Pencillings by the Way Part 21

The descendant of Buonarotti is now an old man, and fortunately rich enough to preserve the house of his great ancestor as an object of curiosity. He has a son, I believe studying the arts at Rome.

On a beautiful hill which ascends directly from one of the southern gates of Florence, stands a church built so long ago as at the close of the first century. The gate, church, and hill, are all called San Miniato, after a saint buried under the church pavement. A large, and at present flourishing convent, hangs on the side of the hill below, and around the church stand the walls of a strong fortress, built by Michael Angelo. A half mile or more south, across a valley, an old tower rises against the sky, which was erected for the observations of Galileo. A mile to the left, on the same ridge, an old villa is to be seen in which Boccaccio wrote most of his "Hundred Tales of Love."

The Arno comes down from Vallombrosa, and pa.s.sing through Florence at the foot of San Miniato, is seen for three miles further on its way to Pisa; the hill, tower, and convent of Fiesole, where Milton studied and Catiline encamped with his conspirators, rise from the opposite bank of the river; and right below, as if you could leap into the lantern of the dome, nestles the lovely city of Florence, in the lap of the very brightest vale that ever mountain sheltered or river ran through. Such are the temptations to a _walk in Italy_, and add to it the charms of the climate, and you may understand one of a hundred reasons why it is the land of poetry and romance, and why it so easily becomes the land of a stranger's affection.

The villas which sparkle all over the hills which lean unto Florence, are occupied mainly by foreigners living here for health or luxury, and most of them are known and visited by the floating society of the place. Among them are Madame Catalani, the celebrated singer, who occupies a beautiful palace on the ascent of Fiesole, and Walter Savage Landor, the author of the "Imaginary Conversations," as refined a scholar perhaps as is now living, who is her near neighbor. A pleasant family of my acquaintance lives just back of the fortress of San Miniato, and in walking out to them with a friend yesterday, I visited the church again, and remarked more particularly the features of the scene I have described.

The church of San Miniato was built by Henry I. of Germany, and Cunegonde his wife. The front is pretty--a kind of mixture of Greek and Arabic architecture, crusted with marble. The interior is in the style of the primitive churches, the altar standing in what was called the _presbytery_, a high platform occupying a third of the nave, with two splendid flights of stairs of the purest white marble. The most curious part of it is the rotunda in the rear, which is lit by five windows of transparent oriental alabaster, each eight or nine feet high and three broad, in single slabs. The sun shone full on one of them while we were there, and the effect was inconceivably rich. It was like a sheet of half molten gold and silver. The transparency of course was irregular, but in the yellow spots of the stone the light came through like the effect of deeply stained gla.s.s.

A partly subterranean chapel, six or eight feet lower than the pavement of the church, extends under the presbytery. It is a labyrinth of marble columns which support the platform above, no two of which are alike. The ancient cathedral of Modena is the only church I have seen in Italy built in the same manner.

The _midnight ma.s.s_ on "Christmas eve," is abused in all catholic countries, I believe, as a kind of saturnalia of gallantry. I joined a party of young men who were leaving a ball for the church of the Annunciata, the fashionable rendezvous, and we were set down at the portico when the ma.s.s was about half over. The entrances of the open vestibule were thronged to suffocation. People of all ages and conditions were crowding in and out, and the sound of the distant chant at the altar came to our ears as we entered, mingled with every tone of address and reply from the crowd about us. The body of the church was quite obscured with the smoke of the incense. We edged our way on through the press, carried about in the open area of the church by every tide that rushed in from the various doors, till we stopped in a thick eddy in the centre, almost unable to stir a limb. I could see the altar very clearly from this point, and I contented myself with merely observing what was about me, leaving my motions to the impulse of the crowd.

It was a curiously mingled scene. The ceremonies of the altar were going on in all their mysterious splendor. The waving of censers, the kneeling and rising of the gorgeously clad priests, accompanied simultaneously by the pealing of solemn music from the different organs--the countless lights burning upon the altar, and, ranged within the paling, a semicircle of the duke's grenadiers, standing motionless, with their arms presented, while the sentinel paced to and fro, and all kneeling, and grounding arms at the tinkle of the slight bell--were the materials for the back-ground of the picture. In the immense area of the church stood perhaps, four thousand people, one third of whom, doubtless, came to worship. Those who did and those who did not, dropped alike upon the marble pavement at the sound of the bell; and then, as I was heretic enough to stand, I had full opportunity for observing both devotion and intrigue. The latter was amusingly managed. Almost all the pretty and young women were accompanied by an ostensible duenna, and the methods of eluding their vigilance in communication were various. I had detected under a _blond_ wig, in entering, the young amba.s.sador of a foreign court, who being _cavaliere servente_ to one of the most beautiful women in Florence, certainly had no right to the amus.e.m.e.nt of the hour. We had been carried up the church in the same tide, and when the whole crowd were prostrate, I found him just beyond me, slipping a card into the shoe of an uncommonly pretty girl kneeling before him. She was attended by both father and mother apparently, but as she gave no sign of surprise, except stealing an almost imperceptible glance behind her, I presumed she was not offended. I pa.s.sed an hour, perhaps, in amused observation of similar matters, most of which could not be well described on paper. It is enough to say, that I do not think more dissolute circ.u.mstances accompanied the worship of Venus in the most defiled of heathen temples.

LETTER L.

FLORENCE--VISIT TO THE CHURCH OF SAN GAETANO--PENITENTIAL PROCESSIONS--THE REFUGEE CARLISTS--THE MIRACLE OF RAIN--CHURCH OF THE ANNUNCIATA--TOMB OF GIOVANNI DI BOLOGNA--MASTERPIECE OF ANDREA DEL SARTO, ETC., ETC.

I heard the best pa.s.sage of the opera of "Romeo and Juliet"

delightfully played in the church of _San Gaetano_ this morning. I was coming from the _cafe_, where I had been breakfasting, when the sound of the organ drew me in. The communion was administering at one of the side chapels, the showy Sunday ma.s.s was going on at the great altar, and the numerous confession boxes were full of penitents, _all female_, as usual. As I took a seat near the communicants, the sacred wafer was dipped into the cup and put into the mouth of a young woman kneeling before the railing. She rose soon after, and I was not lightly surprised to find it was a certain errand-girl of a bachelor's washerwoman, as unfit a person for the holy sacrament as wears a petticoat in Florence.

I was drawn by the agreeable odor of the incense to the paling of the high altar. The censers were flung by unseen hands from the doors of the sacristy at the sides, and an unseen chorus of boys in the choir behind, broke in occasionally with the high-keyed chant that echoes with its wild melody from every arch and corner of these immense churches. It seems running upon the highest note that the ear can bear, and yet nothing could be more musical. A man knelt on the pavement near me, with two coa.r.s.e baskets beside him, and the traces of long and dirty travel from his heels to his hips. He had stopped in to the ma.s.s, probably, on his way to market. There can be no greater contrast than that seen in Catholic churches, between the splendor of architecture, renowned pictures, statues and ornaments of silver and gold, and the crowd of tattered, famished, misery-marked worshippers that throng them. I wonder it never occurs to them, that the costly pavement upon which they kneel might feed and clothe them.[6]

Penitential processions are to be met all over Florence to-day, on account of the uncommon degree of sickness. One of them pa.s.sed under my window just now. They are composed of people of all cla.s.ses, upon whom it is inflicted as a penance by the priests. A white robe covers them entirely, even the face, and, with their eyes glaring through the two holes made for that purpose, they look like processions of shrouded corpses. Eight of the first carry burning candles of six feet in length, and a company in the rear have the church books, from which they chant, the whole procession joining in a melancholy chorus of three notes. It rains hard to-day, and their white dresses cling to them with a ludicrously ungraceful effect.

Florence is an unhealthful climate in the winter. The tramontane winds come down from the Appenines so sharply, that delicate const.i.tutions, particularly those liable to pulmonary complaints, suffer invariably.

There has been a dismal mortality among the Italians. The Marquis Corsi, who presented me at court a week ago (the last day he was out, and the last duty he performed), lies in state, at this moment, in the church of Santa Trinita, and another of the duke's counsellors of state died a few days before. His prime minister, Fos...o...b..oni, is dangerously ill also, and all of the same complaint, the _mal di petto_, as it is called, or disease of the lungs. Corsi is a great loss to Americans. He was the grand chamberlain of court, wealthy and hospitable, and took particular pride in fulfilling the functions of an American amba.s.sador. He was a courtier of the old school, accomplished, elegant, and possessed of universal information.

The _refugee Carlists_ are celebrating to-day, in the church of Santa Maria Novella, the anniversary of the death of _Louis XVI_. The bishop of Strasbourg is here, and is performing high ma.s.s for the soul of the "_martyr_," as they term him. Italy is full of the more aristocratic families of France, and it has become _mauvais ton_ in society to advocate the present government of France, or even its principles.

They detest Louis Philippe with the virulence of a deadly private enmity, and declare universally, that they will exile themselves till they can return to overthrow him. Among the refugees are great numbers of young men, who are sent away from home with a chivalrous devotion to the cause of the d.u.c.h.ess of Berri, which they avow so constantly in the circles of Italian society, that she seems the exclusive heroine of the day. There was nothing seen of the French exquisites in Florence for a week after she was taken. They were in mourning for the misfortune of their mistress.

All Florence is ringing with _the miracle_. The city fountains have for some days been dry, and the whole country was suffering for rain.

_The day before the moon changed_, the procession began, and the day after, when the sky was full of clouds, the holy picture in the church of the Annunciata, "painted by St. Luke himself," was solemnly uncovered. The result was the present miracle of _rain_, and the priests are preaching upon it from every pulpit. The _padrone_ of my lodgings came in this morning, and told me the circ.u.mstances with the most serious astonishment.

I joined the crowd this morning, who are still thronging up the _via de Servi_ to the church of the Annunciata at all hours of the day. The square in front of the church was like a fair--every nook occupied with the little booths of the sellers of rosaries, saints books, and pictures. We were a.s.sailed by a troop of pedlars at the door, holding leaden medals and crucifixes, and crying, at the top of their voices, for _fidele Christiani_ to spend a crazie for the love of G.o.d.

After crowding up the long cloister with a hundred or two of wretches, steaming from the rain, and fresh from every filthy occupation in the city, we were pushed under the suspended leather door, and reached the nave of the church. In the slow progress we made toward the altar, I had full opportunity to study the fretted-gold ceiling above me, the masterly pictures in the side chapels, the statuary, carving, and general architecture. Description can give you no idea of the waste of splendor in these places.

I stood at last within sight of the miraculous picture. It is painted in fresco, above an altar surrounded with a paling of bronze and marble projecting into the body of the church. Eight or ten ma.s.sive silver lamps, each one presented by some _trade_ in Florence, hung from the roof of the chapel, burning with a dusky glare in the daylight. A grenadier, with cap and musket, stood on each side of the bronze gate, repressing the eager rush of the crowd. Within, at the side of the altar, stood the officiating priest, a man with a look of intellect and n.o.bleness on his fine features and lofty forehead, that seemed irreconcilable with the folly he was performing. The devotees came in, one by one, as they were admitted by the sentinel, knelt, offered their rosary to the priest, who touched it to the frame of the picture with one hand, and received their money with the other, and then crossing themselves, and pressing the beads to their bosom, pa.s.sed out at the small door leading into the cloisters.

As the only chance of seeing the picture, I bought a rosary for two crazie (about three cents), and pressed into the throng. In a half hour it came to my turn to pa.s.s the guard. The priest took my silver paul, and while he touched the beads to the picture, I had a moment to look at it nearly. I could see nothing but a confused ma.s.s of black paint, with an indistinct outline of the head of the Madonna in the centre. The large spiked rays of glory standing out from every side were all I could see in the imperfect light. The richness of the chapel itself, however, was better worth the trouble to see. It is quite encrusted with silver. Silver _ba.s.si relievi_, two silver candelabra, six feet in height, two very large silver statues of angels, a _ciborio_ (enclosing a most exquisite head of our Saviour, by _Andrea del Sarto_), a ma.s.sive silver cornice sustaining a heavily folded silver curtain, and silver lilies and lamps in any quant.i.ty all around. I wonder, after the plundering of the church of San Antonio, at Padua, that these useless riches escaped Napoleon.

How some of the priests, who are really learned and clever men, can lend themselves to such barefaced imposture as this miracle, it is difficult to conceive. The picture has been kept as a doer of these miracles, perhaps for a century. It is never uncovered in vain.

Supernatural results are certain to follow, and it is done as often as they dare to make a fresh draught on the credulity and money of the people. The story is as follows: "A certain Bartolomeo, while painting a fresco of the annunciation, being at a loss how to make the countenance of the Madonna properly seraphic, fell asleep while pondering over his work; and, on waking, found it executed in a style he was unable to equal." I can only say that St. Luke, or the angel, or whoever did it, was a very indifferent draughtsman. It is ill drawn, and whatever the colors might have been upon the pallet of the sleepy painter, they were not made immortal by angelic use. It is a ma.s.s of confused black.

I was glad to get away from the crowd and their mummery, and pay a new tribute of reverence at the tomb of _Giovanni di Bologna_. He is buried behind the grand altar, in a chapel ornamented at his own expense, and with his own inimitable works. Six bas-reliefs in bronze, than which life itself is not more natural, represent different pa.s.sages of our Saviour's history. They were done for the Grand Duke, who, at the death of the artist, liberally gave them to ornament his tomb. After the authors of the Venus and the Apollo Belvidere, John of Bologna is, in my judgment, the greatest of sculptors. His _mounting Mercury_, in the Florence gallery, might have been a theft from heaven for its divine beauty.

In pa.s.sing out by the cloisters of the adjoining convent, I stopped a moment to see the fresco of the _Madonna del Sacco_, said to have been the masterpiece of _Andrea del Sarto_. Michael Angelo and Raphael are said to have "gazed at it unceasingly." It is much defaced, and preserves only its graceful drawing. The countenance of Mary has the _beau reste_ of singular loveliness. The models of this delightful artist (who, by the way, is buried in the vestibule of this same church), must have been the most beautiful in the world. All his pictures move the heart.

FOOTNOTE:

[6] The Tuscans, who are the best governed people in Italy, pay _twenty per cent._ of their property in taxes--paying the whole value of their estates, of course, in five years. The extortions of the priests, added to this, are sufficiently burdensome.

LETTER LI.

FLORENTINE PECULIARITIES--SOCIETY--b.a.l.l.s--DUCAL ENTERTAINMENTS--PRIVILEGE OF STRANGERS--FAMILIES OF HIGH RANK--THE EXCLUSIVES--SOIREES--PARTIES OF A RICH BANKER--PEASANT BEAUTY--VISITERS OF A BARONESS--AWKWARD DEPORTMENT OF A PRINCE--A CONTENTED MARRIED LADY--HUSBANDS, CAVALIERS, AND WIVES--PERSONAL MANNERS--HABITS OF SOCIETY, ETC.

I am about starting on my second visit to Rome, after having pa.s.sed nearly three months in Florence. As I have seen most of the society of this gayest and fairest of the Italian cities, it may not be uninteresting to depart a little from the traveller's routine by sketching a feature or two.

Florence is a resort for strangers from every part of the world. The gay society is a mixture of all nations, of whom one third may be Florentine, one third English, and the remaining part equally divided between Russians, Germans, French, Poles, and Americans. The English entertain a great deal, and give most of the b.a.l.l.s and dinner parties.

The Florentines seldom trouble themselves to give parties, but are always at home for visits in the _prima sera_ (from seven till nine), and in their box at the opera. They go, without scruple, to all the strangers' b.a.l.l.s, considering courtesy repaid, perhaps, by the weekly reception of the Grand Duke, and a weekly ball at the club-house of young Italian n.o.blemen.

The ducal entertainments occur every Tuesday, and are the most splendid of course. The foreign ministers present all of their countrymen who have been presented at their own courts, and the company is necessarily more select than elsewhere. The Florentines who go to court are about seven hundred, of whom half are invited on each week--strangers, when once presented, having the double privilege of coming uninvited to all. There are several Italian families, of the highest rank, who are seen only here; but, with the single exception of one unmarried girl, of uncommon beauty, who bears a name celebrated in Italian history, they are no loss to general society. Among the foreigners of rank, are three or four German princes, who play high and waltz well, and are remarkable for nothing else; half a dozen star-wearing dukes, counts, and marquises, of all nations and in any quant.i.ty, and a few English n.o.blemen and n.o.ble ladies--only the latter nation showing their blood at all in their features and bearing.

The most exclusive society is that of the Prince Montfort (Jerome Bonaparte), whose splendid palace is shut entirely against the English, and difficult of access to all. He makes a single exception in favor of a descendant of the Talbots, a lady whose beauty might be an apology for a much graver departure from rule. He has given two grand entertainments since the carnival commenced, to which nothing was wanting but people to enjoy them. The immense rooms were flooded with light, the music was the best Florence could give, the supper might have supped an army--stars and red ribands entered with every fresh comer, but it looked like a "banquet hall deserted." Some thirty ladies, and as many men, were all that Florence contained worthy of the society of the Ex-King. A kinder man in his manners, however, or apparently a more affectionate husband and father, I never saw. He opened the dance by waltzing with the young Princess, his daughter, a lovely girl of fourteen, of whom he seems fond to excess, and he was quite the gayest person in the company till the ball was over. The Ex-Queen, who is a miracle of size, sat on a divan, with her ladies of honor about her, following her husband with her eyes, and enjoying his gayety with the most childish good humor.

The Sat.u.r.day evening _soirees_, at Prince Poniatowski's (a brother of the hero), are perhaps as agreeable as any in Florence. He has several grown-up sons and daughters married, and, with a very sumptuous palace and great liberality of style, he has made his parties more than usually valued. His eldest daughter is the leader of the fashion, and his second is the "cynosure of all eyes." The old Prince is a tall, bent, venerable man, with snow-white hair, and very peculiarly marked features. He is fond of speaking English, and professes a great affection for America.

Then there are the _soirees_ of the rich banker, Fenzi, which, as they are subservient to business, a.s.semble all ranks on the common pretensions of interest. At the last, I saw, among other curiosities, a young girl of eighteen from one of the more common families of Florence--a fine specimen of the peasant beauty of Italy. Her heavily moulded figure, hands, and feet, were quite forgiven when you looked at her dark, deep, indolent eye, and glowing skin, and strongly-lined mouth and forehead. The society was evidently new to her, but she had a manner quite beyond being astonished. It was the kind of _animal dignity_ so universal in the lower cla.s.ses of this country.

A German baroness of high rank receives on the Mondays, and here one sees foreign society in its highest coloring. The prettiest woman that frequents her parties, is a Genoese marchioness, who has _left her husband_ to live with a Lucchese count, who has _left his wife_. He is a very accomplished man, with the look of Mephistopheles in the "Devil's Walk," and she is certainly a most fascinating woman. She is received in most of the good society of Florence--a severe, though a very just comment on its character. A Prince, the brother of the King of ----, divided the attention of the company with her last Monday. He is a tall, military-looking man, with very bad manners, ill at ease, and impudent at the same time. He entered with his suite in the middle of a song. The singer stopped, the company rose, the Prince swept about, bowing like a dancing-master, and, after the sensation had subsided, the ladies were taken up and presented to him, one by one.

He asked them all the same question, stayed through two songs, which he spoiled by talking loudly all the while, and then bowed himself out in the same awkward style, leaving everybody more happy for his departure.

One gains little by his opportunities of meeting Italian ladies in society. The _cavaliere servente_ flourishes still as in the days of Beppo, and it is to him only that the lady condescends to _talk_.

There is a delicate, refined-looking, little marchioness here, who is remarkable as being the only known Italian lady without a cavalier.

They tell you, with an amused smile, "that she is content with her husband." It really seems to be a business of real love between the lady of Italy and her cavalier. Naturally enough too--for her parents marry her without consulting her at all, and she selects a friend afterward, as ladies in other countries select a lover who is to end in a husband. The married couple are never seen together by any accident, and the lady and her cavalier never apart. The latter is always invited with her as a matter of course, and the husband, if there is room, or if he is not forgotten. She is insulted if asked without a cavalier, but is quite indifferent whether her husband goes with her or not. These are points _really settled_ in the policy of society, and the rights of the cavalier are specified in the marriage contracts. I had thought, until I came to Italy, that such things were either a romance, or customs of an age gone by.

I like very much the personal manners of the Italians. They are mild and courteous to the farthest extent of looks and words. They do not entertain, it is true, but their great dim rooms are free to you whenever you can find them at home, and you are at liberty to join the gossiping circle around the lady of the house, or sit at the table and read, or be silent unquestioned. You are _let alone_, if you seem to choose it, and it is neither commented on, nor thought uncivil, and this I take to be a grand excellence in manners.

The society is dissolute, I think, almost without an exception. The English fall into its habits, with the difference that they do not conceal it so well, and have the appearance of knowing its wrong--which the Italians have not. The latter are very much shocked at the want of propriety in the management of the English. To suffer the particulars of an intrigue to get about is a worse sin, in their eyes, than any violation of the commandments. It is scarce possible for an American to conceive the universal corruption of a society like this of Florence, though, if he were not told of it he would think it all that was delicate and attractive. There are external features in which the society of our own country is far less scrupulous and proper.