I had an annual visit of an hour from the astronomer Padre Vico, and Padre Pianciani, Professor of Chemistry in the Collegio Romano. I was invited to see the Observatory; but as I had seen those of Greenwich and Paris, I did not think it worth while accepting the invitation, especially as it required an order from the Pope. I could easily have obtained leave, for we were presented to Gregory XVI. by the President of the Scotch Catholic College. The Pope received me with marked distinction; notwithstanding I was disgusted to see the President prostrate on the floor, kissing the Pope's foot as if he had been divine. I think it was about this time that I was elected an honorary associate of the Accademia Tiberiana.
I had very great delight in the Campagna of Rome; the fine range of Apennines bounding the plain, over which the fleeting shadows of the passing clouds fell, ever changing and always beautiful, whether viewed in the early morning, or in the glory of the setting sun, I was never tired of admiring; and whenever I drove out, preferred a country drive to the more fashionable Villa Borghese. One day Somerville and I and our daughters went to drive towards the Tavolata, on the road to Albano. We got out of the carriage, and went into a field, tempted by the wild flowers. On one side of this field ran the aqueduct, on the other a deep and wide ditch full of water. I had gone towards the aqueduct, leaving the others in the field. All at once we heard a loud shouting, when an enormous drove of the beautiful Campagna grey cattle with their wide-spreading horns came rushing wildly between us with their heads down and their tails erect, driven by men with long spears mounted on little spirited horses at full gallop. It was so sudden and so rapid, that only after it was over did we perceive the danger we had run. As there was no possible escape, there was nothing for it but standing still, which Somerville and my girls had presence of mind to do, and the drove dividing, rushed like a whirlwind to the right and left of them. The danger was not so much of being gored as of being run over by the excited and terrified animals, and round the walls of Rome places of refuge are provided for those who may be passing when the cattle are driven. Near where this occurred there is a house with the inscription "Casa Dei Spiriti"; but I do not think the Italians believe in either ghosts or witches; their chief superstition seems to be the "Jettatura" or evil eye, which they have inherited from the early Romans, and, I believe, Etruscans. They consider it a bad omen to meet a monk or priest on first going out in the morning. My daughters were engaged to ride with a large party, and the meet was at our house. A Roman, who happened to go out first, saw a friar, and rushed in again laughing, and waited till he was out of sight. Soon after they set off, this gentleman was thrown from his horse and ducked in a pool; so the "Jettatura" was fulfilled. But my daughters thought his bad seat on horseback enough to account for his fall without the Evil Eye.
CHAPTER XV.
ALBANO—POPULAR SINGING—LETTERS FROM MRS. SOMERVILLE—GIBSON—PERUGIA—COMET OF 1843—SUMMER AT VENICE—LETTERS FROM MRS. SOMERVILLE AND MISS JOANNA BAILLIE—ELECTED ASSOCIATE OF THE COLLEGE OF RESURGENTI AND R.I. ACADEMY OF SCIENCE AT AREZZO.
In spring we went to Albano, and lived in a villa, high up on the hill in a beautiful situation not far from the lake. The view was most extensive, commanding the whole of the Campagna as far as Terracina, &c. In this wide expanse we could see the thunderclouds forming and rising gradually over the sky before the storm, and I used to watch the vapour condensing into a cloud as it rose into the cool air. I never witnessed anything so violent as the storms we had about the equinox, when the weather broke up. Our house being high above the plain became enveloped in vapour till, at 3 p.m. we could scarcely see the olives which grew below our windows, and crash followed crash with no interval between the lightning and the thunder, so that we felt sure many places must have been struck; and we were not mistaken—trees, houses, and even cattle had been struck close to us. Somerville went to Florence to attend a scientific meeting, and wrote to us that the lightning there had stripped the gold leaf off the conductors on the powder magazine; a proof of their utility.
The sunsets were glorious, and I, fascinated by the gorgeous colouring, attempted to paint what Turner alone could have done justice to. I made studies, too, which were signal failures, of the noble ilex trees bordering the lake of Albano. Thus I wasted a great deal of time, I can hardly say in vain, from the pleasure I had in the lovely scenery. Somerville sat often by me with his book, while I painted from nature, or amused himself examining the geological structure of the country. Our life was a solitary one, except for the occasional visit from some friends who were at Frascati; but we never found it dull; besides, we made many expeditions on mules or donkeys to places in the neighbourhood. I was very much delighted with the flora on the Campagna and the Alban hills, which in spring and early summer are a perfect garden of flowers. Many plants we cultivate in England here grow wild in profusion, such as cyclamens, gum-cistus, both white and purple, many rare and beautiful orchideæ, the large flowering Spanish broom, perfuming the air all around, the tall, white-blossomed Mediterranean heath, and the myrtle. These and many others my girls used to bring in from their early morning walks. The flowers only lasted till the end of June, when the heat began, and the whole country became brown and parched; but scarcely had the autumnal rains commenced, when, like magic, the whole country broke out once more into verdure, and myriads of cyclamens covered the ground. Nightingales abounded in the woods, singing both by night and by day; and one bright moonlight night my daughters, who slept with their window open, were startled from their sleep by the hooting of one of those beautiful birds, the great-eared owl—"le grand duc" of Buffon—which had settled on the railing of their balcony. We constantly came across snakes, generally harmless ones; but there were a good many vipers, and once, when Somerville and my daughters, with Mr. Cromek, the artist, had gone from Genzano to Nettuno for a couple of days, a small asp which was crawling among the bent-grass on the seashore, darted at one of the girls, who had irritated it by touching it with her parasol. By the natives they are much dreaded, both on this coast and in the pine forest of Ravenna, where the cattle are said to be occasionally poisoned by their bite.
We had been acquainted with the Rev. Dr., afterwards Cardinal Wiseman at Rome. He was head of a college of young men educating for the Catholic Church, who had their "villeggiatura" at Monte Porzio. We spent a day with him there, and visited Tusculum; another day we went to Lariccia, where there is a palace and park belonging to the Chigi family in a most picturesque but dilapidated state. We went also to Ganzano, Rocca del Papa, and occasionally to visit frends at Frascati. There was a stone threshing-floor behind our house. During the vintage we had it nicely swept and lighted with torches, and the grape gatherers came and danced till long after midnight, to the great amusement of my daughters, who joined in the dance, which was the Saltarello, a variety of the Tarantella. They danced to the beating of tambourines. Italy is the country of music, especially of melody, and the popular airs, especially the Neapolitan, are extremely beautiful and melodious; yet it is a fact, that the singing of the peasantry, particularly in the Roman and Neapolitan provinces, is most disagreeable and discordant. It is not melody at all, but a kind of wild chant, meandering through minor tones, without rhythm of any sort or apparent rule, and my daughters say it is very difficult to note down; yet there is some kind of method and similarity in it as one hears it shouted out at the loudest pitch of the voice, the last note dwelt upon and drawn out to an immeasurable length. The words are frequently improvised by the singers, who answer one another from a distance, as they work in the fields. I have been told this style of chanting—singing it can hardly be called—has been handed down from the most ancient times, and it is said, in the southern provinces, to have descended from the early Greek colonists. The ancient Greeks are supposed to have chanted their poetry to music, as do the Italian improvisatori at the present day. In Tuscany, the words of the songs are often extremely poetical and graceful. Frequently, these verses, called "stornelli" and "rispetti," are composed by the peasants themselves, women as well as men; the language is the purest and most classical Italian, such as is spoken at the present day in the provinces of Siena, Pistoja, &c., very much less corrupted by foreign idioms or adaptations than what is spoken, even by cultivated persons, in Florence itself. The picturesque costumes so universal when I first came to Italy, in 1817, had fallen very much into disuse when, at a much later period, we resided in Rome, and now they are rarely seen.