Pencillings by the Way / Written During Some Years of Residence and Travel in Europe

by Nathaniel Parker Willis

I am about starting on my second visit to Rome, after having passed nearly three months in Florence. As I have seen most of the society of this gayest and fairest of the Italian cities, it may not be uninteresting to depart a little from the traveller's routine by sketching a feature or two.

Florence is a resort for strangers from every part of the world. The gay society is a mixture of all nations, of whom one third may be Florentine, one third English, and the remaining part equally divided between Russians, Germans, French, Poles, and Americans. The English entertain a great deal, and give most of the balls and dinner parties. The Florentines seldom trouble themselves to give parties, but are always at home for visits in the prima sera (from seven till nine), and in their box at the opera. They go, without scruple, to all the strangers' balls, considering courtesy repaid, perhaps, by the weekly reception of the Grand Duke, and a weekly ball at the club-house of young Italian noblemen.

The ducal entertainments occur every Tuesday, and are the most splendid of course. The foreign ministers present all of their countrymen who have been presented at their own courts, and the company is necessarily more select than elsewhere. The Florentines who go to court are about seven hundred, of whom half are invited on each week—strangers, when once presented, having the double privilege of coming uninvited to all. There are several Italian families, of the highest rank, who are seen only here; but, with the single exception of one unmarried girl, of uncommon beauty, who bears a name celebrated in Italian history, they are no loss to general society. Among the foreigners of rank, are three or four German princes, who play high and waltz well, and are remarkable for nothing else; half a dozen star-wearing dukes, counts, and marquises, of all nations and in any quantity, and a few English noblemen and noble ladies—only the latter nation showing their blood at all in their features and bearing.

The most exclusive society is that of the Prince Montfort (Jerome Bonaparte), whose splendid palace is shut entirely against the English, and difficult of access to all. He makes a single exception in favor of a descendant of the Talbots, a lady whose beauty might be an apology for a much graver departure from rule. He has given two grand entertainments since the carnival commenced, to which nothing was wanting but people to enjoy them. The immense rooms were flooded with light, the music was the best Florence could give, the supper might have supped an army—stars and red ribands entered with every fresh comer, but it looked like a "banquet hall deserted." Some thirty ladies, and as many men, were all that Florence contained worthy of the society of the Ex-King. A kinder man in his manners, however, or apparently a more affectionate husband and father, I never saw. He opened the dance by waltzing with the young Princess, his daughter, a lovely girl of fourteen, of whom he seems fond to excess, and he was quite the gayest person in the company till the ball was over. The Ex-Queen, who is a miracle of size, sat on a divan, with her ladies of honor about her, following her husband with her eyes, and enjoying his gayety with the most childish good humor.

The Saturday evening soirées, at Prince Poniatowski's (a brother of the hero), are perhaps as agreeable as any in Florence. He has several grown-up sons and daughters married, and, with a very sumptuous palace and great liberality of style, he has made his parties more than usually valued. His eldest daughter is the leader of the fashion, and his second is the "cynosure of all eyes." The old Prince is a tall, bent, venerable man, with snow-white hair, and very peculiarly marked features. He is fond of speaking English, and professes a great affection for America.

Then there are the soirées of the rich banker, Fenzi, which, as they are subservient to business, assemble all ranks on the common pretensions of interest. At the last, I saw, among other curiosities, a young girl of eighteen from one of the more common families of Florence—a fine specimen of the peasant beauty of Italy. Her heavily moulded figure, hands, and feet, were quite forgiven when you looked at her dark, deep, indolent eye, and glowing skin, and strongly-lined mouth and forehead. The society was evidently new to her, but she had a manner quite beyond being astonished. It was the kind of animal dignity so universal in the lower classes of this country.

A German baroness of high rank receives on the Mondays, and here one sees foreign society in its highest coloring. The prettiest woman that frequents her parties, is a Genoese marchioness, who has left her husband to live with a Lucchese count, who has left his wife. He is a very accomplished man, with the look of Mephistopheles in the "Devil's Walk," and she is certainly a most fascinating woman. She is received in most of the good society of Florence—a severe, though a very just comment on its character. A Prince, the brother of the King of ——, divided the attention of the company with her last Monday. He is a tall, military-looking man, with very bad manners, ill at ease, and impudent at the same time. He entered with his suite in the middle of a song. The singer stopped, the company rose, the Prince swept about, bowing like a dancing-master, and, after the sensation had subsided, the ladies were taken up and presented to him, one by one. He asked them all the same question, stayed through two songs, which he spoiled by talking loudly all the while, and then bowed himself out in the same awkward style, leaving everybody more happy for his departure.

One gains little by his opportunities of meeting Italian ladies in society. The cavaliere servente flourishes still as in the days of Beppo, and it is to him only that the lady condescends to talk. There is a delicate, refined-looking, little marchioness here, who is remarkable as being the only known Italian lady without a cavalier. They tell you, with an amused smile, "that she is content with her husband." It really seems to be a business of real love between the lady of Italy and her cavalier. Naturally enough too—for her parents marry her without consulting her at all, and she selects a friend afterward, as ladies in other countries select a lover who is to end in a husband. The married couple are never seen together by any accident, and the lady and her cavalier never apart. The latter is always invited with her as a matter of course, and the husband, if there is room, or if he is not forgotten. She is insulted if asked without a cavalier, but is quite indifferent whether her husband goes with her or not. These are points really settled in the policy of society, and the rights of the cavalier are specified in the marriage contracts. I had thought, until I came to Italy, that such things were either a romance, or customs of an age gone by.

I like very much the personal manners of the Italians. They are mild and courteous to the farthest extent of looks and words. They do not entertain, it is true, but their great dim rooms are free to you whenever you can find them at home, and you are at liberty to join the gossiping circle around the lady of the house, or sit at the table and read, or be silent unquestioned. You are let alone, if you seem to choose it, and it is neither commented on, nor thought uncivil, and this I take to be a grand excellence in manners.

The society is dissolute, I think, almost without an exception. The English fall into its habits, with the difference that they do not conceal it so well, and have the appearance of knowing its wrong—which the Italians have not. The latter are very much shocked at the want of propriety in the management of the English. To suffer the particulars of an intrigue to get about is a worse sin, in their eyes, than any violation of the commandments. It is scarce possible for an American to conceive the universal corruption of a society like this of Florence, though, if he were not told of it he would think it all that was delicate and attractive. There are external features in which the society of our own country is far less scrupulous and proper.