The courtesans here stand at the doors of the houses to attract lovers, just as those of Rome and Venice sit by the windows. They take their station at suitable hours, and may be always seen, some with large and some with small company, talking and singing in the streets.
On Sunday the 2nd of July I quitted Florence after dinner, and, having crossed the Arno by the bridge, we left the river to the right hand, following its course nevertheless. We traversed a fine fertile plain, which produces the finest musk melons in Tuscany, but the best of these are not ripe before the 15th of July. Those grown at Legnara, three miles from Florence, are the best. Our road lay through a country for the most part level and fertile, everywhere studded with houses large and small, which made it seem one continuous string of villages. Amongst others we passed a charming place called Empoli,[71] the name of which seemed to me to smack of antiquity. Its site is most lovely, but I saw no sign of old times save a ruined bridge near the road which had an indescribable look of age.
Here I made special note of three things. First, to see the people of these parts harvesting grain, or threshing, or sewing, or spinning on a Sunday. Second, to see the peasants with lutes in their hands, and even the pastoral songs of Ariosto on their lips—which thing indeed may be observed all through Italy. Third, to see how these people will leave the grain lying in the fields for ten or fifteen days after it is cut—or even longer—without fear of being robbed by the neighbours. We travelled in the evening dusk for twenty miles as far as Scala.
Here we could only get lodging, which was very good. I took no supper, as I was troubled with toothache on the right side, an ailment which often comes with my headaches. I felt it especially when I was eating, as every bite caused me the sharpest pain. On the morning of Monday, July 3, we followed the level road beside the Arno, which led us to a fertile plain, covered with corn, and at midday, after riding twenty miles, came to Pisa.
XII
PISA
This city is under the Grand Duke of Florence, and stands on the plain of the Arno, which runs through the middle of it and enters the sea six miles farther on. By it ships of divers sorts can reach Pisa. The University was now closed, as it always is during the three hot months, but we found there a company of very good players, the Disiosi. The hotel was not to my liking, wherefore I hired a house with four rooms and one salle. The landlord did the cooking and provided furniture; an excellent house and all for eight crowns a month. But because the provision of table linen which he promised to make was very scanty (and in Italy they hardly ever change the napkins save when they change the tablecloth, which is done twice a week), we let our servants buy some more. At the inn we had paid four julli a day.[72]
This house was in a most pleasant situation, commanding a delightful prospect right over the channel through which the Arno flows. This channel is very wide and more than five hundred paces in length, slightly curved, and offering a charming object to the view, the bend aforesaid allowing the spectator to see easily both ends of the channel, full of merchant shipping and crossed by three bridges. The quays on either side are of fine masonry, with supports to the very top, like those on the Quai des Augustines at Paris, with wide streets, at the side of which are rows of houses, one of which is the one I hired.
On Wednesday, July 5th, I visited the cathedral, built on the site of the palace of the Emperor Hadrian. Here are columns of various marbles, infinite in number and differing in form and workmanship, and most beautiful doors of metal. It is enriched by various trophies brought from Greece and Egypt, and itself is constructed out of ancient ruins, so that here may be seen inscriptions upside down, and there divided in the middle.[73] In some places are to be seen indecipherable characters said to be written by the Etruscans.[74] I saw the Campanile, which is marvellous in appearance, being inclined seven cubits out of the perpendicular. At Bologna and other places there are leaning towers. Pillars and open colonnades are set round it from top to bottom. Also the church of Saint John near thereto, which is very richly adorned with painting and sculpture.[75] Amongst other rarities is a marble pulpit set very thickly with statues, which are so beautiful that Lorenzo, the same who slew Duke Alexander dei Medici, is said to have carried off the heads of certain of them,[76] and presented them to the queen. In shape this church resembles the Rotonda at Rome.[77]
The natural son of the duke aforesaid lives at Pisa.[78] He is an old man, and I chanced to see him. He lives at his ease on the bounty of the present duke, and takes no part in public affairs, being content to amuse himself with the excellent hunting and fishing to be enjoyed in the neighbourhood. In no other city of Italy is to be found such vast store of holy relics and exquisite works, and stone and marble work of such rarity, grandeur, and marvellous workmanship. I was immensely pleased with the cemetery, which they call the Campo Santo. It is of extraordinary size, and rectangular, three hundred paces long and one hundred wide, and surrounded by a corridor forty paces wide, covered with lead and paved with marble. The walls are covered with old paintings, and amongst them is a portrait of the Florentine Gondi, by whom the family of that name was founded.
The nobles of the city have their burial-places under this covered corridor. Here are to be seen the names and armorial devices of some four hundred families, of whom not more than four now dwell in Pisa, the survivors of the wars and destruction which have fallen upon this ancient city. The population is now very scanty, the place being chiefly taken up by strangers. Many persons of rank belonging to the noble families referred to are still living in other parts of Christendom whither they have betaken themselves. In the midst of this enclosure is an open space where the dead are still buried. I was told positively by every one that any corpse interred there swells so greatly some eight hours afterwards that the ground may be seen to rise; in the next eight it subsides, and in eight hours more the flesh is entirely consumed, so that four-and-twenty hours after burial nothing is left but bare bones.[79] This strange fact resembles another told of that cemetery at Rome which rejects immediately the body of any Roman buried therein. This enclosure is paved, like the corridor, with marble, upon which is laid earth one or two cubits deep, which earth, they declare, was brought from Jerusalem, the Pisans having sent a great expedition for the carrying out of this purpose. With the bishop’s consent a little of this earth may be taken and mixed with that of other graves, the belief being that the corpses within will thereby consume away rapidly; and this belief is a plausible one, because in this particular cemetery bones are very rarely seen, scarcely any indeed, neither is there any place where they are collected and reinterred, as in other cities.