To say the truth, if Lord Byron had put it into Don Juan instead of Childe Harold, he might have compared the part which her ladyship has chosen to perform on this occasion to an experienced waiter pouring a bottle of ale into a tumbler at a tavern. It has somewhat of the same continued, plump, right-lined descent. It is not frittered into little parts, nor contrasted into quaintness, nor tortured into fury. All the intricacy and contradiction that the noble Poet ascribes to it belong to Tivoli; but then Tivoli has none of the grandeur or violence of the description in Childe Harold. The poetry is fine, but not like.
As I have got so far on my way, I may as well jump the intermediate space, and proceed with my statistics here, as there was nothing on the road between this and Rome worth mentioning, except Narni (ten miles from Terni), the approach to which overlooks a fine, bold, woody, precipitous valley. We stopped at Terni for the express purpose of visiting the Fall, which is four or five miles from it. The road is excellent, and commands a succession of charming points of view. You must pass the little village of Papinio, perched like a set of pigeon-houses on the point of a rock about half-way up, which has been battered almost in pieces by French, Austrians, and others at different times, from a fort several hundred feet above it, and that looks directly down upon the road. When you get to the top of the winding ascent, and immediately before you turn off by a romantic little path to the waterfall, you see the ranges of the Abruzzi and the frozen top of the Pie de Lupo. Along this road the Austrian troops marched three years ago to the support of good government and social order at Naples. The prospect of the cold blue mountain-tops, and other prospects which the sight of this road recalled, chilled me, and I hastened down the side-path to lose, in the roar of the Velino tumbling from its rocky height, and the wild freedom of nature, my recollection of tyranny and tyrants. On a green bank far below, so as to be just discernible, a shepherd-boy was sleeping under the shadow of a tree, surrounded by his flock, enjoying peace and freedom, scarce knowing their names. That’s something—we must wait for the rest!
We returned to the inn at Terni too late to proceed on our journey, and were thrust, as a special favour, into a disagreeable apartment. We had the satisfaction, however, to hear the united voices of the passengers by two vetturinos, French and Italian men and women, lifted up against the supper and wine as intolerably bad. The general complaint was, that having paid so much for our fare, we were treated like beggars—comme des gueux. This was true enough, and not altogether unreasonable. Let no one who can help it, and who travels for pleasure, travel by a vetturino. You are treated much in the same manner as if in England you went by the caravan or the waggon. In fact, this mode of conveyance is an imposition on innkeepers and the public. It is the result of a combination among the vetturino owners, who bargain to provide you for a certain sum, and then billet you upon the innkeepers for as little as they can, who when thus obtruded upon them, under the guarantee of a grasping stage-coach driver, consider you as common property or prey, receive you with incivility, keep out of the way, will not deign you an answer, stint you in the quantity of your provisions, poison you by the quality, order you into their worst apartments, force other people into the same room or even bed with you, keep you in a state of continual irritation and annoyance all the time you are in the house, and send you away jaded and dissatisfied with your reception, and terrified at the idea of arriving at the next place of refreshment, for fear of meeting with a renewal of the same contemptible mortifications and petty insults. You have no remedy: if you complain to the Vetturino, he says it is the fault of the innkeeper; if you remonstrate with the innkeeper, he says he has orders from the Vetturino only to provide certain things. It is of little use to try to bribe the waiters; they doubt your word, and besides, do not like to forego the privilege of treating a vetturino passenger as one. It is best, if you travel in this manner, to pay for yourself; and then you may stand some chance of decent accommodation. I was foolish enough to travel twice in this manner, and pay three Napoleons a day, for which I might have gone post, and fared in the most sumptuous manner. I ought to add, in justice, that when I have escaped from the guardianship of Monsieur le Vetturino and have stopped at inns on my own account, as was the case at Venice, Milan, and at Florence twice, I have no reason to complain either of the treatment or the expence. As to economy, it is in vain to look for it in travelling in Italy or at an hotel; and if you succeed in procuring a private lodging for a time, besides the everlasting trickery and cabal, you are likely to come off with very meagre fare, unless you can eat Italian dishes. I ought, however, to repeat what I believe I have said before, that the bread, butter, milk, wine and poultry that you get here (even ordinarily) are excellent, and that you may also obtain excellent tea and coffee.
We proceeded next morning (in no very good humour) on our way to Spoleto. The day was brilliant, and our road lay through steep and narrow defiles for several hours. The sides of the hills on each side were wild and woody; indeed, the whole ride was interesting, and the last hill before we came to Spoleto, with a fine monastery embosomed in its thick tufted trees, crowned our satisfaction with the journey. Spoleto is a handsome town, delightfully situated, and has an appearance (somewhat startling in Italy) as if life were not quite extinct in it. It stands on the slope of a range of the Apennines, extending as far as Foligno and Perugia, and ‘sees and is seen’ to a great distance. From Perugia in particular (an interval of forty miles) you seem as if you could put your hand upon it, so plain does it appear, owing to the contrast between the white stone-houses, and the dark pine-groves by which it is surrounded. The effect of this contrast is not always pleasant. The single cottages or villas scattered in the neighbourhood of towns in Italy, often look like dominos or dice spread on a dark green cloth. We arrived at Foligno early in the evening, and as a memorable exception to the rest of our route, found there an inn equally clean and hospitable. From the windows of our room we could see the young people of the town walking out in a fine open country, to breathe the clear fresh air, and the priests sauntering in groups and enjoying the otium cum dignitate. It was for some monks of Foligno that Raphael painted his inimitable Madonna.
We turned off at Assizi to view the triple Franciscan church and monastery. We saw the picture of Christ (shewn by some nuns), that used to smile upon St. Francis at his devotions; and the little chapel in the plain below, where he preached to his followers six hundred years ago, over which a large church is at present built, like Popery surmounting Christianity. The church on the top of the hill, built soon after his death in honour of the saint, and where his heart reposes, is a curiosity in its kind. First, two churches were raised, one on the top of the other, and then a third was added below with some difficulty, by means of excavations in the rock. The last boasts a modern and somewhat finical mausoleum or shrine, and the two first are ornamented with fresco paintings by Giotto and Ghirlandaio, which are most interesting and valuable specimens of the early history of the art. I see nothing to contemn in them—much to admire—fine heads, simple grouping, a knowledge of drawing and foreshortening, and dignified attitudes and expressions, some of which Raphael has not disdained to copy, though he has improved upon them. St. Francis died about 1220, and this church was finished and ornamented with these designs of the chief actions of his life, within forty months afterwards; so that the pictures in question must be about six hundred years old. We are not, however, to wonder at the maturity of these productions of the pencil; the art did not arise out of barbarism or nothing, but from a lofty preconception in the minds of those who first practised it, and applied it to purposes of devotion. Even the grace and majesty of Raphael were, I apprehend, but emanations of the spirit of the Roman Catholic religion, and existed virtually in the minds of his countrymen long before and after he transferred them, with consummate skill, to the canvass. Not a Madonna scrawled on the walls near Rome, not a baby-house figure of the Virgin, that is out of character and costume, or that is not imbued with an expression of resignation, benignity, and purity. We were shewn these different objects by a young priest, who explained them to us with a gracefulness of manner, and a mild eloquence, characteristic of his order. I forgot to mention, in the proper place, that I was quite delighted with the external deportment of the ecclesiastics in Rome. It was marked by a perfect propriety, decorum, and humanity, from the highest to the lowest. Not the slightest look or gesture to remind you that you were foreigners or heretics—an example of civility that is far from being superfluous, even in the capital of the Christian world. It may be said that this is art, and a desire to gain upon the good opinion of strangers. Be it so, but it must be allowed that it is calculated to this end. Good manners have this advantage over good morals, that they lie more upon the surface; and there is nothing, I own, that inclines me to think so well of the understandings or dispositions of others, as a thorough absence of all impertinence. I do not think they can be the worst people in the world who habitually pay most attention to the feelings of others; nor those the best who are endeavouring every moment to hurt them. At Perugia, while looking at some panels in a church painted by Pietro Perugino, we met with a young Irish priest, who claimed acquaintance with us as country-folks, and recommended our staying six days, to see the ceremonies and finery attending the translation of the deceased head of his order from the church where he lay to his final resting-place. We were obliged by this proposal, but declined it. It was curious to hear English spoken by the inmate of a Benedictine Monastery,—to see the manners of an Italian priest engrafted on the Irish accent—to think that distant countries are brought together by agreement in religion—that the same country is rent asunder by differences in it. Man is certainly an ideal being, whom the breath of an opinion wafts from Indus to the Pole, and who is ready to sacrifice the present world and every object in it for a reversion in the skies! Perugia is situated on a lofty hill, and is in appearance the most solid mass of building I ever beheld. It commands a most extensive view in all directions, and the ascent to it is precipitous on every side. Travelling this road from Rome to Florence is like an eagle’s flight—from hill-top to hill-top, from towered city to city, and your eye devours your way before you over hill or plain. We saw Cortona on our right, looking over its wall of ancient renown, conscious of its worth, not obtruding itself on superficial notice; and passed through Arezzo, the reputed birth-place of Petrarch. All the way we were followed (hard upon) by another Vetturino, with an English family, and we had a scramble whenever we stopped for supper, beds, or milk. At Incisa, the last stage before we arrived at Florence, an intimation was conveyed that we should give up our apartments in the inn, and seek for lodgings elsewhere. This modest proposition could come only from English people, who have such an opinion of their dormant stock of pretended good-nature, that they think all the world must in return be ready to give up their own comforts to oblige them. We had two French gentlemen in the coach with us, equally well-behaved and well-informed, and two Italians in the cabriolet, as good-natured and ‘honest as the skin between their brows.’ Near Perugia we passed the celebrated lake of Thrasymene, near which Hannibal defeated the Roman consul Flaminius. It struck me as not unlike Windermere in character and scenery, but I have seen other lakes since, which have driven it out of my head. Florence (the city of flowers) seemed to deserve its name as we entered it for the second time more than it did the first. The weather had been cold during part of our journey, but now it had changed to sultry heat. The people looked exceedingly plain and hard-featured, after having passed through the Roman States. They have the look of the Scotch people, only fiercer and more ill-tempered.
CHAPTER XXII
I have already described the road between Florence and Bologna. I found it much the same on returning; for barren rocks and mountains undergo little alteration either in summer or winter. Indeed, of the two, I prefer the effect in the most dreary season, for it is then most complete and consistent with itself: on some kinds of scenery, as on some characters, any attempt at the gay and pleasing sits ill, and is a mere piece of affectation. There is so far a distinction between the Apennines and Alps, that the latter are often covered with woods, and with patches of the richest verdure, and are capable of all the gloom of winter or the bloom of spring. The soil of the Apennines, on the contrary, is as dry and gritty as the rocks themselves, being nothing but a collection of sand-heaps and ashes, and mocks at every idea that is not of a repulsive and disagreeable kind. We stopped the first night at Traversa, a miserable inn or almost hovel on the road side, in the most desolate part of this track; and found amidst scenes, which the imagination and the pen of travellers have peopled with ghastly phantoms and the assassin’s midnight revelry, a kind but simple reception, and the greatest sweetness of manners, prompted by the wish, but conscious of being perhaps without the means to please. Courtesy in cities or palaces goes for little, means little, for it may and must be put on; in the cottage or on the mountain-side it is welcome to the heart, for it comes from it. It then has its root in unsophisticated nature, without the gloss of art, and shews us the original goodness of the soil or germ, from which human affections and social intercourse in all their ramifications spring. A little boy clung about its mother, wondering at the strangers; but from the very thoughts of novelty and distance, nestling more fondly in the bosom of home. What is the map of Europe, what all the glories of it, what the possession of them, to that poor little fellow’s dream, to his sidelong glance at that wide world of fancy that circles his native rocks!
The second morning, we reached the last of the Apennines that overlook Bologna, and saw stretched out beneath our feet a different scene, the vast plain of Lombardy, and almost the whole of the North of Italy, like a rich sea of boundless verdure, with towns and villas spotting it like the sails of ships. A hazy inlet of the Adriatic appeared to the right (probably the Gulph of Comachio). We strained our eyes in vain to catch a doubtful view of the Alps, but they were still sunk below the horizon. We presently descended into this plain (which formed a perfect contrast to the country we had lately passed), and it answered fully to the promise it had given us. We travelled for days, for weeks through it, and found nothing but ripeness, plenty, and beauty. It may well be called the Garden of Italy or of the World. The whole way from Bologna to Venice, from Venice to Milan, it is literally so. But I anticipate.—We went to our old inn at Bologna, which we liked better the second time than the first; and had just time to snatch a glimpse of the Guidos and Domenichinos at the Academy, which gleamed dark and beautiful through the twilight. We set out early the next morning on our way to Venice, turning off to Ferrara. It was a fine spring morning. The dew was on the grass, and shone like diamonds in the sun. A refreshing breeze fanned the light-green odorous branches of the trees, which spread their shady screen on each side of the road, which lay before us as straight as an arrow for miles. Venice was at the end of it; Padua, Ferrara, midway. The prospect (both to the sense and to the imagination) was exhilarating; and we enjoyed it for some hours, till we stopped to breakfast at a smart-looking detached inn at a turning of the road, called, I think, the Albergo di Venezia. This was one of the pleasantest places we came to during the whole of our route. We were shewn into a long saloon, into which the sun shone at one extremity, and we looked out upon the green fields and trees at the other. There were flowers in the room. An excellent breakfast of coffee, bread, butter, eggs, and slices of Bologna sausages was served up with neatness and attention. An elderly female, thin, without a cap, and with white thread-stockings, watched at the door of a chamber not far from us, with the patience of an eastern slave. The door opened, and a white robe was handed out, which she aired carefully over a chaffing-dish with mechanical indifference, and an infinite reduplication of the same folds. It was our young landlady who was dressing for church within, and who at length issued out, more remarkable for the correctness of her costume than the beauty of her person. Some rustics below were playing at a game, that from the incessant loud jarring noises of counting that accompanied it, implied equally good lungs and nerves in the performers and by-standers. At the tinkling of a village bell, all was in a moment silent, and the entrance of a little chapel was crowded with old and young, kneeling in postures of more or less earnest devotion. We walked forward, delighted with the appearance of the country, and with the simple manners of the inhabitants; nor could we have proceeded less than four or five miles along an excellent footpath, but under a broiling sun, before we saw any signs of our Vetturino, who was willing to take this opportunity of easing his horses—a practice common with those sort of gentry. Instead of a fellow-feeling with you, you find an instinctive inclination in persons of this class all through Italy to cheat and deceive you: the more easy or cordial you are with them, the greater is their opinion of your folly and their own cunning, and the more are they determined to repel or evade any advances to a fair understanding: threaten, or treat them with indignity, and you have some check over them; relax the reins a moment, and they are sure to play you some scurvy trick.
At Ferrara we were put on short allowance, and as we found remonstrance vain, we submitted in silence. We were the more mortified at this treatment, as we had begun to hope for better things; but Mr. Henry Waister, our Commissary on the occasion, was determined to make a good thing of his three Napoleons a-day; he had strained a point in procuring us a tolerable supper and breakfast at the two last stages, which must serve for some time to come; and as he would not pay for our dinner, the landlord would not let us have one, and there the matter rested. We walked out in the evening, and found Ferrara enchanting. Of all the places I have seen in Italy, it is the one by far I should most covet to live in. It is the ideal of an Italian city, once great, now a shadow of itself. Whichever way you turn, you are struck with picturesque beauty and faded splendours, but with nothing squalid, mean, or vulgar. The grass grows in the well-paved streets. You look down long avenues of buildings, or of garden walls, with summer-houses or fruit-trees projecting over them, and airy palaces with dark portraits gleaming through the grated windows—you turn, and a chapel bounds your view one way, a broken arch another, at the end of the vacant, glimmering, fairy perspective. You are in a dream, in the heart of a romance; you enjoy the most perfect solitude, that of a city which was once filled with ‘the busy hum of men,’ and of which the tremulous fragments at every step strike the sense, and call up reflection. In short, nothing is to be seen of Ferrara, but the remains, graceful and romantic, of what it was—no sordid object intercepts or sullies the retrospect of the past—it is not degraded and patched up like Rome, with upstart improvements, with earthenware and oil-shops; it is a classic vestige of antiquity, drooping into peaceful decay, a sylvan suburb—
‘Where buttress, wall and tower