[15]. I remember an instance of the sort of interference which occurred in Tuscany, at the University of Pisa, during the mild and comparatively liberal reign of Ferdinand. It is well known that during the Carnival the people promenade in particular streets (in Pisa on the Lungo l’Arno), the gentry in their carriages, and often masked. The students at Pisa got up a masque of an elaborate kind, I think of heathen gods and goddesses, or some such thing. The following Carnival, the professors, wishing to turn this play to nobler uses, combined with the students to get up a procession of masks personating all the illustrious men of Italian history. Government considered this a dangerous reminiscence of past glory, and forbade it.
[16]. All the aristocracy—or as they call it, the famiglie tribunizie of Venice, consider themselves descended from old Roman families of the Equestrian order, and the names of several seem to attest the validity of this pretension. Padua sent a colony to the island of Rivo Alto, or Rialto, in 421; and the command for the building of the new city was entrusted to Alberto Faliero, Tommaso Candiano, and Cenone Daulo, or Dandolo. Hence it appears probable that the families of Faliero, Candiano, and Dandolo are descended from the Roman patricians who were present at the first building of the city of Rialto. In the ninth century the seat of Venetian government was transferred from the island of Rialto to Eraclea, and the independence of Venice was established. Now, before and after that epoch it may be said Venice was the only city in Europe, which from its foundation for fourteen centuries never submitted to a foreign yoke; and it is said that the old Venetian families have preserved in their lineaments the primitive character of the race whence they sprung. Dr. Edwards having examined carefully the portraits of the series of doges, and compared them with the countenances of their actual descendants, comes to this conclusion.
[17]. Shelley’s “Defence of Poetry.”
[18]. “What were the turkeys a pound?” asked our guide of some peasants returning from the fair. “Seventeen quatrini,” was the reply. It requires a complex sum to reduce this to English value. There are five quatrini to a crazie—eight crazie in a panl—and a panl is about 5¼d; in addition, the turkeys were bought alive with their feathers on, and the Italian pound contains only twelve ounces. This was the market price in the country. Every edible pays a duty on entering Florence.
[19]. “Paradise Regained.”
[20]. “The compunction of man’s heart—its aspirations towards God—the rapt ecstacy—a foretaste of celestial beatitude—all that class of profound and exalted emotions which no artist can represent without having previously experienced them, formed, as it were, the mysterious circle which the genius of Fra Angelico delighted to follow, and when ended, he recommenced with renewed delight.”—La Poésie Chrétienne.
[21]. “The Guide-Book of Florence,” by Fantozzi, is very complete, but it wants an index of the names of the artists, with the numbers of the pages in which they are mentioned, cited, to enable the amateur at once to learn where to find their various works.
[22]. The eight which M. Rio mentions as having seen himself, and as forming the glory of Raphael, as a painter of ideal and pure beauty, are—the Virgin, of the Duke of Alba—purchased afterwards by Mr. Coswelt, and brought to London.—The Virgin, known under the name of La Belle Jardinière, now in the Louvre.—The Virgin of Palazzo Tempi, now at Munich.—The Virgin of Canigiani, at Munich.—The two in the gallery of Florence, which, for the lovers of this style, dim the glory of every other picture—especially that named the Madonna of the Goldfinch.—Of this M. Rio says, “It may be boldly affirmed that Christian art never rose to a greater height.”—The Virgin of the Colonna Palace, now at Berlin; that of the Palazzo Gregori; and the Madonna of Pescia, known as the Madonna del Baldachino.
[23]. Rogers’s “Italy.”
[24]. The common prints taken from this picture are very unworthy of it; they seem to substitute sensuality for sensibility, in the lines of the countenance. Mr. Kirkup’s drawing, made for Lord Vernon, is excellent. Unfortunately, in removing the whitewash or plaster, a slight injury was done to the eye in the picture. The painter employed by the Grand Duke has restored this; but Mr. Kirkup is indignant with the restoration; and the print, taken from his drawing, exhibits the blemish. I confess, that to me the restoration seems judicious. The ball of the eye alone was injured; and as the colour of Dante’s eyes was known from other pictures, the portrait has gained in expression, and not lost in authenticity by its being repainted.