Passages from the French and Italian Notebooks, Volume 2.

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Had the cathedral been constructed on the plan and dimensions at first contemplated, it would have been incomparably majestic; the finished portion, grand as it is, being only what was intended for a transept. One of the walls of what was to have been the nave is still standing, and looks like a ruin, though, I believe, it has been turned to account as the wall of a palace, the space of the never-completed nave being now a court or street.

The whole family of us were kindly taken out yesterday, to dine and spend the day at the Villa Belvedere with our friends Mr. and Mrs. Story. The vicinity of Siena is much more agreeable than that of Florence, being cooler, breezier, with more foliage and shrubbery both near at hand and in the distance; and the prospect, Mr. Story told us, embraces a diameter of about a hundred miles between hills north and south. The Villa Belvedere was built and owned by an Englishman now deceased, who has left it to his butler, and its lawns and shrubbery have something English in their character, and there was almost a dampness in the grass, which really pleased me in this parched Italy. Within the house the walls are hung with fine old-fashioned engravings from the pictures of Gainsborough, West, and other English painters. The Englishman, though he had chosen to live and die in Italy, had evidently brought his native tastes and peculiarities along with him. Mr. Story thinks of buying this villa: I do not know but I might be tempted to buy it myself if Siena were a practicable residence for the entire year; but the winter here, with the bleak mountain-winds of a hundred miles round about blustering against it, must be terribly disagreeable.

We spent a very pleasant day, turning over books or talking on the lawn, whence we could behold scenes picturesque afar, and rich vineyard glimpses near at hand. Mr. Story is the most variously accomplished and brilliant person, the fullest of social life and fire, whom I ever met; and without seeming to make an effort, he kept us amused and entertained the whole day long; not wearisomely entertained neither, as we should have been if he had not let his fountain play naturally. Still, though he bubbled and brimmed over with fun, he left the impression on me that . . . . there is a pain and care, bred, it may be, out of the very richness of his gifts and abundance of his outward prosperity. Rich, in the prime of life, . . . . and children budding and blossoming around him as fairly as his heart could wish, with sparkling talents,—so many, that if he choose to neglect or fling away one, or two, or three, he would still have enough left to shine with,—who should be happy if not he? . . . .

Towards sunset we all walked out into the podere, pausing a little while to look down into a well that stands on the verge of the lawn. Within the spacious circle of its stone curb was an abundant growth of maidenhair, forming a perfect wreath of thickly clustering leaves quite round, and trailing its tendrils downward to the water which gleamed beneath. It was a very pretty sight. Mr. Story bent over the well and uttered deep, musical tones, which were reverberated from the hollow depths with wonderful effect, as if a spirit dwelt within there, and (unlike the spirits that speak through mediums) sent him back responses even profounder and more melodious than the tones that awakened them. Such a responsive well as this might have been taken for an oracle in old days.

We went along paths that led from one vineyard to another, and which might have led us for miles across the country. The grapes had been partly gathered, but still there were many purple or white clusters hanging heavily on the vines. We passed cottage doors, and saw groups of contadini and contadine in their festal attire, and they saluted us graciously; but it was observable that one of the men generally lingered on our track to see that no grapes were stolen, for there were a good many young people and children in our train, not only our own, but some from a neighboring villa. These Italian peasants are a kindly race, but, I doubt, not very hospitable of grape or fig.

There was a beautiful sunset, and by the time we reached the house again the comet was already visible amid the unextinguished glow of daylight. A Mr. and Mrs. B———, Scotch people from the next villa, had come to see the Storys, and we sat till tea-time reading, talking, William Story drawing caricatures for his children's amusement and ours, and all of us sometimes getting up to look at the comet, which blazed brighter and brighter till it went down into the mists of the horizon. Among the caricatures was one of a Presidential candidate, evidently a man of very malleable principles, and likely to succeed.

Late in the evening (too late for little Rosebud) we drove homeward. The streets of old Siena looked very grim at night, and it seemed like gazing into caverns to glimpse down some of the side streets as we passed, with a light burning dimly at the end of them. It was after ten when we reached home, and climbed up our gloomy staircase, lighted by the glimmer of some wax moccoli which I had in my pocket.

October 5th.—I have been two or three times into the cathedral; . . . . the whole interior is of marble, in alternate lines of black and white, each layer being about eight inches in width and extending horizontally. It looks very curiously, and might remind the spectator of a stuff with horizontal stripes. Nevertheless, the effect is exceedingly rich, these alternate lines stretching away along the walls and round the clustered pillars, seen aloft, and through the arches; everywhere, this inlay of black and white. Every sort of ornament that could be thought of seems to have been crammed into the cathedral in one place or another: gilding, frescos, pictures; a roof of blue, spangled with golden stars; a magnificent wheel-window of old painted glass over the entrance, and another at the opposite end of the cathedral; statues, some of marble, others of gilded bronze; pulpits of carved marble; a gilded organ; a cornice of marble busts of the popes, extending round the entire church; a pavement, covered all over with a strange kind of mosaic work in various marbles, wrought into marble pictures of sacred subjects; immense clustered pillars supporting the round arches that divide the nave from the side aisles; a clere-story of windows within pointed arches;—it seemed as if the spectator were reading an antique volume written in black-letter of a small character, but conveying a high and solemn meaning. I can find no way of expressing its effect on me, so quaint and venerable as I feel this cathedral to be in its immensity of striped waistcoat, now dingy with five centuries of wear. I ought not to say anything that might detract from the grandeur and sanctity of the blessed edifice, for these attributes are really uninjured by any of the Gothic oddities which I have hinted at.

We went this morning to the Institute of the Fine Arts, which is interesting as containing a series of the works of the Sienese painters from a date earlier than that of Cimabue. There is a dispute, I believe, between Florence and Siena as to which city may claim the credit of having originated the modern art of painting. The Florentines put forward Cimabue as the first artist, but as the Sienese produce a picture, by Guido da Siena, dated before the birth of Cimabue, the victory is decidedly with them. As to pictorial merit, to my taste there is none in either of these old painters, nor in any of their successors for a long time afterwards. At the Institute there are several rooms hung with early productions of the Sienese school, painted before the invention of oil-colors, on wood shaped into Gothic altar-pieces. The backgrounds still retain a bedimmed splendor of gilding. There is a plentiful use of red, and I can conceive that the pictures must have shed an illumination through the churches where they were displayed. There is often, too, a minute care bestowed on the faces in the pictures, and sometimes a very strong expression, stronger than modern artists get, and it is very strange how they attained this merit while they were so inconceivably rude in other respects. It is remarkable that all the early faces of the Madonna are especially stupid, and all of the same type, a sort of face such as one might carve on a pumpkin, representing a heavy, sulky, phlegmatic woman, with a long and low arch of the nose. This same dull face continues to be assigned to the Madonna, even when the countenances of the surrounding saints and angels are characterized with power and beauty, so that I think there must have been some portrait of this sacred personage reckoned authentic, which the early painters followed and religiously repeated.

At last we came to a picture by Sodoma, the most illustrious representative of the Sienese school. It was a fresco; Christ bound to the pillar, after having been scourged. I do believe that painting has never done anything better, so far as expression is concerned, than this figure. In all these generations since it was painted it must have softened thousands of hearts, drawn down rivers of tears, been more effectual than a million of sermons. Really, it is a thing to stand and weep at. No other painter has done anything that can deserve to be compared to this.