Seeing Europe with Famous Authors Volume VII Part 5

"He was buried in the romantic and lonely cemetery of the Protestants, under the pyramid which is the tomb of Cestius, and the ma.s.sy walls and towers, now moldering and desolate, which formed the circuit of ancient Rome. It is an open s.p.a.ce among the ruins, covered in winter with violets and daisies. It might make one in love with death, to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place."

If Sh.e.l.ley had chosen his own grave at the time, he would have selected the very spot where he has since been laid--the most sequestered and flowery nook of the place he describes so feelingly.

On the second terrace of the declivity are ten or twelve graves, two of which bear the names of Americans who have died in Rome. A portrait carved in bas-relief, upon one of the slabs, told me, without the inscription, that one whom I had known was buried beneath. The slightly rising mound was covered with small violets, half hidden by the gra.s.s.

It takes away from the pain with which one stands over the grave of an acquaintance or a friend, to see the sun lying so warm upon it, and the flowers springing so profusely and cheerfully. Nature seems to have cared for those who have died so far from home, binding the earth gently over them with gra.s.s, and decking it with the most delicate flowers. We descended to the lower enclosure at the foot of the slight declivity.

The first grave here is that of Keats. The inscription runs thus:

"This grave contains all that was mortal of a young English poet, who, on his death-bed in the bitterness of his heart at the malicious power of his enemies, desired these words to be engraved on his tomb: 'Here lies one whose name was written in water.'"

He died at Rome in 1821. Every reader knows his history and the cause of his death. Sh.e.l.ley says, in the preface to his elegy:

"The savage criticism on his poems, which appeared in the "Quarterly Review," produced the most violent effect on his susceptible mind; the agitation thus originated ended in a rupture of a blood-vessel in the lungs; a rapid consumption ensued, and the succeeding acknowledgments, from more candid critics, of the true greatness of his powers, were ineffectual to heal the wound thus wantonly inflicted."

Keats was, no doubt, a poet of very uncommon promise. He had all the wealth of genius within him, but he had not learned, before he was killed by criticism, the received, and, therefore, the best manner of producing it for the eye of the world. Had he lived longer, the strength and richness which break continually through the affected style of "Endymion" and "Lamia" and his other poems, must have formed themselves into some n.o.ble monuments of his powers. As it is, there is not a poet living who could surpa.s.s the material of his "Endymion"--a poem, with all its faults, far more full of beauties. But this is not the place for criticism. He is buried fitly for a poet, and sleeps beyond criticism now. Peace to his ashes!

EXCURSIONS NEAR ROME[25]

BY CHARLES d.i.c.kENS

The excursions in the neighborhood of Rome are charming, and would be full of interest were it only for the changing views they afford of the wild Campagna. But every inch of ground in every direction is rich in a.s.sociations, and in natural beauties. There is Albano, with its lovely lake and wooded sh.o.r.e, and with its wine, that certainly has not improved since the days of Horace, and in these times hardly justifies his panegyric. There is squalid Tivoli, with the river Anio, diverted from its course, and plunging down, headlong, some eighty feet in search of it, with its picturesque Temple of the Sibyl, perched high on a crag; its minor waterfalls glancing and sparkling in the sun; and one good cavern yawning darkly, where the river takes a fearful plunge and shoots on, low down under beetling rocks.

There, too, is the Villa d'Este, deserted and decaying among groves of melancholy pine and cypress-trees, where it seems to lie in state. Then, there is Frascati, and, on the steep above it, the ruins of Tusculum, where Cicero lived, and wrote, and adorned his favorite house (some fragments of it may yet be seen there), and where Cato was born. We saw its ruined amphitheater on a gray, dull day, when a shrill March wind was blowing, and when the scattered stones of the old city lay strewn about the lonely eminence, as desolate and dead as the ashes of a long-extinguished fire.

One day we walked out, a little party of three, to Albano, fourteen miles distant; possest by a great desire to go there by the ancient Appian Way, long since ruined and overgrown. We started at half-past seven in the morning, and within an hour or so were out upon the open Campagna. For twelve miles we went climbing on, over an unbroken succession of mounds, and heaps, and hills of ruin. Tombs and temples, overthrown and prostrate; small fragments of columns, friezes, pediments; great blocks of granite and marble; moldering arches gra.s.s-grown and decayed; ruin enough to build a s.p.a.cious city from; lay strewn about us. Sometimes loose walls, built up from these fragments by the shepherds, came across our path; sometimes a ditch, between two mounds of broken stones, obstructed our progress; sometimes, the fragments themselves, rolling from beneath our feet, made it a toilsome matter to advance; but it was always ruin. Now, we tracked a piece of the old road above the ground; now traced it underneath a gra.s.sy covering, as if that were its grave; but all the way was ruin.

In the distance, ruined aqueducts went stalking on their giant course along the plain; and every breath of wind that swept toward us, stirred early flowers and gra.s.ses, springing up, spontaneously, on miles of ruin. The unseen larks above us, who alone disturbed the awful silence, had their nests in ruin; and the fierce herdsmen, clad in sheepskins, who now and then scowled out upon us from their sleeping nooks, were housed in ruin. The aspect of the desolate Campagna in one direction, where it was most level, reminded me of an American prairie; but what is the solitude of a region where men have never dwelt, to that of a desert, where a mighty race have left their footprints in the earth from which they have vanished; where the resting-places of their dead have fallen like their dead; and the broken hour-gla.s.s of Time is but a heap of idle dust! Returning by the road at sunset, and looking, from the distance, on the course we had taken in the morning, I almost felt (as I had felt when I first saw it, at that hour) as if the sun would never rise again, but looked its last, that night, upon a ruined world.

To come again to Rome, by moonlight, after such an expedition, is a fitting close to such a day. The narrow streets, devoid of footways, and choked, in every obscure corner, by heaps of dung-hill-rubbish, contrast so strongly, in their cramped dimensions, and their filth and darkness, with the broad square before some haughty church; in the center of which, a hieroglyphic-covered obelisk, brought from Egypt in the days of the Emperors, looks strangely on the foreign scene about it; or perhaps an ancient pillar, with its honored statue overthrown, supports a Christian saint; Marcus Aurelius giving place to Paul, and Trajan to St.

Peter. Then, there are the ponderous buildings reared from the spoliation of the Coliseum, shutting out the moon, like mountains; while here and there are broken arches and rent walls, through which it gushes freely, as the life comes pouring from a wound. The little town of miserable houses, walled, and shut in by barred gates, is the quarter where the Jews are locked up nightly, when the clock strikes eight--a miserable place, densely populated, and reeking with bad odors, but where the people are industrious and money-getting. In the daytime, as you make your way along the narrow streets, you see them all at work--upon the pavement, oftener than in their dark and frowsy shops; furbishing old clothes, and driving bargains.

Crossing from these patches of thick darkness out into the moon once more, the fountain of Trevi, welling from a hundred jets, and rolling over mimic rocks, is silvery to the eye and ear. In the narrow little throat of street beyond, a booth drest out with flaring lamps, and boughs of trees, attracts a group of sulky Romans around its smoky coppers of hot broth, and cauliflower stew; its trays of fried fish, and its flasks of wine. As you rattle around the sharply twisting corner, a lumbering sound is heard. The coachman stops abruptly, and uncovers, as a van comes slowly by, preceded by a man who bears a large cross; by a torch-bearer, and a priest; the latter chanting as he goes. It is the dead-cart, with the bodies of the poor, on their way to burial in the Sacred Field outside the walls, where they will be thrown into the pit that will be covered with a stone to-night, and sealed up for a year.

But whether, in this ride, you pa.s.s by obelisks, or columns, ancient temples, theaters, houses, porticoes or forums, it is strange to see how every fragment, whenever it is possible, has been blended into some modern structure, and made to serve some modern purpose--a wall, a dwelling-place, a granary, a stable--some use for which it never was designed, and a.s.sociated with which it can not otherwise than lamely a.s.sort.

II

FLORENCE

THE APPROACH BY CARRIAGE ROAD[26]

BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Immediately after leaving Incisa, we saw the Arno, already a considerable river, rushing between deep banks, with the greenish hue of a duck-pond diffused through its water. Nevertheless, tho the first impression was not altogether agreeable, we soon became reconciled to this hue, and ceased to think it an indication of impurity; for, in spite of it, the river is still, to a certain degree, transparent, and is, at any rate, a mountain stream, and comes uncontaminated from its source. The pure, transparent brown of the New England rivers is the most beautiful color; but I am content that it should be peculiar to them.

Our afternoon's drive was through scenery less striking than some which we had traversed, but still picturesque and beautiful. We saw deep valleys and ravines, with streams at the bottom; long, wooded hillsides, rising far and high, and dotted with white dwellings, well toward the summits. By and by, we had a distant glimpse of Florence, showing its great dome and some of its towers out of a sidelong valley, as if we were between two great waves of the tumultuous sea of hills; while, far beyond, rose in the distance the blue peaks of three or four of the Apennines, just on the remote horizon. There being a haziness in the atmosphere, however, Florence was little more distinct to us than the Celestial City was to Christian and Hopeful, when they spied at it from the Delectable Mountains.

Keeping steadfastly onward, we ascended a winding road, and pa.s.sed a grand villa, standing very high, and surrounded with extensive grounds.

It must be the residence of some great n.o.ble; and it has an avenue of poplars or aspens, very light and gay, and fit for the pa.s.sage of the bridal procession, when the proprietor or his heir brings home his bride; while in another direction from the same front of the palace stretches an avenue or grove of cypresses, very long and exceedingly black and dismal, like a train of gigantic mourners. I have seen few things more striking, in the way of trees, than this grove of cypresses.

From this point we descended, and drove along an ugly, dusty avenue, with a high brick wall on one side or both, till we reached the gate of Florence, into which we were admitted with as little trouble as custom-house officers, soldiers, and policemen can possibly give. They did not examine our luggage, and even declined a fee, as we had already paid one at the frontier custom-house. Thank heaven, and the Grand Duke!

As we hoped that the Casa del Bello had been taken for us, we drove thither in the first place, but found that the bargain had not been concluded. As the house and studio of Mr. Powers[27] were just on the opposite side of the street, I went to it, but found him too much engrossed to see me at the moment; so I returned to the "vettura," and we told Gaetano to carry us to a hotel. He established us at the Albergo della Fontana, a good and comfortable house. Mr. Powers called in the evening--a plain personage, characterized by strong simplicity and warm kindliness, with an impending brow, and large eyes, which kindle as he speaks. He is gray, and slightly bald, but does not seem elderly, nor past his prime. I accept him at once as an honest and trustworthy man, and shall not vary from this judgment. Through his good offices, the next day we engaged the Casa del Bello. This journey from Rome has been one of the brightest and most uncareful interludes of my life; we have all enjoyed it exceedingly, and I am happy that our children have it to look back upon.

THE OLD PALACE AND THE LOGGIA[28]

BY THeOPHILE GAUTIER

Every great capital has its eye; at Rome it is the Campo Vaccino; at Paris, the Boulevard des Italiens; at Venice, the Place St. Mark; at Madrid, the Prado; at London, the Strand; at Naples, the Via di Toledo.

Rome is more Roman, Paris more Parisian, Venice more Venetian, Madrid more Spanish, London more English, Naples more Neapolitan, in that privileged locality than anywhere else. The eye of Florence is the Place of the Grand Duke--a beautiful eye. In fact, suppress that Place and Florence has no more meaning--it might be another city. It is at that Place, therefore, that every traveler ought to begin, and, moreover, had he not that intention, the tide of pedestrians would carry him and the streets themselves would conduct him thither.

The first aspect of the Place of the Grand Duke has an effect so charming, so picturesque, so complete, that you comprehend all at once into what an error the modern capitals like London, Paris, St.

Petersburg, fall in forming, under the pretext of squares, in their compact ma.s.ses, immense empty s.p.a.ces upon which they run aground all possible and impossible modes of decoration. One can touch with his finger the reason which makes of the Carrousel and Place de la Concorde, great empty fields which absorb fountains, statues, arches of triumph, obelisks, candelabra, and little gardens. All these embellishments, very pretty on paper, very agreeable also, without doubt, viewed from a balloon, are almost lost for the spectator who can not grasp the whole, his height only rising five feet above the ground.

A square, in order to produce a beautiful effect, ought not to be too big; it is also necessary that it should be bordered by varied monuments of diverse elevations. The Place of the Grand Duke at Florence unites all these conditions; bordered by monuments regular in themselves, but different from one another, it is pleasing to the eye without wearying by a cold symmetry.

The Palace of the Seigneurie, or Old Palace, which by its imposing ma.s.s and severe elegance at first attracts the attention, occupies a corner of the Place, instead of the middle. This idea, a happy one, in our opinion, regrettable for those who only see architectural beauty in geometrical regularity, is not fortuitous; it has a reason wholly Florentine. In order to obtain perfect symmetry, it would have been necessary to build upon the detested soil of the Ghibelline house, rebellious and proscribed by the Uberti; something that the Guelph faction, then all-powerful, were not willing to allow the architect, Arnolfo di Lapo, to do. Learned men contest the truth of this tradition; we will not discuss here the value of their objections. It is certain, however, that the Old Palace gains greatly by the singularity of this location and also leaves s.p.a.ce for the great Fountain of Neptune and the equestrian statue of Cosmo the First.

The name of fortress would be more appropriate than any other, for the Old Palace; it is a great ma.s.s of stone, without columns, without frontal, without order of architecture. Time has gilded the walls with beautiful vermilion tints which the pure blue of the sky sets off marvelously, and the whole structure has that haughty and romantic aspect which accords well with the idea that one forms for oneself of that old Palace of the Seigneurie, the witness, since the date of its erection in the thirteenth century, of so many intrigues, tumults, violent acts, and crimes. The battlements of the palace, cut square, show that it was built to that height by the Guelph faction; the trifurcated battlements of the belfry indicate a sudden change on the accession to power of the Ghibelline faction.

Guelphs and Ghibellines detested each other so violently that they exprest their opinions in their garments, in the cut of their hair, in their arms, in their manner of fortifying themselves. They feared nothing so much as to be captured by one another, and differed as much as they possibly could. They had a special salutation after the manner of the Freemasons and the Companions of Duty. The opinions of the ancient owners of the Old Palace at Florence can be recognized by this characteristic; the walls of the city are crenelated squarely in the Guelph fashion, and the tower on the ramparts has the Ghibelline battlements of swallow-tail shape.

The Vecchio Palace has for its bas.e.m.e.nt several steps which were used in former times as a species of tribune, from the top of which the magistrates and demagogs harangued the people. Two colossal statues of marble--Hercules slaying Cacus, by Bandinelli, and David the Conqueror of Goliath, by Michael Angelo--mount near the door their age-long watch, like two gigantic sentinels whom someone has forgotten to relieve. The statue of David by Michael Angelo besides the inconvenience there is in representing under a gigantic form a Biblical hero of notoriously small size, seemed to us a trifle common and heavy, a rare defect with this master; his David is a great big boy, fleshy, broad-backed, with monstrous biceps, a market porter waiting to put a sack upon his back.

The working of the marble is remarkable and, after all, is a fine piece of study which would do honor to any other sculptor except Michael Angelo; but there is lacking that Olympian mastership which characterizes the works of that superhuman sculptor.

One of the most curious features of the Old Palace is the grand salon, a hall of enormous dimensions, which has its legend. When the Medici were driven from Florence, in 1494, Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who directed the popular movement, proposed the idea of constructing an immense hall where a council of a thousand citizens would elect the magistrates and regulate the affairs of the republic. The architect Cronaca had charge of this task and acquitted himself of it with a celerity so marvelous that Brother Savonarola caused the rumor to spread that angels descended from heaven to help the masons and continued at night the interrupted work. The invention of these angels tempering the mortar and carrying the hod is all done in the legendary style of the Middle Ages and would furnish a charming subject for a picture to some ingenuous painter of the school of Overbeck or of Hauser. In this rapid construction Cronaca displayed, if not all his genius, at least all his agility. The work has been justly admired and often consulted by architects.

When the Medici returned to power and transferred their residence from the Palace of the Via Larga, which they had occupied, to the Palace of the Seigneurie, Cosmo wished to change the Council Hall into an audience chamber, and charged the presumptuous Bacchio Bandinelli, whose designs had attracted him, with various alterations of an important character; but the sculptor had undoubtedly presumed too much on his talent as an architect, and in spite of the a.s.sistance of Giuliano Baccio d'Agnolo, whom he called to his aid, he worked for ten years without being able to conquer the difficulties which he had created for himself.

It was Vasari who raised the ceiling several feet, finished the work and decorated the walls with a succession of frescoes which may still be seen, and which represent different episodes in the history of Florence--combats, and captures of cities, the whole being a travesty of antiquity, an intermingling of allegories. These frescos, painted with an intrepid and learned mediocrity, display the commonplace tones, swelling muscles and anatomical tricks in use at that epoch among artists.

We have already called attention to the fact that colossal dimensions are not at all necessary to produce effect in architecture. The Loggia de Lanzi, that gem of the Place of the Grand Duke, consists of a portico composed of four arcades, three on the facade, one in return on the gallery of the offices. It is a miniature of a monument; but the harmony of its proportions is so perfect that the eye in contemplating it experiences a sense of satisfaction. The nearness of the Palace of the Seigneurie, with its compact ma.s.s, admirably sets off the elegant slenderness of its arches and columns. The Loggia is a species of Museum in the open air. The "Perseus" of Benvenuto Cellini, the "Judith" of Donatello, the "Rape of the Sabines" of John of Bologna, are framed in the arcades. Six antique statues--the cardinal and monastic virtues--by Jacques, called Pietro, a Madonna by Orgagna adorn the interior wall.

Two lions, one antique, the other modern, by Vacca, almost as good as the Greek lions of the a.r.s.enal at Venice, complete the decoration.

The Perseus may be regarded as the masterpiece of Benvenuto Cellini, an artist so highly spoken of in France, without scarcely anything being known about him. This statue, a little affected in its pose, like all the works of the Florentine school, has a juvenile grace which is very attractive.