The Greville Memoirs Volume I Part 37

The horses were announced, and I was obliged to break off my account of Terni and resume it here, where I arrived after a tedious journey of forty hours, from Rome.

Most people are dragged up the mountain by _bovi_, see the upper part of the fall, and walk down. But as the _bovi_ were not at hand, I reversed the usual order, walked to the bottom, and then toiled to the top. The walk, which is lovely, lies through the grounds of a count, who has a house close to the Nera (the Nera (Nar) is the river into which the Velino runs, and in which there is very good trout fishing), where the Queen of England once lived for a month. At the different points of view are little cabins (which would be very picturesque if they were less rudely constructed) for the accommodation of artists and other travellers. This gentleman has got a house which he reserves for the use of artists, of which there are always several on the spot during the summer. They pay nothing for the accommodation, but each is obliged to leave a drawing when he goes away; and by this means he has got an interesting collection, of the scenery of Terni. Nothing can be more accurate, as well as beautiful, than Byron's description of the cascade, and it is wonderful in his magnificent poetry, how he has kept his imagination within the bounds of truth, and neither added a circ.u.mstance nor lavished an epithet to which it is not ent.i.tled.

Horribly beautiful! but on the verge From side to side, beneath the glittering morn, An Iris sits amidst the infernal surge, Like Hope upon a death-bed, and, unworn Its steady dyes, while all around is torn By the distracted waters, bears serene Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn: Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene, Love watching Madness with unalterable mien.

The rainbows are very various, seen from different points: from the middle, where the river rushes from the vortex of the great fall to plunge into another, the stream appears to be painted with a broad layer of divers colours, never broken or mixed till they are tossed up in the cloud of spray, and mingled with it in a thousand variegated sparkles. Above, an iris bestrides the moist green hill which rises by the side of the fall; and, as the spray is whirled up in greater or less abundance, it perpetually and rapidly changes its colours, now disappearing altogether, and now beaming with the utmost vividness. The man told me that at night the moon forms a white rainbow on the hill. There is a delicious but dangerous coolness all about the cascade. All the scenery about is as beautiful as possible. Just above the great fall is the Velinus tearing along in the same channel, which was first made for him by the Roman Consul 2,200 years ago--

Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice--

and there, the guide told me, some years ago a man threw in a young and beautiful wife of whom he was jealous. He took her to see the cascade, and when he got to this part (which is at the end of a narrow path overhung with brushwood) he got rid of the boys who always follow visitors, and after some delay returned alone, and said the woman had fallen in. One scream had been heard, but there was n.o.body to witness the truth. The mangled body was found in the stream below. Jealousy is probably common here. As I was walking a man pa.s.sed me, going in great haste to the mountain, but I paid no attention to him. When I got back I heard that he was escaping from justice (into the Abruzzi, which are in the Neapolitan dominions), having stabbed his brother-in-law a few moments before out of jealousy of his wife.

The wounded man was still alive, but badly hurt. The murderer was _un bravo mechanico_.

The mountain and the river have undergone many revolutions. The rock through which the present path is cut has been formed entirely by petrified deposits, and there are marks in various parts of former cascades, from which the water has been turned away. Clement VIII. (Aldobrandini) turned the water into its present course. At the bottom the old outlet of the Romans is dry, but is marked with that solidity which defies time, like all their works of this kind. Great part of the road from Terni is beautiful, and the Papal towns and villages appear to be in much better condition than on the other road. Some of them perched on the mountains are remarkably picturesque.

Bologna, June 14th, 1830 {p.402}

I went yesterday morning to Pratolino to see the statue of the genius of the Apennines, by John of Bologna, six miles from Florence. Pratolino was the favourite residence of the famous Bianca Capello. The house has been pulled down. It is in a very pretty English garden belonging to the Grand Duke, and, I think, amazingly grand, but disgraced by presiding over a duck pond.

They told me that if he stood up (and he looks as if he could if he would) he would be thirty _braccia_ in height. I went into his head, and surveyed him on all sides. He ought to be placed over some torrent, or on the side of a mountain; but as he is, from a little distance (whence the ducks and their pond are not visible) he is sublime. Myriads of fire-flies sparkled in every bush; they are beautiful in a night journey, flitting about like meteors and glittering like shooting stars.

[Page Head: MEZZOFANTI]

Dined with Lady Normanby at Sesto, set off at half-past eight, and arrived here at nine this morning. The first thing I did was to present my letter to Madame de Marescalchi from her sister, the d.u.c.h.esse de Dalberg, who received me graciously and asked me to dinner; the next to call on Mezzofanti at the public library, whom I found at his desk in the great room, surrounded by a great many people reading. He received me very civilly, and almost immediately took me into another room, where I had a long conversation with him. He seems to be between fifty and sixty years of age, short, pale, and thin, and not at all remarkable in countenance or manner. He spoke English with extraordinary fluency and correctness, and with a very slight accent. I endeavoured to detect some inaccuracy of expression, but could not, though perhaps his phraseology was occasionally more stiff than that of an Englishman would be. He gave me an account of his beginning to study languages, which he did not do till he was of a mature age. The first he mastered were the Greek and Hebrew, the latter on account of divinity, and afterwards he began the modern languages, acquiring the idioms of each as he became acquainted with the parent tongue. He said that he had no particular disposition that way when a child, and I was surprised when he said that the knowledge of several languages was of no a.s.sistance to him in mastering others; on the contrary, that when he set to work at a fresh language he tried to put out of his head all others. I asked him of all modern languages which he preferred, and which he considered the richest in literature. He said, 'Without doubt the Italian.' He then discussed the genius of the English language, and the merits of our poets and historians, read, and made me read, a pa.s.sage of an English book, and then examined the etymology and p.r.o.nunciation of several words. He has never been out of Italy, or further in it than Leghorn, talks of going to Rome, but says it is so difficult to leave his library. He is very pleasing, simple, and communicative, and it is extraordinary, with his wonderful knowledge, that he should never have written and published any work upon languages.

He asked me to return if I stayed at Bologna. The library has a tolerable suite of apartments, and the books, amounting to about 80,000 volumes, are in excellent order. One thousand crowns a year are allowed for the purchase of new books.

The Bolognese jargon is unintelligible. A man came and asked him some questions while I was there in a language that was quite strange to me, and when I asked Mezzofanti what it was, he said Bolognese, and that, though not harmonious, it was forcible and expressive. Afterwards to the gallery, which contains the finest pictures in Italy, though only a few: the Guidos and Domenichinos are splendid. I think Domenichino the finest painter that ever existed.

June 15th, 1830 {p.404}

Dined yesterday with Madame de Marescalchi, who lives in a great palace, looking dirty and uncomfortable, except one or two rooms which they occupy. There is a gallery of pictures, all of which are for sale. Seven or eight Italians came to dinner, whose names I never discovered. After dinner she took me to the Certosa, to see the Campo Santo, which is a remarkably pretty spot, and the dead appear to be more agreeably lodged at Bologna than the living. I had much rather die here than live here. It is very unlike the Campo Santo at Pisa, entirely modern, and looks exceedingly cheerful. Guido's skull is kept here.

Went again to the gallery, and the Zambeccari Palace, where there are a few good pictures, but not many. All the pictures in all the palaces are for sale.

[Page Head: FERRARA]

_In the ferry, crossing the Po_ (i.e. written in the ferry).--Called on Madame de Marescalchi to take leave. Set off at half-past one, and in clouds of dust arrived at Ferrara. It is curious to see this town, so large, deserted, and melancholy. A pestilence might have swept over it, for there seems no life in it, and hardly a soul is to be seen in the streets. It is eight and a half miles round, and contains 24,000 inhabitants, of which 3,000 are Jews, and their quarter is the only part of the town which seems alive. They are, as usual, crammed into a corner, five streets being allotted to them, at each end of which is a gate that is closed at nine o'clock, when the Jews are shut in for the night. The houses are filthy, stinking, and out of repair. The Corso is like a street in an English town, broad, long, the houses low, and with a _trottoir_ on both sides. The Castle, surrounded by a moat, stands in the middle of the town, a gloomy place. In it lives the Cardinal Legate. I went to see the dungeon in which Ta.s.so was confined; and the library, where they show Ariosto's chair and inkstand, a medal found upon his body when his tomb was opened, two books of his ma.n.u.script poetry; also the ma.n.u.script of the 'Gerusalemme,' with the alterations which Ta.s.so made in it while in prison, and the original ma.n.u.script of Guarini's 'Pastor Fido.' The _custode_ told me that in the morning the library was full of readers, which I did not believe. There are some illuminated Missals, said to be the finest in Italy. Though the idea of gaiety seems inconsistent with Ferrara, they have an opera, corso, and the same round of festivals and merriment as other Italian towns, but I never saw so dismal a place.

[Page Head: VENICE]

Venice, June 16th, 1830 {p.405}

We crossed the Po, and afterwards the Adige, in boats. The country is flat, and reminded me of the Netherlands. I was asleep all night, but awoke in time to see some of the villas on the banks of the Brenta. Of Padua I was unconscious. Embarked in a gondola at Fusina, and arrived at this remarkable city under the bad auspices of a dark, gloomy, and very cold day. It is Venice, but living Venice no more. In my progress to the inn I saw nothing but signs of ruin and blasted grandeur, palaces half decayed, and the windows boarded up. The approach to the city is certainly as curious as possible, so totally unlike everything else, and on entering the Great Ca.n.a.l, and finding

The death-like silence and the dread repose

of a place which was once the gayest and most brilliant in the world, a little pang shoots across the imagination, recollecting its strange and romantic history and its poetical a.s.sociations.

_Two o'clock._--I am just driven in by a regular rainy day, and have the prospect of shivering through the rest of it in a room with marble floor and hardly any furniture. However, it is the only bad day there has been since the beginning of my expedition.

The most striking thing in Venice (at least in such weather as this) is the unbroken silence. The gondolas glide along without noise or motion, and, except other gondolas, one may traverse the city without perceiving a sign of life. I went first to the Church of Santa Maria dei Frati, which is fine, old, and adorned with painting and sculpture. At Santa Maria dei Frati t.i.tian was buried. Canova intended a monument for him, but after his death his design was executed and put up in this church, but for him, and not for t.i.tian, the reverse of 'sic vos non vobis.' Here are tombs of several Doges, of Francis Foscari, with a pompous inscription. The body of Carmagnola lies here in a wooden coffin; his head is under the stone on which it was cut off in the Piazza di San Marco. He was beheaded by one of those pieces of iniquity and treachery which the Venetian Government never scrupled to use when it suited them. Then to the Scuola di San Rocco, containing a splendid apartment and staircase, all richly gilded, painted by Tintoret, and with bronze doors. To the Church of Santa Maria della Salute, containing a very rich altar-piece of precious stones, which is locked up, and produced on great occasions; and in the sacristy three fine pictures by t.i.tian. To the Church of St. Mark and the Doge's Palace--all very interesting, antique, and splendid. But the Austrians have modernised some of the rooms, and consequently spoilt them. They have also blocked up the Bridge of Sighs, and the reason (they told me) is that all the foreigners who come here are so curious to walk over it, which seems an odd one for shutting it up. The halls of audience and of the different councils are magnificently gilded, and contain some very fine pictures.

The Hall of the Council of Ten (the most powerful and the most abominable tribunal that ever existed) has been partly modernised. In the Chamber of the Inquisitors of State is still the hole in the wall which was called the 'Lion's Mouth,' through which written communications were made; and the box into which they fell, which the Inquisitors alone could open. There were 'Bocche di Lioni' in several places at the head of the Giant's Staircase, and in others. The mouths are gone, but the holes remain. Though the interior of the Ponte di Sospiri is no longer visible, the prisons are horrible places, twenty-four in number, besides three others under water which the French had closed up.

They are about fourteen feet long, seven wide, and seven high, with one hole to admit air, a wooden bed, which was covered with straw, and a shelf. In one of the prisons are several inscriptions, scrawled on the wall and ceiling.

Di chi mi fido, mi guardi Iddio, Di chi non mi fido, mi guardo io.

Un parlar pocho, un negar p.r.o.nto, Un pensar in fine pu dar la vita A noi altri meschini.

Non fida d'alcuno, pensi e tacci Se fuggir vuoi di spioni, insidie e lacci.

Il pentirti, il pentirti, nulla giova Ma ben del valor tuo far vera prova.

There are two places in which criminals, or prisoners, were secretly executed; they were strangled, and without seeing their executioner, for a cord was pa.s.sed through an opening, which he twisted till the victim was dead. This was the mode pursued with the prisoners of the Inquisitors; those of the Council were often placed in a cell to which there was a thickly grated window, through which the executioner did his office, and if they resisted he stabbed them in the throat. The wall is still covered with the blood of those who have thus suffered. From the time of their erection, 800 years ago, to the destruction of the Republic n.o.body was ever allowed to see these prisons, till the French came and threw them open, when the people set fire to them and burnt all the woodwork; the stone was too solid to be destroyed.

One or two escaped, and they remain as memorials of the horrors that were perpetrated in them.

[Page Head: VENICE]

June 17th, 1830 {p.408}

This morning was fine again, and everything looks gayer than yesterday. From the Rialto to the Piazza di San Marco there is plenty of life and movement, and it is exactly like Cranbourne Alley and the other alleys out of Leicester Square. While Venice was prosperous St. Mark's must have been very brilliant, but everything is decayed. All round the piazza are coffee houses, which used to be open and crowded all night, and some of them are still open, but never crowded. They used to be illuminated with lamps all round, but most of these are gone. One sees a few Turks smoking and drinking their coffee here, but they are all obliged to dine and sleep in one house, which is on the Grand Ca.n.a.l, and called the Casa dei Turchi. I went this morning to the Chiesa Scalzi, San Georgio Meggiore, Redentore, SS. Giovanni e Paolo, and the Gesuiti. The latter is the most beautiful church I ever saw, the whole of it adorned with white marble inlaid with verd antique in a regular pattern. SS. Giovanni e Paolo has no marble or gilding, but is full of monuments of Doges and generals. To the Manfrini Palace for the pictures. The finest picture in the palace is t.i.tian's 'Deposition from the Cross,' for which the Marchese Manfrini refused 10,000 ducats. A Guido (Lucretia) and some others. Tintoret was no doubt a great genius, but his large pictures I cannot admire, and Ba.s.sano's still less. t.i.tian's portrait of Ariosto is the most interesting in the collection. To the a.r.s.enal, which is three miles in circ.u.mference, and a prodigious establishment. In the time of the Republic there were nearly 6,000 men employed in it, in that of the French 4,000, now 800. The old armoury is very curious, full of ancient weapons, the armour of Henry IV. of France, and of several Doges, Turkish spoils, and instruments of torture. The Austrians have made the French much regretted here. It is since the last peace that the population of Venice has diminished a fourth, and the palaces of the n.o.bles have been abandoned. There is no commerce; the Government spend no money, and do nothing to enliven or benefit the town (there has not yet been time to see the effect of making it a free port). The French employed the people, and spent money and embellished the place. They covered over a wide ca.n.a.l and turned it into a fine street, and adjoining it they formed a large public garden, which is a delightful addition to the town.

Till the French came the bridges were dangerous; there was no bal.u.s.trade on either side, and people often fell into the water.

They built side walls to all of them, which was the most useful gift they could bestow upon the Venetians.

This morning I asked for the newspapers which came by the post yesterday, and found that they had not yet returned from the police, and would not be till to-morrow. Before anybody is allowed to read their newspapers they must undergo examination, and if they contain anything which the censor deems objectionable they detain them altogether. After dinner I went to the public gardens, and into a theatre which is in them; there is no roof to it, and the acting is all by daylight, and in the open air. I only arrived at the end, just in time to see the deliverance of a Christian heroine and a very truculent-looking Turk crammed down a trap-door, but I could not understand the dialogue. Nothing certainly can be more extraordinary or more beautiful than Venice with her adjacent islands, and nothing more luxurious than throwing oneself into a gondola and smoothly gliding about the whole day, without noise, motion, or dust. At night I went to a dirty, ill-lit theatre, to see the 'Barbiere di Seviglia,' which was very ill performed. There was a ballet, but I did not stay for it.

June 18th, 1830 {p.409}

To the Church of St. Mark, and examined it. It is not large, but very curious, so loaded with ornament within and without, and so unlike any other church. The pavement, instead of being flat, is made to undulate like the waves of the sea. All the sides are marble, all the top mosaic, all the pavement coloured marble in exquisite patterns. There is not a single tomb in it, but it wants no ornament that the wealth and skill of ages could supply.

Climbed up the tower to see Venice and the islands; a man is posted here day and night to strike the hours and quarters on a great bell, to ring the alarm in case of fire in any part of the city. It is a very curious panorama, and the only spot from which this strange place can be completely seen. In the Grimani Palace there are some t.i.tians (not very good) of Grimani Doges, and others of the family; the famous statue of Agrippa, which Cardinal Grimani brought from Home, and a ceiling by Salviati of Neptune and Minerva contending to give a name to Athens. In the Pisani Palace, a fine picture of P. Veronese, 'Darius's Family at the Feet of Alexander.'[13] The Barbarigo Palace has never been modernised, has kept all its original form and decorations. It is full of t.i.tians, all very dirty and spoiling. The finest is the 'Magdalen,' which is famous. The Royal Academy, called the Scuola della Carita, contains a magnificent collection of the Venetian school.

[13] [This fine work is now in the National Gallery, London.]

In I forget which church is the 'Martyrdom of St. Peter' by t.i.tian, so like in composition the same subject by Domenichino at Bologna that the one is certainly an imitation of the other (t.i.tian died in 1576; Domenichino was born in 1581). There is the same sort of landscape, same number of figures, and in the same respective att.i.tudes and actions, and even the same dress to each. In the hall of the Academy are preserved Canova's right hand in an urn, and underneath it his chisel, with these words inscribed: 'Quod amoris monumentum idem gloriae instrumentum fuit.' There is also a collection of drawings and sketches by various masters; some by M. Angelo and some by Raphael.

[Page Head: VINCENZA AND PADUA]

Vicenza, June 19th, 1830 {p.411}

This morning went again to St. Mark's to examine the library and the palace, which I could hardly see the other day, it was such, gloomy weather. The library is open to everybody, but with a long list of rules, among which silence is particularly enjoined. The _custos librorum_ is a thorough Venetian; talked with fond regret of the splendour of the Republic, and is very angry with Daru for his history. The Hall of the Great Council, containing the portraits of the Doges (and Marino Faliero's black curtain), is splendid, and adorned with paintings of Paul Veronese, Ba.s.sano, Tintoret, and Palma Giovane. At twelve o'clock I got into the gondola and left Venice without the least regret or desire to return there. The banks of the Brenta would be very gay if the villas were inhabited, but most of them are shut up, like the palaces at Venice. There is one magnificent building, formerly a Pisani palace, which belongs to the Viceroy, the Archduke Rainer.

Padua is a large and rather gloomy town. They say it is beginning to flourish, having been ruined by the French, and that, since their downfall, the population has increased immensely. The University contains 1,400 scholars. It contained 52,500 in the time of the French, and in the great days of Padua 18,000. I went to look at the outside of the building, which is not large, but handsome. The old palace of the Carraras is half ruined, and what remains is tenanted by the commandant of the place. The old Sala di Giustizia, which, is very ancient, is now a lumber room, and they were painting scenes in it. Still it is undamaged, and they call it the finest room in Europe, and perhaps it is. It is 300 feet long, 100 wide, and 100 high. At one end of it is the monument and bust of Livy, the latter of which they pretend to have found here; they also talk of his house and the marbles, &c., that have been dug up in it, which they may believe who can.

The Cathedral has nothing to boast of, except that Petrarch was one of its canons, and in it is his bust, put up by a brother canon. I had not time to go to the churches.

The whole road from Fusina to this place is as flat as the paper on which I am writing. I really don't believe there is a molehill, but it is extremely gay from the variety of habitations and the prodigious cultivation of all sorts. Vicenza is one of the most agreeable towns I ever saw, and I would rather live in it than in any place I have seen since Rome. It is s.p.a.cious and clean, full of Palladio's architecture; besides the Palazzo della Ragione, a very fine building, there are twenty-two palaces built by him in various parts of the town. They show the house in which he lived. From the Church of Santa Maria del Monte, a mile from the town, there is a magnificent view, and the town itself, under the mountains of the Tyrol, and the end of a vast cultivated plain, looks very inviting and gay. There is a Campo di Marte, a public walk and drive, and from it a covered walk (colonnade) half a mile long up to the church on the hill. One of the most remarkable things here is the Olympic Theatre, which was begun by Palladio and finished by his son. It is a small Grecian theatre, exactly as he supposes those ancient theatres to have been, with the same proscenium, scenes, decorations, and seats for the audience. There appeared to me to be some material variations from the theatre at Pompeii. In the latter the seats go down to the level of the orchestra, which they do not here, and at Pompeii there is no depth behind the proscenium, whereas here there is very considerable. It is, however, a beautiful model.

The air and the water are good, and there is shooting, so that I really think it would be possible to live here. They talk with horror of the French, and of the two seem to prefer the Austrians, but peace is better than war, _caeteris paribus_.