In returning to town, we saw many shops filled attractively with Italian sculpture in alabaster and in Carrara marble. Alabaster, however, is soft, and is more liable to injury than marble, the groups in which material are much dearer, but at the same time fairly moderate compared with prices at home, although in computing price the risk and expense of carriage have to be added.
The town of Pisa is situated upon both sides of the Arno; the streets, wide and lined with high houses and other buildings, look tidy and clean; but about all there is a deserted look, although the population is stated at 50,000, and the place, which is a University town, is compactly built. It has a mild humid atmosphere, said, rightly or wrongly, to have curative properties for those affected with asthma. Centuries ago it was a leading commercial city, the great rival of Genoa, with which it was long at war, and to which it ultimately succumbed. Merchants had not at that time learnt that their true power and proper glory lies not in war but in commerce.
The next day was fine, with a bright sun to warm the air; and we took advantage of it to drive to Lucca, said in guide-books to be fifteen miles distant by rail: by road it seemed little more than ten. Calculating according to Bædeker, we should only have had, by time occupied (six hours), to pay 6 francs for the carriage; but the driver asked 15 francs, and agreed to go for 12½ which we were informed was ample fare. On return he wished us to go by some other route, and if we had agreed, it would, we were told, have enabled him to make his own terms at the end of the drive. The road to Lucca is well-formed, hard, and level, and would therefore seem to have been one of the old Roman roads, the more especially as it lies between what were two ancient Roman cities. It was a most delightful drive through many picturesque valleys, and through a mountainous country, and it would have been more so two months later. At this time the trees were bare. On the way, near Ripafrata, a bold, steep rock rises like an island from the plain, crowned by a small Italian town, which our driver named Lugliano—a very striking object, especially with the snow-capped Apennines peering in the background over the nearer hills, quite an artist’s study,—and of which, stopping the carriage for a few minutes, I made a rapid sketch. As a characteristic specimen of ‘a city set upon a hill,’ of which we afterwards saw so many in Italy, the drawing is given in illustration. Lucca is a fortified town, in regular wall and ditch formation, three miles in circuit, and there is a good deal to see in it. We visited the cathedral, and walked round a portion of the ramparts, from which views are had towards the mountains which surround Lucca.
There are two routes from Pisa to Rome—one by Leghorn and the coast, which would have obliged us either to stop the night at the uninviting town of Civita Vecchia, or to have arrived at Rome late in the evening. We chose the other route by Sienna. To go by Sienna, the traveller proceeds eastward about half-way along the railway to Florence, and changes carriages at Empoli. From Empoli the railway strikes off southward to Sienna and Rome. Sienna stands high, being 1330 feet above the level of the sea, and is considered a place of summer residence for its coolness.
A CITY SET UPON A HILL,
ON ROAD TO LUCCA.
I was therefore somewhat apprehensive, considering the cold weather we had endured, lest it might be too cold. Although, however, it stands high above the level of the sea, it does not seem to be more than 200 feet above the level of the surrounding country, or of the railway, and we did not find it very cold. But a change had taken place in the weather, and it was again a fine cloudless day. Having decided to go by Sienna, we could not resist making another excursion to the cathedral before starting by the mid-day train, and were all but tempted to ascend the Campanile. But to an invalid it looked chilly outside, and the height deterring; and I being the only one who might have gone, the custodier could not take me alone, the rule, to guard against accidents or suicide, being that not less than three must make the ascent at a time. The cathedral looked much finer in the sunshine, and we could have lingered long examining it in detail, and would gladly have had there the wearisome time, well-nigh an hour, we were, according to Italian custom, required to spend in the salle-d’attente of the railway. The journey from Pisa to Sienna, about seventy miles, is through a mountainous country, with some places of interest by the way, though our prospect was much contracted by reason of a passenger in the carriage who would draw down all the blinds on his side and read a book the whole way, till his wife, out of shame, seeing our disappointment, persuaded him to allow one of the three blinds on his side to be raised, there being no sun peering in even to justify an excuse, which, indeed, never was made. In four hours and twenty minutes we arrived at our destination.