The applause given to the Grand Duke at this critical period is so much the more creditable to the Florentines as they in general receive their Prince, on his presenting himself at the theatre, with no other ceremonial than rising once and bowing. There is no fulsome God save the King repeated even to nausea, as at the English theatres. In fact none of the Italians pay that servile adulation to their Sovereigns that the French and English do.
The changes projected in Italy at the treaty of Lunéville by Napoleon then first Consul, and his further views on Italy, induced him at length to eject an Austrian Prince from the sovereignty of a country which he intended to annex to the French Empire. The Grand Duke was indemnified with a principality in Germany, where he remained until the downfall of Napoleon in 1814; subsequent arrangements again restored him to the sway of the land he loved so well, and he returned to Florence as if he had only been absent on a tour, finding scarcely any change in the laws and customs and habits of the country; for tho' Tuscany was first erected into a Kingdom by the title of Etruria, and afterwards annexed to the French Empire, the institutions and laws laid down by Leopold and followed strictly by his successor were preserved; very little innovation took place, and the few innovations that were effected were decided ameliorations; for the Emperor Napoleon had too much tact not to preserve and protect the good he found, tho' he abolished all old abuses. The improvements introduced by the French have been preserved and confirmed by the Grand Duke on his return, for he is a man of too much good sense, and has too much love of justice, to think of abolishing the good that has been done, merely because it was done by the French. Tuscany has now a respectable military force of 8,000 men well armed, clothed and equipped in the French manner.
Tuscany is the only part of Italy where the downfall of Napoleon was not regretted; the inhabitants of Leghorn indeed rejoiced at it, for the commerce of Tuscany being chiefly maritime, Leghorn suffered a good deal from the continental system. Leghorn in fact decayed in the same proportion that Milan and other inland cities rose into opulence.
The character of the Tuscan people is so amiable and pacific that crime is very rare indeed. Murder is almost unknown and the punishment of death is banished from the penal code. Where the government is good, the people are or soon become good. I know of no country in the world more agreeable for a foreigner to settle in than Tuscany.
I omitted to remark that in the street called Borgo d'Ognissanti is a large house or palazzo which belonged to Americo Vespucci. His bust is to be seen in the Florentine Gallery. It is curious to remark the different appellations given to the word street in the different cities of Italy. In Milan a street is called vico and in Turin, contrada; in Florence strada and in Rome, I understand, via.
FLORENCE, 1st Sept.
I shall start in a day or two for Rome, being very impatient to behold the Eternal City, a plan which I have had in view from my earliest days and which I have not been able hitherto to effect; for like the Abbé Delille I had sworn to visit the sacred spot where so many illustrious men had spoke and acted, and to do hommage in person to their Manes. I was always a great admirer of the "Popolo Re."
In Florence there are a great many literary societies such as the Infuocati, Immobili, and the far renowned La Crusca.
Frequent Academies, for so a sitting of a litterary society in Italy is termed, are held in Florence. There are likewise two Casinos, one for the nobility and the other for the merchants and burghers; the wives and daughters of the members attend occasionally; and cards, music and dancing are the amusements. Florence abounds in artists in alabaster whose workmanship is beautiful. They make models in alabaster of the most celebrated pieces of sculpture and architecture, on any scale you chuse: they fabricate busts too and vases in alabaster. The vases made in imitation of the ancient Greek vases are magnificent, and some of them are of immense size. Foreigners generally chuse to have their busts taken; for almost all foreigners who arrive here are or pretend to be smitten with an ardent love for the fine arts, and every one wishes to take with him models of the fine things he has seen in Italy, on his return to his native country. Here are English travellers who at home would scarcely be able to distinguish the finest piece of ancient sculpture—the Mercury, for instance, in the Florentine Gallery, from a Mercury in a citizen's garden at Highgate—who here affect to be in extacies at the sight of the Venus, Apollino, &c., and they are fond of retailing on all occasions the terms of art and connoisseurship they have learned by rote, in the use of which they make sometimes ridiculous mistakes. For instance I heard an Englishman one day holding forth on the merits of the Vierge quisouse, as he called it. I could not for some time divine what he meant by the word quisouse, but after some explanation I found that he meant the celebrated painting of the Vierge qui coud, or Vierge couseuse, as it is sometimes called, which latter word he had transformed into quisouse. This affectation, however, of passion for the belle arti, tho' sometimes open to ridicule, is very useful. It generates taste, encourages artists, and is surely a more innocent as well as more rational mode of spending money and passing time than in encouraging pugilism or in racing, coach driving and cock fighting.
[83] Pope, Essay on Man, ep. III, 303-4.—ED.