FOUNTAIN AT BOLOGNA
To face p. 38, vol. ii.
This is a fine handsome town, larger and much more populous than Ferrara. At the same house in which we lodged the young Seigneur de Montluc had arrived an hour sooner than ourselves, having come from France to this city to learn riding and the use of arms. On the Friday we witnessed some sword play by a certain Venetian, who boasted of having discovered some new tricks in the art of fencing, all the others following his lead; in sooth his style differs vastly from the ordinary sword exercise. The best of his pupils was a young Bordelais named Binet. We saw there a square clock tower, very ancient, which leaned over so much that it threatened to fall in ruins; also the School of Sciences, which is the finest building devoted to such uses I ever beheld. On the Saturday after dinner we saw a play by the comedians, with which M. de Montaigne was highly pleased, but from this, or some other cause, he was troubled afterwards with headache, a distemper which had not molested him for several years, but it passed away during the night. Moreover at this time he professed to be freer of pain in the kidneys than for a long while, and rejoiced in digestive powers as sane as when he returned from Banieres.
This city is everywhere adorned with fine rich porticoes and a multitude of beautiful palaces. The cost of living here was very cheap, about the same as at Padua, but the city is turbulent in some of the older parts, which are divided between the ancient families of the city, some of whom favour the French[38] and others the Spaniards, who abound. In the great square is a very beautiful fountain.[39] On Sunday M. de Montaigne had made up his mind to take the left-hand road towards Imola, the March of Ancona and Loreto, on the way to Rome, but a certain German told him that he had been plundered by outlaws in the duchy of Spoleto,[40] so he followed the highway to the right to Florence. We found ourselves at once on a rough road and in a mountainous country. After a sixteen-mile journey we rested for the night at Loyan,[41] a small and disagreeable village. In this place are only two hostelries, and these are famous all through Italy for the ill-faith there kept with travellers; how the host regales them with fair promises of all sorts of good cheer before they alight, and afterwards, when the strangers are at his mercy, will laugh in their faces. Concerning this are some well-known proverbs. We left early next morning and travelled till evening over a road which, certes, was the only bad one we had yet met with. The mountains too gave more trouble than in any other part of our journeying. We lay that night, after riding four-and-twenty miles, at Scarperia, a small village of Tuscany. Here they sell cases of needles and scissors and other similar wares. M. de Montaigne was there greatly diverted over the dispute of the innkeepers. These people are wont to despatch lackeys distances of seven or eight leagues to meet strangers, and to urge them to alight at their employer’s inn. It is no rare thing to find the host himself on horseback, and often a troop of men finely clad will follow on your track. All along this road M. de Montaigne was fain to jest with them, being vastly amused at the various offers every one of them made to him, and there was nothing they would not promise. One went so far as to offer the gift of a hare if only he would patronise a particular inn. This wrangle and grabbing ceased whenever we reached the town gates, beyond which they dare not say a word on the subject.
A general practice with all innkeepers is to offer at their own charges a guide on horseback to show the way, and to carry some portion of the baggage to the lodging taken. I know not whether they are obliged by law to do this on account of the insecurity of the highways. At Lojano, and in travelling from Boulougne, we always made a bargain as to price paid and accommodation received, and now, on account of the urgency of the innkeepers and others, M. de Montaigne sent forward always some one or other of the company to inspect the rooms, the provisions, and the wines, and to gather knowledge as to how he would fare, before he should get off his horse. Then he would go to the house of which he got the best report. But the most careful specification will not guard entirely against the knavery of these people, for they will keep you short either of wood, or candles, or linen, or of horse provender, which you may have forgotten to mention. Many travellers pass along this route, as it is the high road to Rome. I was informed of a foolish omission on my part, to wit, that I had neglected to visit, ten miles on this side of Lojano and two miles off the road, the summit of a mountain from which, in times of rain and storm or in the night, lofty flames may be seen to issue.[42] My informant told me that at certain times it sent forth with a mighty shock small pieces of metal of the shape of coins. This is a sight which ought not to have been missed.
On the morning of the morrow we left Scarperia with our host as guide, traversing a fine road through poplars and well-tilled slopes. At the second mile we turned off the road to the right to see the palace which the Duke of Florence has been building for the last two years, using all the five senses in its embellishment. It seems as if he had advisedly chosen an inconvenient, sterile, and monotonous site—for instance, there is no water—in order that he might have the honour of fetching the same five miles’ distance, and his sand and lime another five. The site is nowhere level, and gives a view of several of those small hills which are everywhere a feature in this region. The palace itself is called Pratellino.[43] Seen from afar, the building has a mean aspect, but a close inspection shows it very fair, but not equal to the finest of our French mansions. They say it contains a hundred-and-twenty furnished chambers, and ten or twelve of the finest of these we saw, the furniture being pretty but not magnificent. There are several curiosities, a grotto constructed with divers niches and apartments which exceeds anything of the kind we have seen elsewhere. It is encrusted and modelled all through with a certain material brought from the mountains, the joints being fastened together with invisible nails. Not only is music and harmony made to sound by water power; statues move and doors open, animals dive and drink, and other similar results are caused by the same force. By a single movement the whole grotto can be filled with water, and all the seats will squirt water over your breech; then, as you flee from the grotto and run up the staircase into the mansion on the other side, a pleasant trick will make the water stream from two of the steps in a thousand jets which drench you till you reach the top. The beauty and splendour of this place cannot be set forth properly by details. Below the mansion is an alley, fifty feet wide and about five hundred paces in length, which at great cost has been made almost level.[44] On either side are long and very beautiful benches of worked stone, every five or every ten paces. Along by these benches are built in the wall the mouths of artificial fountains, so that all down the alley are jets of water. At the end is a fair fountain discharging itself into a great basin through a marble statue, carved in the similitude of a woman starching linen. She is represented wringing a tablecloth, fashioned in marble, and it is in dripping from this cloth that the water finds its way out. Below is another vessel to contain the hot water for making the starch.
In a chamber of the mansion is a marble table with places for six, each of which is fitted with a cover to be raised by a ring. Beneath each of these covers is a basin with a supply of fresh water, wherewith each guest might cool his glass, and in the middle of the table a large space for the bottle. We saw also great holes in the ground where a large quantity of snow was kept all through the year. It is set upon litter of broom and then covered with straw in high pyramidal form like a small barn. There are a thousand reservoirs; and the duke was at this time busied in making a colossus, the eye-socket of which is three cubits in width and all the rest in proportion.[45] The thousand reservoirs and pools are supplied from two springs through a vast number of earthen pipes. In a large and beautiful bird-cage we saw some little birds resembling goldfinches, with two long tail feathers like large capons; and there is also a curious hothouse. We tarried some two or three hours in this place, and then, having resumed our journey, we went for seventeen miles along the crest of divers small hills and arrived at Florence.
This is a smaller town than Ferrara, placed in a plain and surrounded by a vast number of well-cultivated hills. The Arno, which is crossed by divers bridges, runs through it and the walls of the town have no ditches. This day M. de Montaigne passed two stones and a large amount of gravel without perceiving anything more than a slight pain in the lower part of the stomach. On the same day we visited the stables[46] of the Grand Duke, which are large and arched in the roofs, but no valuable horses were therein. The Grand Duke is not at present in residence. We saw there a strange kind of sheep, a camel, some lions and bears, and an animal as big as a large mastiff, the shape of a cat, and spotted black and white, which they called a tiger. We went to the church of Saint Lawrence where those banners of ours which Marshal Strozzi[47] lost in his Tuscan defeat are still hanging. In this same church are several specimens of painting on the flat, and some beautiful statues of excellent workmanship, the work of Michael Angelo.[48] We next saw the Dome, a very large church, and the bell tower, covered with black and white marble and one of the fairest and richest works in the world. M. de Montaigne affirmed that he never saw a nation so lacking in fair women as the Italian,[49] and the lodgment he found far less well arranged than in France or Germany; the food, indeed, was not half so abundant or well served as in Germany. In neither country is the meat larded, but in Germany it is far better seasoned, and there is greater variety in sauces and soups. The rooms themselves in Italy are vastly inferior, no saloons, the windows large, and all uncovered save by a huge wooden shutter, which would exclude all daylight if it should be necessary to keep off the sun or the wind, an inconvenience which M. de Montaigne found still more intolerable than the lack of curtains in Germany. The chambers are wretched boxes, meanly curtained, and never more than one set in a room. Under the hangings is a bed on castors, and any one who is averse to lying hard will find himself in evil case. There is as great, or greater, want of linen; and the wines are for the most part inferior, and at this season undrinkable by all who dislike a mawkish sweetness. The price of everything is indeed somewhat lower; Florence, however, is reputed to be one of the dearest towns in Italy. Before my master arrived I made a bargain at the hostelry of the “Angel”[50] for seven reals a day for man and horse, and four reals for the servants.
On this same day we inspected one of the duke’s palaces, where certain men were engaged in counterfeiting eastern jewels, and working in crystal; for this prince is somewhat given to alchemy and the mechanic arts, and is above all a great architect. On the morrow M. de Montaigne went first to the top of the Dome, where he saw the ball of gilded bronze, which from below seems about the bigness of a bullet, but which, when one is thereby, proves capable of holding forty men. He inspected the marble, variegated and carved throughout, with which this church is encrusted, and found that even the black sort was already showing signs of decay in many places through the action of the frost and snow, wherefore he began to doubt whether it was really genuine. He was minded likewise to visit the palaces of the Strozzi and the Gondi,[51] which were still occupied by certain members of the said families, as well as the duke’s palace where Cosimo, the father of the reigning duke, had caused to be painted the capture of Siena and scenes in the battle we lost.[52] In divers places in the city, and notably in the palace aforesaid and on the ancient walls, the fleur de lys holds the first place of honour. M. d’Estissac and M. de Montaigne went to dine with the Grand Duke. His wife[53] was seated in the place of honour, and the duke below her, then the sister-in-law of the duchess, and then her brother the husband of the aforesaid. According to the Italian taste the duchess is handsome, with an agreeable and inspiring face, full bust, and a bosom displaying itself as it may. M. de Montaigne fully recognised in her the charm by which she has been able to cajole this prince and to insure his devotion for a long time. The duke is a big dark man of about my own height,[54] large-limbed, with a face beaming with courtesy, and always wont to go uncovered through the crowd of servants, which thing is very seemly. His appearance is that of a healthy man of forty. On the other side of the table sat the cardinal[55] and another young man of eighteen, brothers of the duke. The attendants brought to the duke and the duchess a basin in which were placed a glass full of wine, uncovered, and a glass bottle full of water. Having taken the glass of wine, they poured into the basin as much thereof as they willed, and refilled the glass with water. Then they replaced the glass in the basin which the attendant held before them. The duke put into his wine due quantity of water, the duchess scarcely any. The bad habit of the Germans in using glasses of an inordinate size is here reversed, seeing that in Italy the wine glasses are exceedingly small.