By TWO LONDON BACHELORS.
It will be remembered that on arriving at Verona the two bachelors wandered about the city, merely glancing at its many beauties, in order to get a general impression, reserving for the next day the task of examining its buildings.
Our hotel at Verona was most picturesque; it had a courtyard in the middle, on to which all the principal rooms looked. There was a fountain in this courtyard, surrounded by dark green shrubs, which had a very cooling and refreshing appearance. The few English and Americans at the hotel were as usual the most pleasant of the guests; in fact, we have always liked those of our countrymen whom we have met abroad, and we venture to think that John Bull on the Continent has been maligned and abused far more than he deserves. We found the English at the places we visited quiet, companionable, and always well-behaved at table. Our satirists a generation back were never tired of depicting the narrowminded prejudices of the English abroad, but we cannot help thinking that many of these prejudices have disappeared, and this seems to be borne out by the undoubted increase of friendly feeling shown to our countrymen when travelling on the Continent, notwithstanding that in many cases we have not so much money to spend as our travelling forefathers had.
We rose early on the day after our arrival at Verona, as we were anxious to see as much as possible of the city before going on to Padua and Venice. As early as nine o’clock we had finished our breakfast and were starting out to see if, on second sight, Verona would delight us as much as its first impression had.
After about five minutes’ walk from our hotel we found ourselves in the Piazza delle Erbe, the fruit-market of Verona. This fine open square was completely filled with stalls, with funny old white umbrellas covering them. On one side of these stalls were little stools about six or seven inches high, on which were seated the oldest of old women, generally knitting. How very ancient these women looked, how wrinkled and furrowed were their countenances! Indeed, we could almost have imagined that these crones were in existence when the palaces and tower of the piazza were being built, and that they have been perched on their stools selling their wares during the centuries that have crumbled the buildings, and reduced the fortunes of Verona, formerly one of the most brilliant cities of Italy, the abode of Dante, Sammicheli the architect, and Paul Cagliari, or Veronese, the last great genius of the North Italian school of painting.
We were anxious to see how these women conducted business, and going up to a particularly old one we asked the price of some oranges. As we could not understand her patois (of which there are over a hundred in Italy—the country of a confusion of tongues!) the older bachelor took up a franc, in exchange for which she was about to present him with two oranges! Fancy this old creature, who had probably lived all her life amidst the beautiful buildings of Verona, and who was at least eighty years of age, attempting to swindle two (as she thought) unwary foreigners. We were walking away disgusted when the woman shouted after us, offering three oranges for the franc; and seeing we were still discontented, she offered four, then five, then six oranges, which last we took, much to the delight of the woman, who even then had probably got double the value of her wares.
Strolling out of the Piazza delle Erbe, we entered the Piazza dei Signori, where there was much to interest us. On one side is the Palazzo del Consiglio, the grandest in Verona. It is built in the early Renaissance style of the fifteenth-century, and is covered with rich and exquisite detail. Near to this palace is the fine marble statue of Dante, erected in 1865. The poet is standing, with his head resting on his right hand. The features are extremely intellectual, but rather stern, such as one would expect in the writer of the “Divina Commedia.”
After the Piazza dei Signori we visited for the second time the tombs of the Scaligers.
Our girls will remember from our last article what a very important part the families of the Visconti and Sforza took in the history of Milan. Now, an almost equally important position was occupied for nearly a century and a half by the Scaligers, or della Scalas, in Verona.