Robert Merry's museum, Volumes III-IV (1842)

by Various

At Florence, as well as at Rome and Naples, the same costume prevails as in the cities of the United States. You see the same black and drab hats, the same swallow-tailed coats, and pantaloons as in the streets of Boston. The ladies also, as with us, get their fashions from the head-quarters of fashion, Paris: bonnets, shawls, and gowns are just the same as those seen in our streets. The only peculiarity at Florence is, the general practice of wearing a gold chain with a jewel across the forehead, which has a not ungraceful effect, as it heightens the beauty of a handsome forehead, and conceals the defect of a bad one. But in the villages, the costume is national, and often most grotesque. Fashions never change there: many strange articles of dress and ornament have been banded down from classical times. In some places I found the women wearing ear-rings a foot and a half long. A country-woman never wears a bonnet, but goes either bare-headed or covered merely with a handkerchief.

As I proceeded down the valley of the Arno, the land became less hilly, but continued equally verdant and richly cultivated. The cottages along the road were snug, tidy little stone buildings of one story. The women sat by the doors braiding straw and spinning flax; the occupation of spinning was also carried on as they walked about gossipping, or going on errands. No such thing as a cow was to be seen anywhere; and though such animals actually exist in this country, they are extremely rare. Milk is furnished chiefly by goats, who browse among the rocks and in places where a cow could get nothing to eat. So large a proportion of the soil is occupied by cornfields, gardens, orchards and vineyards, that little is left for the pasturage of cattle. The productions of the dairy, are, therefore, among the most costly articles of food in this quarter. Oxen, too, are rarely to be seen, but the donkey is found everywhere, and the finest of these animals that I saw in Europe, were of this neighborhood.

Nothing could surpass the fineness of the weather; the sky was uniformly clear, or only relieved by a passing cloud. The temperature was that of the finest June weather at Boston, and during the month, occasional showers of rain had sufficiently fertilized the earth. The year previous, I was told, had been remarkable for a drought; the wells dried up, and it was feared the cattle would have nothing but wine to drink; for a dry season is always most favorable to the vintage. The present season, I may remark in anticipation, proved as uncommonly wet, and the vintage was proportionally scanty.

I stopped a few hours at Empoli, a large town on the road, which appeared quite dull and deserted; but I found most of the inhabitants had gone to Pisa. Journeying onward, the hills gradually sunk into a level plain, and at length I discerned an odd-looking structure raising its head above the horizon, which I knew instantly to be the leaning tower. Pisa was now about four or five miles distant, and the road became every instant more and more thronged with travellers, hastening toward the city; some in carriages, some in carts, some on horseback, some on donkeys, but the greater part were country people on foot, and there were as many women as men—a circumstance common to all great festivals and collections of people, out of doors, in this country. As I approached the city gate, the throng became so dense, that carriages could hardly make their way. Having at last got within the walls, I found every street overflowing with population, but not more than one in fifteen belonged to the place; all the rest were visiters like myself.

Pisa is as large as Boston, but the inhabitants are only about twenty thousand. At this time, the number of people who flocked to the place from far and near, to witness the show, was computed at three hundred thousand. It is a well-built city, full of stately palaces, like Florence. The Arno, which flows through the centre of it, is here much wider, and has beautiful and spacious streets along the water, much more commodious and elegant than those of the former city. But at all times, except on the occasion of the triennial festival of the patron saint of the city, Pisa is little better than a solitude: the few inhabitants it contains have nothing to do but to kill time. I visited the place again about a month later, and nothing could be more striking than the contrast which its lonely and silent streets offered to the gay crowds that now met my view within its walls.

The first object to which a traveller hastens, is the leaning tower; and this is certainly a curiosity well adapted to excite his wonder. A picture of it, of course, will show any person what sort of a structure it is, but it can give him no notion of the effect produced by standing before the real object. Imagine a massy stone tower, consisting of piles of columns, tier over tier, rising to the height of one hundred and ninety feet, or as high as the spire of the Old South church, and leaning on one side in such a manner as to appear on the point of falling every moment! The building would be considered very beautiful if it stood upright; but the emotions of wonder and surprise, caused by its strange position, so completely occupy the mind of the spectator, that we seldom hear any one speak of its beauty. To stand under it and cast your eyes upward is really frightful. It is hardly possible to disbelieve that the whole gigantic mass is coming down upon you in an instant. A strange effect is also caused by standing at a small distance, and watching a cloud sweep by it; the tower thus appears to be actually falling. This circumstance has afforded a striking image to the great poet Dante, who compares a giant stooping to the appearance of the leaning tower at Bologna when a cloud is fleeting by it. An appearance, equally remarkable and more picturesque, struck my eye in the evening, when the tower was illuminated with thousands of brilliant lamps, which, as they flickered and swung between the pillars, made the whole lofty pile seem constantly trembling to its fall. I do not remember that this latter circumstance has ever before been mentioned by any traveller, but it is certainly the most wonderfully striking aspect in which this singular edifice can be viewed.

By the payment of a trifling sum, I obtained admission and was conducted to the top of the building. It is constructed of large blocks of hammered stone, and built very strongly, as we may be sure from the fact that it has stood for seven hundred years, and is at this moment as strong as on the day it was finished. Earthquakes have repeatedly shaken the country, but the tower stands—leaning no more nor less than at first. I could not discover a crack in the walls, nor a stone out of place. The walls are double, so that there are, in fact, two towers, one inside the other, the centre inclosing a circular well, vacant from foundation to top. Between the two walls I mounted by winding stairs from story to story, till at the topmost I crept forward on my hands and knees and looked over on the leaning side. Few people have the nerve to do this; and no one is courageous enough to do more than just poke his nose over the edge. A glance downward is most appalling. An old ship-captain who accompanied me was so overcome by it that he verily believed he had left the marks of his fingers, an inch deep, in the solid stone of the cornice, by the spasmodic strength with which he clung to it! Climbing the mast-head is a different thing, for a ship’s spars are designed to be tossed about and bend before the gale. But even an old seaman is seized with affright at beholding himself on the edge of an enormous pile of building, at a giddy height in the air, and apparently hanging without any support for its ponderous mass of stones. My head swam, and I lay for some moments, incapable of motion. About a week previous, a person was precipitated from this spot and dashed to atoms, but whether he fell by accident or threw himself from the tower voluntarily, is not known.

The general prospect from the summit is highly beautiful. The country, in the immediate neighborhood, is flat and verdant, abounding in the richest cultivation, and diversified with gardens and vineyards. In the north, is a chain of mountains, ruggedly picturesque in form, stretching dimly away towards Genoa. The soft blue and violet tints of these mountains contrasted with the dark green hue of the height of San Juliano, which hid the neighboring city of Lucca from my sight. In the south the spires of Leghorn and the blue waters of the Mediterranean were visible at the verge of the horizon.

In the highest part of this leaning tower, are hung several heavy bells, which the sexton rings, standing by them with as much coolness as if they were within a foot of the ground. I knew nothing of these bells, as they are situated above the story where visiters commonly stop—when, all at once, they began ringing tremendously, directly over my head. I never received such a start in my life; the tower shook, and, for the moment, I actually believed it was falling. The old sexton and his assistants, however, pulled away lustily at the bell-ropes, and I dare say enjoyed the joke mightily; for this practice of frightening visiters, is, I believe, a common trick with the rogues. The wonder is, that they do not shake the tower to pieces; as it serves for a belfry to the cathedral, on the opposite side of the street, and the bells are rung very often.

How came the tower to lean in this manner? everybody has asked. I examined it very attentively, and made many inquiries on this point. I have no doubt whatever that it was built originally just as it is. The more common opinion has been that it was erect at first, but that, by the time a few stories had been completed, the foundation sunk on one side, and the building was completed in this irregular way. But I found nothing about it that would justify such a supposition. The foundation could not have sunk without cracking the walls, and twisting the courses of stone out of their position. Yet the walls are perfect, and those of the inner tower are exactly parallel to the outer ones. If the building had sunk obliquely, when but half raised, no man in his senses, would have trusted so insecure a foundation, so far as to raise it to double the height, and throw all the weight of it on the weaker side. The holes for the scaffolding, it is true, are not horizontal, which by some is considered an evidence that they are not in their original position. But any one who examines them on the spot, can see that these openings could not have been otherwise than they are, under any circumstances. The cathedral, close by, is an enormous massy building, covering a great extent of ground. It was erected at the same time with the tower, yet no portion of it gives any evidence that the foundation is unequal. The leaning position of the tower was a whim of the builder, which the rude taste of the age enabled him to gratify. Such structures were fashionable during the middle ages. There are two other specimens of this sort of architecture still remaining at Bologna.