With his thoughts and his pursuits directed chiefly to this object, we find in the volume before us, no pretension and little attention to antiquarian research, or classical allusion, which have been so generally called forth by the mouldering monuments, and the familiar scenes connected with the history and poetry of earlier days. Neither do we meet with the elaborate reflections on the political or social state of Italy, in the present day. It is true, the remarks of Mr. Peale are not confined to works of art, for he could not shut his eyes to the scenes among which he had to pass, and he was not uninfluenced by a general curiosity and love of truth;—but they are the notes of a transient observer, whose mind was turned to other things. Yet they are found not unfrequently to convey lively impressions of the state of society and manners, and of the local peculiarities of Italy.
Having sailed from New-York, Mr. Peale arrived at Paris, in the month of December, 1828. After a short stay there, merely sufficient to glance over the principal works of art, and to regret the altered situation of the magnificent gallery of Napoleon, deprived of the matchless memorials of his conquests, he continued his journey towards the south of France. Passing through Lyons, the route continued a long way on the border of the rapid Rhone, upon which he saw but one vessel,—whilst the road presented a constant procession of wagons. Such a stream in America, between two great cities, would be covered with steam-boats. As the road advanced south, it passed through more abundant vineyards, the verdure of the fields became more extensive, and, on each side, were seen vast orchards of mulberry trees, for the support of silk-worms, tributary to the great manufactories of silk at Lyons. As he approached Marseilles, the milder atmosphere gave evidence of a more genial climate, and the altered costume of the women, of a different people—to the caps common after leaving Paris, was now added a piece of black silk, of the size and shape of a plate laid on the top of the head; and, in the immediate vicinity of the town, the women wore black hats, with small round crowns and broad rims. Marseilles is a large and bustling sea-port, with but little to detain those who are in search of the productions of Italian art. Instead of pursuing the route he had intended, by Aix and Genoa, Mr. Peale here embarked in a Neapolitan ship, and, after a stormy and uncomfortable passage of ten days, found himself in the magnificent Bay of Naples. Four weeks were devoted to an examination of the works of art in the various galleries, palaces, and churches;—and most of the curiosities, the objects which attract an inquisitive traveller, were examined. Among the latter may be mentioned the catacombs of Santa Maria della Vita, which are thus described:—
"Descending into the valley of houses, and then rising to the foot of a neighbouring hill, we entered the court yard of a vast hospital for the poor; an establishment made by the French, in which are men, women, and girls, each class being kept separate and made to work. Here an old man presented himself who officiated as an experienced guide, furnished with a lantern and great flambeau made of ropes impregnated with some kind of resin. A little back lane conducted us to a kind of grotto, containing an altar ornamented with several marble medallions, which are said to have been sculptured by the early Christians. This chapel served as an entrance to the chambers of the dead, which consist of long, winding, and intricate passages, cut out of the tufa rock; in procuring which, for the purposes of building, these vast subterranean excavations were originally made, and afterwards used as depositories of the dead. During the persecutions against the early Christians, they were occupied by them either secretly as places of residence, where they might practise their worship unmolested, or, by the permission of their pagan persecutors, as abodes of the most humiliating kind, secluded from the light of day. Here our guide, preceding us with his smoking torch, which he occasionally struck on the walls, so as to scatter off a radiating flood of sparks which left him a brighter flame, showed us the little lateral recesses in which the humble believers were contented to lie, and shelves, excavated in the rock, in which their mortal remains were deposited after death. He pointed out the larger chambers, somewhat decorated with columns and arches in faint relief, in which the priests resided; the places where altars stood; and, in a higher excavation, raised his torch to a rude recess, or sunken balcony above the arched passage, whence the word was preached to the faithful below in a hall of great width. The chambers occupied by the most distinguished characters were denoted by better sculpture, Mosaic incrustations, and fresco paintings. We followed the windings of these subterranean corridors to a great extent, till we reached a hall which was said to be a quarter of a mile in height; but whether contrived for the purpose of ventilation, or as a shaft for raising the stone, we could not ascertain, any more than we could the accuracy of our guide's information, that the bodies of hundreds of martyrs were thrown down there by their pagan murderers, whence they were conveyed by their surviving friends into the niches prepared for them. From these remote parts, passages, now closed, were formerly open, which communicated with other catacombs and villages for sixteen miles round, affording the inmates, it is said, the means of escaping the persecutions which, from time to time, fell upon a sect so obnoxious to the pagan priesthood.
"We found the bones in these catacombs in excellent preservation, and on many the flesh of fifteen hundred years was still of such tenacious though pliant fibre, that it required a sharp knife to cut off a piece. The guide showed us the heads of some of those early Christians, with the tongues still remaining in them, but would not permit us to take one away. Here lived the venerated St. Januarius, whose particular cell was pointed out to us; and to these retreats was his dead body borne after his martyrdom; though some ancient painters represent him walking back with his head in his hands.
"We then visited the church of Santa Maria della Vita; it is an old and curious edifice, rich in marbles, and remarkable for the style of the grand altar, which is constructed over another one, as on a bridge, to which you rise by two lateral flights of steps, ornamented with elegant balustrades of costly marbles. The old monk showed us, behind the altar, an ancient painting of the Madonna, resembling an Indian, and a precious door to a case containing some sacred relic; but as we did not seem interested in these, he proceeded to open a door in the side wall, and requested us to walk in. To our surprise it was the entrance to another series of catacombs, in which were deposited the dead within the last two hundred years. These were placed in perpendicular niches in the rock, and plastered up, leaving only a part of the head projecting; the men with their faces out, the women with their faces in, only exposing the backs of their heads, from which the hair had long since fallen. By scraping away the plaster, some of the skeletons appeared in their whole extent, among which was an extraordinary one of a man about eight feet tall. The plaster which covers these bodies, thus showing only one half of the head, was painted so as to imitate the entire figure, clothed as men or women, and sometimes representing them as skeletons in part covered with drapery, with various inscriptions above them. The deeper recesses of these vaults led to chambers where we saw two carcasses of men, deposited only six months since; the flesh not decaying, but gradually drying up. They were naked and seated in niches in the wall, with their heads and arms hanging forward in very grotesque postures. In the catacombs which we first visited, the dead were generally placed horizontally, whereas here, all that we now saw were standing erect. We entered some chambers, however, with numerous empty horizontal recesses."
All the spots around Naples, of particular interest, as Vesuvius, Posilippo, and Portici were visited; crowds of beggars were encountered in all directions; but the people in general appeared to be healthy, lively, and happy. The streets are made gay by the immense number of carriages with which the public are accommodated at a very cheap rate, and people of all ranks are seen splashing along, sometimes to the number of seven or eight, clinging, as well as they can, to a vehicle scarcely large enough to hold half the number. The Neapolitans speak with great gesticulation, using many signs which have a known meaning; and they may sometimes be seen thus conversing across the street, from the upper stories of opposite houses. They are, of course, great eaters of macaroni, which is seen dangling from the shops in all parts of the city; and nothing is more amusing than the humble purchasers gathered around the stalls, stretching their necks with open mouths to suck it in.
Having seen as much of Naples as a long succession of bad weather permitted, our travellers set out in a vetturino for Rome, under the guidance of a snug, young, leather-breeched postilion, who spoke nothing but broad Italian. Crossing the Pontine marshes, where, it is probable, the wintry season prevented the frogs and musquitoes from recalling to their recollection the sufferings of Horace, they first looked down from the heights of Albano on the dome of St. Peter's, glittering in the bright rays of the sun, which just then broke through the clouds. On the last day of January, Mr. Peale found himself comfortably placed in a hotel of the Piazza di Spagna, ready to explore all that the eternal city could offer to his curious research. He remained at Rome till the month of July following.
His earliest visit was to St. Peter's, which he has minutely and graphically depicted. His first sensation he describes as one of surprise at the brightness and elegance of the whole interior, and in part of disappointment at the apparent want of magnitude. This was probably occasioned by the colossal statues, which, being proportioned to the vast pilasters, arches, and columns, seem to reduce the whole to an ordinary scale; and also to the wonderful harmony of all the parts, which prevents the contrast necessary to fill the mind with a sense of a gigantic object. When he had, however, walked over the wide fields of pavement, and compared the human beings before him with the stupendous masses around, he became by degrees convinced of the mighty magnitude, and experienced increased emotions of wonder and delight.
His visit to St. Peter's was followed by a minute survey of all the principal churches, galleries, antique monuments, and ruins, with which Rome abounds, among them, and in the study of the works of the great masters of art, he found five months pass rapidly away.