to pass judgment upon the opera, and the more so, as several passages were omitted and others substituted. The ballet which was given between the acts, was quite of a piece with the rest: a serious ballet executed by a number of grotesque dancers! But among these were some men, who made themselves remarkable by the power, and agility and by springs of all kinds.
During the last week we have again seen many interesting things; the museum of the Capitol, in which the dying gladiator and several Egyptian statues pleased me most—the latter less remarkable for artistic beauty than for singularity; the picture gallery in the Doria palace, which contains among many other remarkable pictures, four beautiful landscapes by Claude Lorrain; another gallery in the Colonna palace, in which hangs an extremely beautiful head of Raphael; the handsome and richly decorated churches of Santa Maria Maggiore and St. Giovanni in Laterano, &c. From the portal of the latter one has an extensive view in the direction of Albano, which with the ancient aqueducts, which the eye can follow for miles, and other remains of ancient Roman architecture, possesses much romantic interest.
On Sunday evening, the weather being very clear, we ascended the dome of St. Peter’s church. The ascent is at first by a footway of a spiral form without steps as far as the roof of the church. Arrived there once fancies one’sself again in the streets of a town, for the ground is paved, and a number of houses, some of which are inhabited, together with numerous small and large cupolas, prevent a view into the distance. But if you walk up to the gigantic statues over the portal of the church, you then see at how great a height you are standing. The pavement of the square in front of the church looks like a minute mosaic, and the people little puppets creeping about upon it. On looking up to the dome from here, it looks like an enormous isolated building; from the first interior gallery one has also to mount to a considerable height before one arrives at the second, where the first swell of the dome begins. The view from these galleries, particularly from the second, down into the church is quite sui generis, and makes one positively shudder. The hundred lamps which burn right under the dome at the entrance of the subterranean chapel, seem to mingle as in one flame, and the human beings below appear like moving black spots. From the second gallery one then ascends between the inner and exterior dome by wooden steps up to the lantern, from which one has again a view down into the church that makes the head turn. From here a flight of winding stone steps once more leads up into a tolerably large chamber situated in the top of the lantern, and thence at length ascending an iron ladder, one passes through the shaft to the ball, which is large enough to contain from twelve to sixteen persons.
The foolhardy can ascend yet higher, by a ladder outside the ball, up into the cross, but we were quite satisfied with having been as high as the ball. The view from the external galleries is magnificent and varied beyond description. Below, proud Rome with its inummerable palaces, ruins, columns and obelisks; around it the villas.
In the distance the mountain near Tivoli and Albano, above which are seen the peaks of snow-covered mountains, and far away on the west the Mediterranean, which at the time of the day we ascended the dome looked like a fiery stripe in the distant sky. After we had long enjoyed this entrancing view, we descended and found that two hours had passed very rapidly in the ascent of the dome.
We also went up the high column on the Piazza Colonna, and from its summit, which rises high above all the houses, enjoyed one of the finest views of Rome and its immediate environs.
December 30.
I have acquired the conviction that the Italians, even in modern times, are not wanting in natural abilities for the study of the fine arts, and indeed, that on the whole they surpass therein the northern nations. Almost all their singers have a happy ear for intonation, and the faculty of immediately seizing and repeating a melody once heard; although but very few of them, even among the theatrical singers possess what we call music, and most of them scarcely even know their notes. At the last musical party at Apponyi’s there was a Canon of Cherubini’s to be sung, in which Moncade who, as I had been told, is one of the singers who cannot read music, although formerly a theatrical singer, was solicited to take a part. As he willingly assented to sing something that he did not know, I immediately thought that in his case at least what I had heard was untrue. The Countess first sang the slow melody consisting of eight bars and Moncade repeated it note for note with all the little ornaments which she had added. But when his part began, he could get no farther: nevertheless, he did not permit himself to be disconcerted, but sang away by ear, which certainly sometimes did not sound much like music by Cherubini. When, however, the third singer, who also had no music before him, began, after his first simple entry in the second part, also to compose, such confusion and discord arose that they were obliged to leave off. Both singers declared very ingenuously that they had hoped, they would have accomplished it; like the Englishman who, when he was asked if he played the violin, replied: “It is possible, but I have never yet tried.”
Among the lower uneducated classes of the people, a remarkable genius for painting is by no means rare here, which is awakened by the early contemplation of the public works of art. In this manner the attention of the painters here has been attracted for the last year and more by the extraordinary artistic talent of a lad in the streets. This boy, without ever having had the least instruction, draws large historical sketches in charcoal upon the white walls of the houses, and there is scarcely a street in which some of his artistic work is not to be seen.