Upon reaching Rome, Holman went to the Vatican. He had hoped to be allowed to examine the sculpture carefully with his hands, but this he was not permitted to do, as soldiers were placed in each apartment to prevent such violation.
“Had I been freely permitted to touch the marbles, I doubt not,” he says, “that I might have been as highly gratified as those who saw, for the sense of touch conveys to my mind as clear, or at least as satisfactory, ideas of the form, and, I think I may add, the force of expression, as sight does to others. I did occasionally examine them in this way by stealth,” he adds, “when I was apprised that the soldiers’ backs were turned toward me.”
Holman was doubtless the only blind man who ever ascended Mount Vesuvius and survived to record his impressions of the feat. “My friends endeavored to dissuade me from this arduous undertaking,” he writes. “and when after fully deciding upon the measure, I inquired in what way it was customary for others to make the ascent, they replied: ‘Oh, they could see their way up.’
“‘Well, then,’ I retorted, ‘I have little doubt of being able to feel mine.’”
The ground proved to be too hot under his feet, and the sulfurous vapors too strong to allow the hardy Englishman to remain long on the summit, but his guide satisfied him by directing his walking-cane toward the flames, which shriveled the ferrule and charred the lower part. He retained the cane as a memorial, and mentions the fact in his writings.
The most dangerous journeys ever undertaken by Holman were those into the heart of Siberia, upon which he set out soon after his return from his initial visit to Florence. He occupied himself on the way inland studying the geography of Russia, tracing his intended itinerary with his finger upon a raised map.
At the Academy of Art, in Saint Petersburg, he was more successful than he had been at the Vatican in his endeavor to derive pleasure from the sculpture. Of his experience with the Canova statue of Napoleon he writes:
“The pedestal of this statue is so high that I could only reach the knees of the figure; but this was sufficient to satisfy me of its exquisite character. The kneepan, the heads of the bones of the leg, the muscles that form the calf, the ankles, the contractions of the toes (from the supposed weight of the body resting upon them) were all inimitable, so beautifully had the chisel written its delineations on the marble.
“My gratification on touching it was such that I could with difficulty withdraw my hand; and had the leg been clothed with a real shoe and stocking, and of a natural temperature, I might have imagined it real.”
In Moscow this undaunted sightseer walked to the Kremlin and “looked at” the wonderful bell there by mounting to its top on a ladder. The better to examine some of the mortars cast in 1694 by Peter the Great, he coolly took off his coat and crept to the bottom of one, greatly to the astonishment of the guide who accompanied him.