We spent the afternoon at the Vatican. We found St. Peter's almost deserted; few people, no music, the pictures all muffled, and the altars hung with black drapery. The scaffolding was preparing for the ceremonies of the week; and, on the whole, St. Peter's appeared, for the first time, disagreeable and gloomy.
Monday, April 1.—Non riconosco oggi la mia bella Italia! Clouds, and cold, and rain, to which we have been so long unaccustomed, seem unnatural; and deform that peculiar character of sunny loveliness which belongs to this country: and, à-propos to climate, I may as well observe now, that since the 1st of February, when we left Rome for Naples, up to this present 1st of April, not one day has been so rainy as to confine us to the house: and on referring to my memoranda of the weather, I find that at Naples it rained one day for a few hours only, and for about two hours on the morning we left it: since then, not a drop of rain has fallen: all hot, cloudless, lovely weather. We have been for the last three weeks in summer costume, and guard against the heat as we should in England during the dog-days. To have an idea of an Italian summer, Mr. W** says we must fancy the present heat quadrupled.
The day, notwithstanding, has been unusually pleasant, the afternoon, though not brilliant, was clear and soft; and we drove in the open carriage first to the little church of Santa Maria della Pace, to see Raffaelle's famous fresco, the Four Sybils. It is in the finest preservation, and combines all his peculiar graces of design and expression. The colouring has not suffered from time and damp like that of the frescos in the Vatican, but it is at once brilliant and delicate. Nothing can exceed the exquisite grace of the Sibilla Persica, nor the beautiful drapery and inspired look of the Cumana. Fortunately, I had never seen any copy or engraving of this master piece: its beauty was to me enhanced by surprise and all the charm of novelty: and my gratification was complete.
We afterwards spent half an hour in the gardens of the Villa Lanti, on the Monte Gianicolo. The view of Rome from these gardens is superb: though the sky was clouded, the atmosphere was perfectly pure and clear: the eye took in the whole extent of ancient and modern Rome; beyond it the Campagna, the Alban Hills, and the Apennines, which appeared of a deep purple, with pale clouds floating over their summits. The city lay at our feet, silent, and clothed with the daylight as with a garment—no smoke, no vapour, no sound, no motion, no sign of life: it looked like a city whose inhabitants had been suddenly petrified, or smitten by a destroying angel; and such was the effect of its strange and solemn beauty, that, before I was aware, I felt my eyes fill with tears as I looked upon it.
I saw Naples from the Castle of Saint Elmo—setting aside the sea and Mount Vesuvius, those unequalled features in that radiant picture—the view of the city of Naples is not so fine as the view of Rome: it is, comparatively, deficient in sentiment, in interest, and in dignity. Naples wears on her brow the voluptuous beauty of a syren—Rome sits desolate on her seven-hilled throne, "the Niobe of Nations."
I wish I could have painted what I saw to-day as I saw it. Yet no—the reality was perhaps too much like a picture to please in a picture: the exquisite harmony of the colouring, the softness of the lights and shades, the solemn death-like stillness, the distinctness of every form and outline, and the classic interest attached to every noble object, combined to form a scene, which hereafter, in the silence of my own thoughts, I shall often love to recall and to dwell upon.
To-night I read with Incoronati, the Fourth book of Dante, and two of Petrarch's Canzoni "I' vo pensando," and "Verdi panni," making notes from his explanations and remarks as I went along. These two Canzoni I had selected as being among the most puzzling as well as the most beautiful. Those are strangely mistaken, who from a superficial study of a few of his amatory sonnets, regard Petrarch as a mere love-sick poet, who spent his time in be-rhyming an obdurate mistress; and those are equally mistaken who consider him as the poetical votarist of an imaginary fair one. I know but little, even of the little that is known of his life; for I remember being as much terrified by the ponderous quartos of the Abbé de Sade, as I was discomfited and disappointed by the flimsy octavo of Mrs. Dobson. I am now studying Petrarch in his own works; and it seemeth to me, in my simple wit, that such exquisite touches of truth and nature, such depth and purity of feeling, such felicity of expression, such vivid yet delicate pictures of female beauty, could spring only from a real and heartfelt passion. We know too little of Laura: but it is probable, if she had always preserved a stern and unfeeling indifference, she would not have so entirely commanded the affections of a feeling heart; and had she yielded she would not so long have preserved her influence.
Think you if Laura had been Petrarch's wife,
He would have written sonnets all his life?
In truth she appears to have been the most finished coquette of her own or any other age.[R]