We proceeded on the following morning to Verona, which excited a stronger interest than Vicenza by its classical associations and striking position on the river Adige, a lively daughter of the Alps. Rushing from her mountain bed, she urges her rapid and devious course through the city, dividing it into two portions, connected by the bridge of Scaliger. This fine edifice rises on bold arches, wider, and more heroic, and more scientific, than that of the Rialto, the wonder of Venice, which is indeed no bridge, but a huge and inconvenient staircase.
Pursuing as we journeyed onward the subject of architecture, I commented on the insignificant appearance of the temples of Pantheism, when compared with the majestic cathedrals for which the Christian world is indebted to the barbarians of the middle ages.
“The Greeks and Romans,” observed Colonna, “erected a temple to each individual of their numerous deities. These buildings were consequently of limited extent, and their columns of corresponding proportions. The citizens sacrificed singly to the gods, or attended public festivals, comprehending large masses of the people; in which event the officiating priest or priestess entered the temple, and the assembled votaries were grouped without. In our churches, on the contrary, the population of a city is often congregated for hours; and how magnificently adapted for this object is the vast and solemn interior of a Gothic cathedral, in which the voice of the priest reverberates like thunder, and the chorus of the people rises like a mountain-gust, praising the great Father of all, and rousing the affrighted conscience of the infidel; while the mighty organ, the tyrant of music, rages like a hurricane, and rolls his deep floods of sound in sublime accompaniment! How grand were the conceptions of the rational barbarians, to whom Europe is indebted for these vast and noble structures! And how immeasurably they surpass, for all meditative and devotional objects, the modern application of Greek and Roman temples, on an enlarged scale, to the purposes of Christian worship! Had any necessity existed to borrow designs from these sources, we should rather have modelled our churches from their theatres, the plan of which is admirably fitted for oratorical purposes, and for the accommodation of numbers.”
We accomplished the last portion of our journey during a night of superlative beauty. A brilliant and nearly full moon glided with us through long avenues of lofty elms, linked together by the clustering tendrils of vines, festooned from tree to tree, and at this season prodigal of foliage. The coruscations of distant lightning shot through the clear darkness of Italian night; the moon and evening star, and Sirius and Orion, soared above us in pure ether, and seemed to approach our sphere like guardian spirits. The cool breezes which usher in the dawn now began to whisper through the foliage; a light vapour arose in the east; and the soft radiance of the first sunbeams faintly illumined the horizon as we arrived at our destination. Here the romantic lake of Garda lay expanded before us; its broad surface ruffled by the mountain breeze, and gleaming like silver in the moonlight. The waves were heaving in broken and foaming masses, and reverberated along the rocky shores, finely illustrating the accuracy of Virgil’s descriptive line:
“Fluctibus et fremitu assurgens marino.”
I retired immediately to rest, not having slept for the preceding twenty-four hours; while Colonna preferred a morning walk, and wandered out to view the environs. In the course of the day we completed our domestic arrangements. My friend occupied a saloon on the north side of the villa, which commanded an extensive prospect, a light favourable for painting, and private egress into the open country; an accommodation which he requested, that his rambling and irregular habits might occasion no inconvenience to the other inmates of the mansion.
After a few days had been devoted to excursions upon and around the lake, and over the picturesque hills as far as Brescia, we commenced a more useful and methodical distribution of our time. Colonna began and completed the sketch of a Madonna for my mother, that he might work upon it at his leisure; and we read together the Greek poets and historians: nor did I forget to avail myself of my friend’s proffered assistance to improve my knowledge of drawing and design. Under his masterly guidance I persevered in drawing geometrical figures until I could trace them with quickness, freedom, and accuracy. He then annoyed me for a brief interval with skeletons and anatomical subjects, directing my attention to the articulation of the joints and the insertion of the muscles; after which I proceeded to copy his fine studies of human limbs, both round and muscular, and in the various attitudes of action and repose. Finally, I began to sketch from living models, and was pursuing my object with ardour and success, when a tragical event severed me for a considerable period from my beloved tutor and friend.
It had been arranged between us that each should, in his habits, be perfectly uncontrolled, and independent of the other. Our excursions were alternately separate, and in company, and Colonna was often absent from the villa for one or more days and nights, without exciting observation or surprise.
He delighted in ranging over the green pastures of Lombardy, hedged in by lofty trees, festooned with vines, and irrigated by transparent streams innumerable. The young Tuscan had never before seen nature in a garb so lovely and inviting; he wandered through the picturesque villages which margin or overhang the lake of Garda, sojourned with the peasantry, and sketched their figures and costume. From these rambles he would often return at sunset over the lake in a small bark, crowned like a youthful Bacchus with vine leaves and ivy, and singing wild Dithirambics to his guitar, while the surrounding villagers, by whom he was idolised, followed him in their boats with shouts of joy and festivity.
During the cool nights which, in this hilly region, temper the sickly heat of an Italian summer, we often wandered along the breezy shores of our classic Benacus, or sought refreshment in its dark blue waters. Colonna was an adept in the delightful exercise of swimming, and his instructions soon imparted to me requisite skill and self-possession. We plunged from the marble terraces of the villa into the delicious element, cleaving its moonlit waves, and sporting over its wide surface like water-gods.