For many miles after passing Magione, the first village beyond Perugia, our road skirted the memorable lake of Thrasymene, famed for the bloody exploits of Hannibal, and then, passing without difficulty the Tuscan frontier, we breakfasted at the little village of Ossaja, which is said to have taken its name from the bones of the slaughtered Romans. The contrast between the rich vine-clad hills of Tuscany, and the barren wastes of the dominions of the Pope, is very striking to the traveller, whilst there is also a manifest difference in the appearance of the inhabitants. Instead of the ugly squalid-looking wretches, and fierce threatening looks, which had almost frightened us at Monterosi, we were now greeted with passing smiles and happy faces, betokening a feeling of contentment, quite unknown on the other side the frontier. As we approached Arezzo, the fields on each side of us assumed the appearance of a well-cultivated garden, and our ride was accompanied with such varied and pleasurable emotions, that the futile endeavours of our old coachman to urge on his jaded horse, and the miserably slow pace at which we advanced, served rather to amuse us than otherwise. At length we reached the clean and well-built Arezzo, the birth-place of Vasari and Petrarca, and having been almost jolted to a jelly in our miserable legno, were glad enough to swallow some supper and retire early to our beds, in the hotel of la Posta.
The following day brought us to Florence.
FOOTNOTES:
[36] At Amalfi, there is a locanda, where the above, with washing included, may be had at eight pauls, or exactly sixpence a-day, each person!!
CHAPTER XXII.
THE “PORTA ROSSA”—JOURNEY TO BOLOGNA—THE BELLI ARTI—ARCADES—CERTOSA—OUR FELLOW-TRAVELLERS—THE PARROT—AUSTRIAN DOUANE—FERRARA—PADUA—CAFFE PEDROCCHI—VENICE—THE CASA RAFFAELLI—GONDOLAS—LUISH’S PROFESSIONAL PURSUITS—MY FRIEND D. AGAIN—TITIAN—MILITARY SALUTE—THE PASSEGGIATA.
Arrived at “Firenze la bella,” we drove to an inn called La Porta Rossa, which had been recommended to us by a Roman acquaintance. Here I met my friends Bellamy and Dickson, who were on their way northward, and in an adjoining house, I discovered Vetch, of water-colour celebrity, who kindly undertook to introduce me to Dr. P——, an English physician, resident in Florence. This gentleman advised my proceeding without delay to Venice, to take mud-baths, and gave me an introductory letter to the Herr T——g, a German doctor of extensive practice. Luish, although loth to quit Florence with only a single day’s loitering in its wonderful galleries, was too kind to let me start off alone, and we accordingly booked two places in the Orchesi diligence to Bologna. It was late in the afternoon, when we quitted the Lung’ Arno, as the quay along the south bank of the river is denominated. As the evening closed in, we were accompanied by a swarm of fire-flies, which flew in and out of the open windows of the coupé, and were exceedingly brilliant. Luish caught one as we walked up a hill, and having kept it until it was quite dark, we found that it gave out sufficient light to enable us to see the time. We gradually lost sight of them as we approached the more lofty ground of the chain of Appenines, and it soon became so cold, that we were glad to use all the clothing we could muster.
At Bologna we staid one day, being anxious to see its Accademia. The Bolognese school of painting numbers among its disciples some of the highest professors of the art. The four Caracci, and their followers Domenichino and Guercino, as well as Guido and Albani, with whose death the art of painting declined in Italy, were of this school, and all natives of Bologna.
In the Accademia, are some beautiful pictures. The St. Agnes of Domenichino, the Madonna della Pietà, by Guido, and Raffaelle’s St. Cecilia, are wonderful. The Pere Eternel, by Guercino, said to have been commenced and finished in one night, although to my thinking, a subject none should dare to attempt, is an extraordinary production. Guido’s Massacre of the Innocents is also a beautiful composition.
The arcades which line both sides of nearly every street in Bologna, although very convenient in wet weather, render the town dark and gloomy, and having peeped into its finest churches, and clambered with much labour to the summit of the leaning tower of Asinelli, I spent with Luish a great part of the afternoon, in the interesting Certosa, or Campo Santo, formed by Napoleon, about a mile out of the city, from a destroyed convent of Carthusians. Its aisles and corridors are now filled with tombs and monuments, and the resting-places of the dead are interspersed with shrubs and flowers, forming an instructive, if not to all tastes, an agreeable promenade. The Bolognese are so fond of arcades, that they have constructed one three miles in length, a continuous covered portico, from the city to the summit of a hill called La Guardia, where there is a temple dedicated to the Madonna of that name. Luish would not be satisfied until he had explored the whole of it. I managed a portion of the distance, but finding it very up-hill and fatiguing work, returned to the carriage at the foot of the arcade, and waited for him.