The churches and palaces of the city I need not describe; but there are two singular leaning towers, which attract every traveller’s curiosity. One of them is nearly four hundred feet high, and leans over its base a little more than three feet. This small inclination, however, in a building of such enormous height, gives it a most threatening aspect. I went to the top, from which I had a pleasant view of the neighboring country, bounded by the Apennines in the south, with the city of Modena in the west, and Ferrara in the north. This tower was originally of the incredible and dangerous height of four hundred and seventy-six feet; but after an earthquake in 1416, the inhabitants began to be frightened, as well they might, and took down about a quarter part of it. There is enough of it remaining, I should think, to be dangerous still, especially in a country subject to earthquakes. The Italians are not considered a courageous people, yet it is surprising what hazards they will encounter sometimes, and that, too, without necessity. After seeing a powder-mill on Mount Vesuvius, it did not much surprise me to find leaning towers nodding their lofty heads over a populous city. The other tower is only one hundred and forty feet high, and inclines six feet and a half. The same erroneous belief, as in the case of the tower of Pisa, prevails with regard to these structures, namely, that they were built upright, and leaned afterwards by the sinking of the foundations. They were all erected in the twelfth century, the commencement of the era of modern architecture, when the ingenuity and taste of artists ran into strange caprices.
The reader perhaps will be surprised that I have given no description of the splendid paintings for which this country is so celebrated. Every large city abounds with them, and there is not even a small town or village without some considerable objects of the kind. Pictures, however, must be seen; they cannot be described. I can only say, that their number is infinite, and caused me to wonder where these people found heads to design, or hands to execute, so many beautiful works of art. The quick and keen perception of beauty seems to be an inherent and natural quality of the Italians, by which they are distinguished from other nations as much as the Greeks of antiquity.
Bologna has a famous university; yet the population are, in the mass, as ignorant as if the college were the other side of the Alps. Education has never been extended to the middling or lower classes, and, in a country like this, there might be a dozen seminaries of learning in every town, while the bulk of the population could not write their names. Popular education is not promoted by the government at present, although during Napoleon’s reign, the foundation of a general system of popular instruction was laid, and a strong desire to possess the accomplishments of writing and reading was manifested by all classes. The restoration of the papal government, however, put a stop to this undertaking, and the peasants and mechanics plod on in their old, ignorant, and hopeless way.
It would be unpardonable in me to leave this place without saying a word of sausages, for which Bologna is as famous all over the civilized world as our own Taunton is for alewives, Hingham for buckets, or Boston for notions. It is a good thing for a place to have something to boast of, as it keeps up character and ambition. The Italian cities are remarkable for their characteristics, not only in manner and language, but in productions. Naples bears the palm for soap and macaroni, Florence for oil, Parma for cheese, Padua for learning, and Bologna for sausages. It seemed to me, however, that most of the Italians care more for sausages than for science. Under a better government, their taste in this matter might be altered for the better.
Leaving Bologna, the appearance of the country improved. The cottages of the peasantry were neat and comfortable; the soil was under good cultivation, and its fertility reminded me of the rich borders of the Connecticut. I saw large fields of Indian corn, which ripens well here, but does not grow so tall as in America. The kernel too is smaller, but the meal is equal in sweetness to any I ever tasted. Fields of hemp were abundant, growing very tall and luxuriant. At Malalbergo, we came to a canal, being the second I had seen in Italy: the first one connecting Pisa with Leghorn. Both are only a few miles in length: this one unites the Po with the little stream which runs from this place into the Adriatic. It appears to have no great amount of navigation. A few miles farther brought us to Ferrara, a fine large city, but almost deserted. It is regularly built, with spacious streets and sumptuous palaces, but the streets are grass-grown, and the palaces are lonely, without doors, windows, or furniture. Nothing gave me more impressive sensations than to wander through the silent solitudes of this beautiful city, where nothing is ruinous but all is deserted. In the quarter bounding on the river were some houses inhabited by a few mechanics, laborers and boatmen; but in all those streets which were lined with lordly palaces and stately piles of architecture, no living beings were to be seen except cows, quietly feeding upon the grass which had overgrown the pavement.
I went into many of these empty palaces, which, of course, any one may do, without invitation. The appearance corresponded with what I saw without. Colonnades, sculptured staircases, galleries and ornamented walls were overgrown with ivy, and other trailing plants. Moss and green foliage decked the terraces and roofs. Great marble vases, containing jasmines and pomegranates, stood on the terraces, abandoned, nobody knows how long, and left to flourish in luxuriant neglect. They had spread themselves on every side, and hung down full of flowers over the marble cornices and balustrades. What a spectacle!—and this not in one place or two, but all over the better part of the city. What is the cause of this melancholy desolation? Not pestilence, famine, war, earthquakes, storms, inundations, nor any hostility of nature or the elements. The soil of the neighborhood is rich, the air is pure, the sky is mild, the elements tranquil, and the country has been long at peace. The inhabitants do not lack genius, and require only the application of the proper means to become intelligent and industrious. What then is the cause that this fine city is desolate and falling to ruin? I answer, bad rulers—a government that neglects two great things—education and industry in the people.
Mr. Stephens, the ingenious traveller, on visiting one of the volcanoes of Guatemala, wished he could transport it to the United States, as he could have bought it for ten dollars, and, the fire having gone out, he could have made his fortune by showing it for a sight. Had I the power of removing mountains and other great tracts of country, I should choose to bring home something better than a dead volcano, which might come to life some day, and make my house too hot for me. I would rather select some of the magnificent cities of the old world, that lack inhabitants as much as we lack fine buildings. How I longed to transport the city of Ferrara, with its empty palaces and grass-grown streets, to the state of Massachusetts! I would soon turn the cows out and put the inhabitants in. There is many a man in the United States who could buy it, and the owners would willingly sell out. Unfortunately, this cannot be done, and this fair city, which might accommodate, most nobly, all the inhabitants of Boston, will remain deserted, with cattle pasturing in her streets and ivy mantling her walls, for many a year to come. Nothing but a political renovation of the country will save it from crumbling to ruin.
Gall Insects.
These are bred in an excrescence of a species of oak which grows in Africa, and are formed by a kind of fly, which bores into the bark of the tree, for a place in which to deposit its eggs. The sap of the tree hardens round the egg, grows with the growth of the tree, and becomes what we call the gall-nut, and which is used for dyeing. The worm that is hatched within this spacious vault, lives upon the substance of the ball, till after its change into a chrysalis and then a fly, when it eats its way through into the air, and gains its freedom.