Festoons of grapes, trained to leafy elms, began to appear--white villas chequered the suburbs--and it was with a pleasurable feeling, that they neared the peculiar looking city, with its leaning towers, and old façades. It is the only one, where the Englishman recals Mrs. Ratcliffe's harrowing tales; and half expects to see a Schedoni, advancing from some covered portico.
The next day found them in the Bolognese gallery, which is the first which duly impresses the traveller, coming from the north, with the full powers of the art.
The soul of music seems to dwell in the face of the St. Cecilia; and the cup of maternal anguish to be filled to the brim, as in Guide's Murder of the Innocents, the mother clasps to her arms the terrified babe, and strives to flee from the ruthless destroyer.
It was on the fourth morning from their arrival in Bologna, that they approached the poet's "mansion and his sepulchre."
As they threaded the green windings of vine covered hills, these gradually assumed a bolder outline, and, rising in separate cones, formed a sylvan amphitheatre round the lovely village of Arquà.
The road made an abrupt ascent to the Fontana Petrarca. A large ruined arch spanned a fine spring, that rushes down the green slope.
In the church-yard, on the right, is the tomb of Petrarch.
Its peculiarly bold elevation--the numberless thrilling associations connected with the poet--gave a tone and character to the whole scene. The chiaro-scuro of the landscape, was from the light of his genius--the shade of his tomb.
The day was lovely--warm, but not oppressive. The soft green of the hills and foliage, checked the glare of the flaunting sunbeams.
The brothers left the carriage to gaze on the sarcophagus of red marble, raised on pilasters; and could not help deeming even the indifferent bronze bust of Petrarch, which surmounts this, to be a superfluous ornament in such a scene.