But such luxury did not last, you may suppose, for ever. We were soon forced from our covert, and obliged to traverse a mountain exposed to the sun, which had dispersed every cloud, and shone with intolerable brightness. On the other side of this extensive eminence lies a pastoral hillock, surrounded by others, woody and irregular. Wide vineyards and fields of Indian corn lay between, across which the Conte Nobili conducted us to his house, where we found prepared a very comfortable dinner. We drank the growth of the spot, and defied the richest wines of Constantia to exceed it.
Afterwards, retiring into a wood of the Marchese Mansi, with neat pebble walks and trickling rivulets, we took coffee and loitered till sunset. It was then time to return, as the mists were beginning to rise from the valleys. The calm and silence of evening threw us into our reveries. We went pacing along heedlessly, just as our horses pleased, without hearing any sound but their steps.
Between nine and ten we entered the gates of Lucca. Pacchierotti coughed, and half its inhabitants wished us at the devil.
LETTER XIII.
Set out for Pisa.—The Duomo.—Interior of the Cathedral.—The Campo Santo.—Solitude of the streets at midday.—Proceed to Leghorn.—Beauty of the road.—Tower of the Fanale.
Leghorn, October 2nd, 1780.
THIS morning we set out for Pisa. No sooner had we passed the highly cultivated garden-grounds about Lucca than we found ourselves in narrow roads, shut in by vines and grassy banks of canes and osiers, rising high above our carriage and waving their leaves in the air. Through the openings which sometimes intervened we discovered a variety of hillocks clothed with shrubs, ruined towers looking out of the bushes, not one without a romantic tale attending it.
This sort of scenery lasted till, passing the baths, we beheld Pisa rising from an extensive plain, the most open we had as yet seen in Italy, crossed by an aqueduct. We were set down immediately before the Duomo, which stands insulated in a vast green area, and is perhaps the most curious edifice my eyes ever viewed. Do not ask of what shape or architecture; it is almost impossible to tell, so great is the confusion of ornaments. The dome gives the mass an oriental appearance, which helped to bewilder me; in short, I have dreamed of such buildings, but little thought they existed. On one side you survey the famous tower, as perfectly awry as I expected; on the other the baptistery, a circular edifice distinct from the church and right opposite its principal entrance, crowded with sculptures and topped by the strangest of cupolas.
Having indulged our curiosity with this singular prospect for some moments, we entered the cathedral and admired the stately columns of porphyry and of the rarest marbles, supporting a roof which, like the rest of the building, shines with gold. A pavement of the brightest mosaic completes its magnificence: all around are sculptures by Michael Angelo Buonarotti, and paintings by the most distinguished artists. We examined them with due attention, and then walked down the nave and remarked the striking effect of the baptistery, seen in perspective through the bronze portals, which you know, I suppose, are covered with relievos of the finest workmanship. These noble valves were thrown wide open, and we passed between them to the baptistery, where stands an alabaster font, constructed after the primitive ritual and exquisitely wrought.
Our next object was the Campo Santo, which forms one side of the area in which the cathedral is situated. The walls, and Gothic tabernacle above the entrance, rising from the level turf and preserving a neat straw colour, appear as fresh as if built within the present century. Our guide unlocking the gates, we entered a spacious cloister, forming an oblong quadrangle, which encloses the sacred earth of Jerusalem, conveyed hither about the period of the crusades, the days of Pisanese prosperity. The holy mould produces a rampant crop of weeds, but none are permitted to spring from the pavement, which is entirely composed of tombs with slabs, smoothly laid and covered with monumental inscriptions. Ranges of slender pillars, formed of the whitest marble and glistening in the sun, support the arcade of the cloister, which is carved with innumerable stars and roses, partly Gothic and partly Saracenial. Strange paintings of hell and the devil, mostly taken from Dante’s rhapsodies, cover the walls of these fantastic galleries, attributed to the venerable Giotto and Bufalmacco, whom Boccaccio mentions in his Decamerone.