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REMARKS, 
 
London: Printed by C. Roworth, 
 Bell Yard, Temple Bar. 
 
REMARKS 
 
 ANTIQUITIES, ARTS, AND LETTERS 
 
 DURING AN EXCURSION IN 
 
 ITALY, 
 
 IN 
 
 THE YEARS 1802 AND 1803. 
 
 By JOSEPH FORSYTH, Esq. 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET. 
 
 MDCCCXXIV. 
 
MEMOIR 
 
 AUTHOR. 
 
 Joseph Forsyth was born in Elgin, county of 
 Moray, North Britain, on the 18th of February, 
 1763. His parents were respectable and virtuous. 
 His father, Alexander Forsyth, carried on business 
 as a merchant in that place for fifty years, with 
 the greatest credit to himself, and which has been 
 continued in succession by his eldest and youngest 
 sons for nearly a century. 
 
 Joseph, while at the Grammar-school of Elgin, 
 was distinguished both by his assiduity and genius. 
 At twelve years of age he was pronounced by his 
 master to be qualified for the University. Being 
 entered a student of King's College, Aberdeen, he 
 soon attracted the attention and kindness of Pro- 
 
( vi ) 
 
 fessor Ogilvy by the superior performance of his 
 exercises, and by the gentleness of his manners. 
 As he successively passed under the care of the 
 other professors, he found himself the object of 
 their approbation and solicitude. Returning every 
 summer to the bosom of his family, he devoted his 
 whole time to study, and thus laid the foundation 
 of thateminent knowledge of the Greekand Roman 
 classics, which it was the business and chief plea- 
 sure of his life afterwards to complete. On con- 
 cluding the four years usually employed in the 
 Scotch universities, his parents left to himself the 
 choice of a profession, but with a secret hope that 
 he would prefer the church ; his natural diffidence, 
 and the little prospect he then saw of obtaining a 
 patron, determined him on trying to turn his clas- 
 sical acquii'ements to some account in that universal 
 mart — London. Here he soon formed a connec- 
 tion with the master of one of the most respectable 
 academies about town, at Newington Butts; and 
 entering as assistant and successor, purchased the 
 establishment and conducted it for thirteen years 
 on his own account, with the highest reputation 
 and success. The drudgery and irksomeness of 
 this business v/ere too much for his strength and 
 spirits. Having a tendency to puhnonary com- 
 
( vii ) 
 
 plaints, he was, during this period, twice reduced 
 by them to the brink of the grave. Seeing the 
 impossibility of struggling longer with such in- 
 congruous duties as the care of his health and 
 the conscientious superintendance of the education 
 of nearly an hundred boarders, he resigned the 
 charge, and retired to Devonshire in the spring 
 of 1801, to recruit his constitution. 
 
 After restoring his health by a residence of 
 some months in Devonshire, he came, in July, 
 1801, to Elgin, to visit his aged and beloved 
 mother, and remained until autumn. During 
 this interval of " learned leisure," his mind was 
 anxiously bent on enjoying the grand object of 
 all the wishes and hopes of his life — a tour through 
 Italy. His intimate acquaintance with the poets 
 and historians of that classic country, both in its 
 ancient and modern state, had already familiarized 
 him with every scene, and almost with every 
 building it contained. But at this period an insu- 
 perable barrier was interposed by Buonaparte; — 
 no Briton might tread with safety the soil over 
 which he bore sway. Thus, in the midst of leisure, 
 renovated health, and easy circumstances, was his 
 ardent imagination left, almost in despair, to Ian- 
 
( viii ) 
 
 guish over his favourite object. It may be easily 
 conceived with what rapture he hailed the un- 
 expected happiness which the peace of Amiens 
 brought to every heart. That event took place 
 on the 1st October, was known at Elgin on the 
 7th, and Mr. Forsyth was already on his journey 
 to London for Italy on the 12th. He was in 
 France at the celebration of the extravagant and 
 tumultuous festival that took place in honour of 
 that hollow treaty. After spending a few weeks 
 in Paris, where he had been twice before, he 
 pushed on to the land of promise, and arrived at 
 Nice on Christmas-day, 1801. Here his "Remarks" 
 will best enable those who may feel an interest 
 in his progress through life to trace it for the two 
 succeeding years. 
 
 In consequence of the rupture between England 
 and France in 1802, and that cruel and unjust order 
 of Buonaparte to arrest all British subjects travel- 
 ling in his dominions, Mr. Forsyth was seized by 
 the police, at Turin, on the 25th May, 1803, while 
 on his return home through Switzerland, and with 
 no intention whatever of entering France. He 
 was carried to Nismes, and found his situation 
 there as pleasant as under restraint it could be. 
 
( ix ) 
 
 There were soon collected from Italy and the 
 southern provinces of France a great many English 
 at this depot; and, in this early stage of their con- 
 finement, a considerable degree of relaxation and 
 indulgence was granted. Feeling themselves un- 
 justly detained, many of the more adventurous 
 made their escape in different directions; and Mr. 
 Forsyth, encouraged by the general practice, with- 
 drew to Marseilles with the intention of passing, 
 in an American ship, to Malta and thence to Eng- 
 land. Here, however, the broker who negociated 
 for his passage, sold him to the police ; by whom 
 he was arrested when stepping on board, and con- 
 veyed, under guard, back to Nismes. For this 
 venial transgression he was visited with a dreadful 
 punishment. In the depth of a most severe winter 
 he was marched from one extremity of France to 
 the other, (a distance of 600 miles,) to that most 
 execrable dungeon. Fort de Bitche. His confine- 
 ment at first was intolerably strict, but, by degrees, 
 was softened into something more bearable. His 
 mild and gentle demeanour, the extent and variety 
 of his information, and his facility in the French 
 language, at length procured him the notice and 
 esteem of the commandant, who afterwards paid 
 him particular attention. He continued there two 
 
( X ) 
 
 years ; but in consequence of earnest applications 
 to the French government by some of his friends 
 who had been removed from Bitche to Verdun, 
 he was at last permitted to join them; where he 
 remained five years. The dissipation and riot, in 
 which the English prisoners in general indulged, 
 were so repugnant to his habits and feelings, that 
 he lived almost in solitude. He was well known 
 by the more regular part of his countrymen there, 
 who esteemed him for that fund of intelligence he 
 possessed, and for his benevolence to hundreds 
 of our poor prisoners whose allowances scarcely 
 afforded the means of existence. At this time 
 his most anxious desire, next to the recovery of 
 freedom, was to be permitted to reside in Paris. 
 The easy access to the society of learned French- 
 men, the public institutions, the museums, the 
 National Library, and, above all, the glorious col- 
 lection in the Louvre were his excitements. After 
 many fruitless endeavours, he at last accomplished 
 his wish in the spring of 1811, through the influ- 
 ence of a lady in the suite of the King of Holland, 
 then a kind of state-prisoner at Paris. His per- 
 mission was no sooner granted, than he set off for 
 the capital, and found himself established in every 
 respect, except his darling object liberty, to his 
 
( xi ) 
 
 heart's content. Four months had scarcely 
 elapsed, when an order from government was 
 secretly issued to send off instantly every English- 
 man from Paris to his respective depot. 
 
 Mr. Forsyth's astonishment and disappointment 
 were extreme when two gendarmes drew aside his 
 curtain at four o'clock in the morning of the 22d 
 July, presented the order, and desired him to 
 di'ess immediately and follow them. He waited 
 on two friends, members of the National Institute, 
 who accompanied him to the Minister of Police, 
 and who, by way of special indulgence, gave him 
 two days to prepare for his departure, with the 
 choice of Verdun or Valenciennes as his future 
 residence. He fixed on the latter, and after three 
 years' abode was well pleased with the preference 
 which he had given it. Here he enjoyed the 
 advantage of riding into the country, and even of 
 living, during the summer months, in a cottage 
 several miles from the town. These favours seem 
 to have been conceded from the estimation in 
 which he was held by the commandant, by whom 
 he was appointed one of the five commissioners 
 who superintended the appropriation of the allow- 
 
( xii ) 
 
 ances given to the mass of prisoners by the Frencli 
 government, and the Patriotic Fund at Lloyd's. 
 
 Mr. Forsyth's favourite pursuits during his 
 detention seem to have been the classics, Italian 
 poetry, and architecture : but the anxiety which 
 he incessantly felt to be delivered from restraint, 
 absorbed every other consideration, and prevented 
 the application of his mind to any fixed subject, 
 or to composition of any kind. His correspon- 
 dence at this time shews unwearied applications to 
 his friends at Paris, to the government, and even 
 personally to the Emperor, but without any effect. 
 Nor were his friends in Britain less anxious, 
 or less zealous in the same good cause ; yet, 
 although persons of high rank and influence lent 
 their earnest assistance, no beneficial effect resulted 
 from it. Having seen some of the detenus obtain 
 their release in consequence of appearing before the 
 public in the character of authors — (Buonaparte 
 affecting to be considered the patron and protector 
 of literature) — Mr. Forsyth was induced to prepare 
 the notes he had made while on his tour in Italy, 
 and publish them in England, copies of which 
 were forwarded to the leading members of the 
 
( xiii ) 
 
 National Institute at Paris, with solicitations in 
 his favour by some of the most eminent literary 
 characters in London. Even this last effort for 
 freedom failed, and he never, to his dying day, 
 ceased to regret that it had been made. He con- 
 sidered his " Remarks" as not sufficiently wor- 
 thy of himself, put together as they were on the 
 spur of the moment, to attain a particular object, 
 dearer to him than fame itself. Had he embodied 
 his whole mind, with his ample store of materials, 
 in a period of personal satisfaction and self-posses- 
 sion, his work would have displayed his erudition 
 and talents in a far more favourable light. 
 
 At length the long wished-for moment of deli- 
 verance approached. The appearance of the allies 
 on the north-eastern frontier of France, in the end 
 of 1813, made it necessary that the English depots 
 should be removed farther into the interior. They 
 were ordered first to Mons, then to Orleans, and 
 lastly to Blois. At Orleans, on the 6th April, 
 1814, Mr. Forsyth first heard the welcome news 
 of the allies having entered Paris on the 3 1st March. 
 His chains were now broken, freedom and home 
 burst upon him with all their endearing force, and 
 for two days he seems to have been almost wild 
 
( xiv ) 
 
 with joy. The first moments of recollection were 
 devoted to his journey to Paris ; there he had the 
 satisfaction of finding himself in the midst of the 
 deliverers of Europe, and surrounded by the most 
 extraordinary assemblage of princes, statesmen, 
 and soldiers, that had ever before met on one spot. 
 In May he arrived in England ; and after an ab- 
 sence of thirteen years, came to Elgin, in July, to 
 visit his only svirviving brother, and the friends of 
 his earliest days. Fearing to encounter the severity 
 of a northern winter, he returned to London in 
 October, and spent that season in the family of a 
 friend in Queen-square, Bloomsbury, where every 
 attention that kindness or affection could dictate 
 was paid to his comfort. His time was employed 
 chiefly in the reading-room of the British Museum, 
 and in intercourse with men of letters. In April, 
 1815, he came down again to Elgin, to establish 
 himself with his brother, and take possession of 
 his extensive collection of books, from which he 
 had been divorced for the last fourteen years. 
 After so long a privation, he seemed almost to 
 devour them by the eagerness of his enjoyment, 
 and his incessant devotion to them. It was, how- 
 ever, evident, that his constitution, originally de- 
 licate, had been undermined by the harassing 
 
( XV ) 
 
 confinement which he had undergone, and that 
 the irritation of so painful a cause of distress to a 
 mind of the greatest susceptibihty, had fatally in- 
 jured the body. His relations observed, particu- 
 larly in the summer of 1815, a weakness of nerve, 
 and a lassitude of mind that gave them the great- 
 est alarm. With the view of rousing his spirits, 
 and improving his health, by moderate exercise 
 and varied scenery, his brother accompanied him 
 in an excursion through the Highlands of Inver- 
 nessshire and Argyll to the island of StafFa. The 
 grandeur and sublimity of the objects which pre- 
 sent themselves in that tour, and the wonders of 
 StafFa, delighted and interested him exceedingly, 
 and he returned home apparently invigorated in 
 body, and cheered in mind. How uncertain is 
 the tenure of any temporal good ! This amiable 
 man, and most accomplished scholar, who was 
 now thought to have laid the foundation of better 
 health, was on the very eve of removal to another 
 and a better world! On Friday night the 17th 
 September, a few days after his return, having 
 spent the evening with more than usual gaiety, 
 he was struck speechless and nearly insensible by 
 a fit of apoplexy, in which he lingered till Mon- 
 
( xvi ) 
 
 day the 20th, and then died, to the irreparable 
 loss of his relations, and the sincere regret of all 
 who had an opportunity of admiring his highly 
 cultivated talents, and the amiable and polished 
 expression of the heart which shone so conspicu- 
 ously in him. 
 
 ISAAC FORSYTH. 
 
 Elgin, May, 1816. 
 
JOURNEY TO GENOA. 
 
 Mihi nunc Ligus ora 
 
 Intepet, hybernatque meum mare. Peusius. 
 
 1 TRAVELLED througli France, and stopped some 
 weeks at Paris, engaged by the great museum, 
 and the revokitions which that capital had under- 
 gone since my former visit. I then proceeded to 
 Lyons, and embarked at IVIarseilles in a felucca 
 for Nice; but being driven into Toulon, I left the 
 vessel there, and continued my journey by land. 
 
 On Christmas day, 1801, I arrived at Nice, 
 where a soft and balmy air, oranges glowing in 
 every garden, lodgings without a chimney, and 
 beds with mosquito-curtains, presented the first 
 signs of Italy. 
 
 At Nice I embarked for Genoa in a felucca : 
 but the wind, though fair, raised too heavy a sea 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
2 JOURNEY TO GENOA. 
 
 for SO slender a vessel, and drove our timid crew 
 into Noli. In the only inn of this city four of us 
 passed a sleepless night on two filthy beds, de- 
 voured by fleas, and tormented by passengers who 
 could find no bed at all. 
 
 Here we left the felucca, and crossed on foot a 
 mountain, which modern geographers class among 
 the Apennines, though D. Brutus describes it as 
 the last of the Alps.* This pass, which appeared 
 to Dante one of the four worst in Italy, brought 
 us round the promontory to a gap in the summit, 
 where a hurricane, meeting us with all the advan- 
 tage of a blast-tube, threatened to blow us back 
 into the sea. 
 
 The population of this state runs into a line of 
 narrow towns, forming one row of white houses, 
 drawn along the strand and interrupted only where 
 the sea denies footing. 
 
 Savona is a crowded, irregular town, with 
 an excellent harbour. The shipping lies safely 
 
 * Ad Vada venit, quem locum volo tibi esse notum. Jacet inter 
 Apenninum et Alpes, impeditissiraus ad iter faciendum. — Ciceuo. 
 Epist. Fam. 11. 13. 
 
JOURNEY TO GENOA. 3 
 
 moored under the Blessed Virgin, on the pedestal 
 of whose statue is an inscription at once Latin and 
 Italian, which the Mediterranean seamen sing in 
 storms, — 
 
 In mare irato, in subita procella, 
 Invoco te, nostra Benigna Stella ! 
 
 We now hired mules and rode along the Cor- 
 nice, amid the grandest combinations of mountain 
 and sea. Above us rose the bald and burnt tops 
 of the Apennines, the sides of which were cut 
 into narrow terraces, and planted with olive trees. 
 Here the olive receives the best cultivation, and 
 finds that schistous, slaty, loose, broken ground, 
 and those craggy hills, which Virgil recommends 
 for the tree. The spolverino, indeed, when salted 
 by winds from the sea, may corrode the plantation 
 next the beach ; but there it stops and is spent. 
 
 We passed through Cogureto, a small fishing 
 town, generally supposed to be the birth-place of 
 Columbus. Some, indeed, maintain that he was 
 born at Genoa, of parents who, though originally 
 of Cogureto, afterwards settled as wool-combers 
 at Savona. Three other towns, Quinto, Nervi, 
 and Pradillo, have laid pretensions to his birth. 
 b2 
 
4i JOURNEY TO GENOA. 
 
 The Piedmontese, however, claim Columbus as 
 their countryman on authority more positive than 
 all: for the Supreme Council of the Indies so- 
 lemnly decided that he was born at Cuccaro in 
 Montferrat: the Chroniclers of the 17th century, 
 Alghisi, Malabaila, Donesmundi, Delia Chiesa, 
 support this assertion : and a judicial plea, pub- 
 lished at Venice in 1589, claimed for a Colombo 
 of Cuccaro the inheritance of the great Chris- 
 topher. 
 
GENOA. 
 
 Ecco ! vediaru la maestosa ininieiisa 
 
 Citta, che al mar le sponde, il dorso ai moiiti 
 
 Occupa tutta, e tutta a cerchio adorna. 
 
 Qui volanti barcliette, ivi ancorate 
 
 Navi conteraplo, e a poco a poco in alto 
 
 Infra i lucidi tetti, infra I'eccelse 
 
 Ciipole e torri, il guardo ergendo a I'ampie 
 
 Girevo! niura triplicale, i cliiusi 
 
 Monti da loro, e le munite rocche 
 
 A liiogo a luogo, e i ben posti ripari 
 
 Amniiro intorno: inusitata intanto 
 
 Vaghezza a I'occhio, e bell' intreccio fanno 
 
 Col treraolar de le frondose cime, 
 
 Col torreggiar de 1' appuntate moli. Bettinelli. 
 
 Such is Genoa sketched from the sea : but in this 
 general picture the palaces should perhaps be 
 more prominent than the poet makes them. The 
 palaces, I apprehend, gave to this city the epithet 
 of Proud ; their black and white fronts were once 
 the distinctive of the highest nobility ; but most 
 of those marble mansions have disappeared : the 
 modern palaces are all faced with stucco, and some 
 are painted in fresco. This fashion of painting 
 
6 GENOA. 
 
 figures on house-fronts was first introduced at 
 Venice by Giorgione ; but though admired even 
 by severe critics, to me it appears too gay for any 
 building that affects grandeur. Nothing can be 
 grand in architecture that bears a perishable look. 
 
 The Ducal palace is large and magnificent even 
 for Genoa ; but two balustrades break the unity 
 of the front and lessen its elevation. The statues 
 are not ill arranged. The enemies of the state 
 are chained on the attic, and its benefactors are 
 lodged within. 
 
 Prince Doria's palace is detached from the 
 throng, and commands attention as an historical 
 monument. Though magnificent when viewed 
 from the bay or the mole, the mansion itself is 
 patched and neglected ; the titles of the immortal 
 Andrew, which extended 200 feet in front, have 
 been effaced by the late revolution : the gardens 
 are unnaturally pretty ; colossal statues rise over 
 cut box; nothing corresponds with the majesty 
 of the site. 
 
 The Serra palace boasts the finest saloon in 
 Europe. This celebrated object is oval in plan, 
 
GENOA. 7 
 
 the elevation a rich Corinthian, the walls are co- 
 vered with gold and looking glass ; the floor con- 
 sists of a polished mastic stained like oriental 
 breccia. Surfaces so brilliant as these would 
 deaden any pictures except those of a ceiling, 
 which require a bright reflection from the walls. 
 Here then the ceiling alone is painted, and ])orrows 
 and lends beauty to the splendour below. 
 
 The hospitals of Genoa vie with its palaces in 
 magnificence, and seem more than sufficient for 
 all the disease and misery that should exist in so 
 small a state. They are crowded with honorary 
 statues : but I write only from recollection, and 
 one seldom recollects things so pompous and so 
 uniform as the effigies of rich men. At the Al- 
 bergo de' Poveri is a sculpture of a higher order, 
 a dead Christ in alto relievo by Michael Angelo. 
 The life and death which he has thrown into this 
 little thing, the breathing tenderness of the Virgin, 
 and the heavenly composure of the corpse, ap- 
 peared to me beauties foreign to the tremendous 
 genius of the artist. At the hospital of Incurables 
 I found priests and choristers chanting between 
 two rows of wretches, whom their pious noise 
 would not suffer to die in peace. The very name 
 
8 GENOA. 
 
 of such hospitals, forbidding the patient to hope 
 and the physician to struggle, cuts off at once two 
 sources of recovery. 
 
 As for the national character, we need not bring 
 Virgil nor Dante to prove failings which the Ge- 
 noese themselves tacitly acknowledge.* So low 
 are the common people sunk in the esteem of their 
 own countrymen, that no native porter is admitted 
 into the Porto Franco, where Bergamasques alone 
 are employed.■^^ A suspicion, unworthy of Italian 
 merchants, who were once the most liberal on 
 earth, excludes also from this free port the clergy, 
 the military, and women, as persons who may pil- 
 fer, but who cannot be searched. 
 
 * Travellers have often applied the " Vane Ligus, &c." to the 
 Genoese character ; but the " Patrias tentasti lubricus artes" appears 
 to me to be levelled rather at an individual, the " fallaci Auno," than 
 against the nation at large. 
 
 ■f These Bergamasque porters tread nimbly through very narrow 
 streets with amazing loads suspended by rojies from lateral poles, 
 each of which rests on the two men's shoulders ; a mode which may 
 be traced in one of the ancient paintings found in the catacombs of 
 Rome. 
 
PISA. 
 
 EDIFICES. 
 
 Pisa, while the capital of a republic, was cele- 
 brated for its profusion of marble, its patrician 
 towers, and its grave magnificence. It still can 
 boast some marble churches, a marble palace, and 
 a marble bridge. Its towers, though no longer a 
 mark of nobility, may be traced in the walls of 
 modernized houses. Its gravity pervades every 
 street, but its magnificence is now confined to one 
 sacred corner. There stand the Cathedral, the 
 Baptistery, the Leaning Tower, and the Campo 
 Santo ; all built of the same marble, all varieties 
 of the same architecture, all venerable with years, 
 and fortunate both in their society and their soli- 
 tude. 
 
 The Cathedral, though the work of a Greek, 
 and surmounted by a cupola, is considered by 
 Italians as Gothic : not surely the Gothic of the 
 
10 PISA. 
 
 north ; for here are no pointed arches, no chis- 
 tered pillars, no ribs nor tracery in the vaults. 
 To prove it so, however, they adduce some bar- 
 barisms in the west front; but the most irregular 
 arches in that front are as round as the angle of 
 the roof, under which they are crushed, could 
 admit; they all rest on single columns, and those 
 columns, though stunted, are of the same Greek 
 order as prevails below. On the sides are some 
 large arches, each including two or three smaller 
 ones; a combination certainly very frequent in 
 Gothic and Saxon works; but here again the 
 arches are all round, and they rest on columns or 
 pilasters of Greek order. On Sonie columns we 
 see lions, foxes, dogs, boars, and men figured in 
 the capitals ; but such ornaments, though frequent 
 in Gothic churches, had been introduced long be- 
 fore them into those of Greece and Italy, as a 
 pious decoy to the contemplation of the cross. 
 
 In fact, the very materials of this cathedral 
 must have influenced the design; for columns 
 taken from ancient temples would naturally lead 
 back to some such architecture as they had left. 
 It is a style too impure to be Greek, yet still more 
 remote from the Gothic, and rather approaches 
 
EDIFICES. 1 1 
 
 the Saxon; a style which may here be called the 
 Lombard, as it appeared in Italy first under the 
 Lombard princes; a style which includes what- 
 ever was grand or beautiful in the works of the 
 middle ages, and this was perhaps the noblest of 
 them all. 
 
 The plan and elevation are basilical. The five 
 aisles are formed by insulated columns; the choir 
 and the transepts are rovmded like the tribuna; 
 the general decoration of the walls consists in 
 round arches resting on single columns or pilas- 
 ters; a decoration vicious every where, particu- 
 larly here, where the arches bear no proportion to 
 the shaft. This defect reaches up to the very 
 cupola, and degrades the noble peristyles of the 
 nave. 
 
 How beautiful do columns become when they 
 support a roof! how superior to their effect as an 
 idle decoration! what variety in these, still chang- 
 ing their combinations as you pace along the 
 aisles! how finely do their shafts of oriental gra- 
 nite harmonize with the grandeur of the pile, while 
 their tone of colour deepens the sombre which 
 prevails here in spite of an hundred windows! 
 
12 PISA. 
 
 how sublime might such a nave be made if taken 
 as a whole ! but the clergy, ever anxious to extend 
 and diversify, branched this out into a Latin cross ; 
 and thus broke the unity of the design. 
 
 The side altars are beautiful ; the high altar is 
 only rich. The pictures, though not much ad- 
 mired, assist the architecture; but the sculpture 
 and the tombs interrupt some of its general lines. 
 Even the marble pulpit, fine as it is, impairs the 
 symmetry by standing before a column. This 
 pulpit is supported by a naked figure of most 
 gross design. Indeed, few churches in Italy are 
 free from the incongruous. Here are Bacchanals 
 and Meleager's hunt incrusted on the sacred 
 walls, an ancient statue of Mars, worshipped 
 under the name of St. Potitus, and the heads of 
 satyrs carved on a cardinal's tomb ! 
 
 The Baptistery displays another crowd of un- 
 necessary columns, placed under mean and unne- 
 cessary arches, round an immense polygon; and 
 betrays, too, something like the Gothic ; for cer- 
 tainly the figure inscribed in each of the acute 
 pediments of the second order does resemble our 
 cathedral trefoils. 
 
EDIFICES. 13 
 
 The inner elevation is still inferior to the out- 
 side. Arches are perched on arches, and pedes- 
 tals are stilted on the capitals of columns, as a 
 base to a hideous tunnel which screens the fine 
 swell of the cupola. Who could ever suppose that 
 such a structure and such dimensions were in- 
 tended for a christening ! The purpose of an edi- 
 fice should appear in the very architecture; but 
 here we can discover it only in the accessories, 
 the font, statues, relievos, all allusive to baptism. 
 
 The Leaning Tower. Here are eight circles 
 of columns supporting arches, which are smaller 
 and more numerous in proportion as you ascend. 
 Such a profusion only betrays that poverty of 
 effect, which must ever result from small columns 
 and a multitude of orders. 
 
 As to the obliquity of this tower, I am sur- 
 prized that two opinions should still exist on its 
 cause. The Observatory in the next street has so 
 far declined from the plumb-line as to affect the 
 astronomical calculations of the place. A neigh- 
 bouring belfry declines to the same side, and 
 both these evidently from a lapse in the soft soil, 
 in which water springs every where at the depth 
 
14 PISA. 
 
 of six feet. This great tower, therefore, leans 
 only from the same cause, and leans more than 
 they, because it wants the support of contiguous 
 buildings. Many Pisans, however, are of the old 
 opinion. One of their litterati took pains to con- 
 vince me that the German architect contrived 
 this declination, which his Italian successors en- 
 deavoured to rectify. 
 
 The Campo Santo. The portico of this vast 
 rectangle is formed by such arcades as we find in 
 Roman architecture. Every arch is round, and 
 every pillar faced with pilasters; but each arcade 
 includes an intersection of small arches rising 
 from slender shafts like the mullions of a Gothic 
 window. This, however, looks like an addition 
 foreign to the oi'iginal arcades, Mhich were open 
 down to the pavement. 
 
 Such cloistered cemeteries as this were the field 
 where painting first appeared in the dark ages, on 
 emerging from the subterranean cemeteries of 
 Rome. In tracing the rise and genealogy of mo- 
 dern painting, we might begin in the catacombs of 
 the fourth century, and follow the succession of 
 pictures down to those of St. Pontian and Pope 
 
EDIFICES. 15 
 
 Julius; then, passing to the Greek image-makers 
 of the tenth and eleventh centuries, we should 
 soon arrive at this Campo Santo which exhibits 
 the art growing, through several ages, from the 
 simplicity of indigence to the simplicity of strength. 
 
 Here the immensity of surface to be covered 
 forbade all study of perfection, and only required 
 facility and expedition. The first pictures shew 
 us what the artist was when separated from the 
 workman. They betray a thin, timid, ill-fed pen- 
 cil ; they present corpses rather than men, sticks 
 rather than trees, inflexible forms, flat surfaces, 
 long extremities, raw tints, any thing but nature. 
 As you follow the chronology of the wall, you 
 catch perspective entering into the pictures, deep- 
 ening the back-ground, and then adjusting the 
 groups to the plans. You see the human figure 
 first straight, or rather stretched; then foreshort- 
 ened, then enlarged : rounded, salient, free, vari- 
 ous, expressive.* Throughout this sacred ground, 
 painting preserves the austerity of the Tuscan 
 school: she rises sometimes to its energy and 
 
 * A similar progress may be traced in tlie sculpture called Etrus- 
 can, which passed from the meagre style to the round, and from the 
 attitudinarian to the natural. 
 
16 PISA. 
 
 movement, she is no where sparing of figures, and 
 has produced much of the singular, the terrible, 
 the impressive; — but nothing that is truly excel- 
 lent. 
 
 All the subjects are taken from Scripture, the 
 Legends, or Dante ; but in depicting the life of a 
 patriarch or a saint, the artists have given us the 
 dress, the furniture, and the humours of their own 
 day. A like anachronism has introduced some 
 portraits of illustrious Tuscans, which are rather 
 fortunate in such works as these. But how many 
 anachronisms disfigure the first paintings in Italy ! 
 How painful it is to see, in the finest Nativities 
 and Crucifixions, a St. Francis, or St. Dominic, 
 or the donatore, or the painter himself, or the 
 painter's mistress, looking out of the picture and 
 impudently courting your remark !* 
 
 Some of these frescos have been exposed to the 
 open air for 500 years, and the earliest works are 
 mouldering away from moisture. f What pity that 
 
 * This practice was ancient : Pliny reprobates Arellius for intro- 
 ducing liis mistresses into sacred pictures. 
 
 ■f This climate, however, is favourable even to the materials of art. 
 Tlie outside marble of the Duomo has in seven hundred years con- 
 tracted very little of the lichen which would blacken an English 
 
EDIFICES. 17 
 
 a country full of antiquaries and engravers should 
 let such monuments perish without a remem- 
 brance! How superior these to the coarse re- 
 mains of Anglo-Gothic art, which our draughts- 
 men are condemned to search out for those old 
 mumbling collectors who are for ever picking the 
 bare bone of antiquity! 
 
 UNIVERSITY. 
 
 This University is now reduced to three colleges ; 
 yet still allots a chair to each faculty. Many of 
 these, indeed, have lost their old scholastic im- 
 portance, and left their professors idle; for the 
 students attend only the classes necessary to their 
 future degree. 
 
 Universities, being in general the institution of 
 monkish times, are richest in objects related to 
 church or state. Divinity and law engrossed the 
 manors of the pious founders, and left little or 
 
 tombstone in fifty. The bronze door of H84 is not yet corroded 
 with patina. The iron grifTons of the Strozzi palace, wrought in the 
 time of Lorenzo the Magnificent, arc still as sharp as when they 
 came from Caparra's smithy. 
 
 VOL. I. C 
 
18 PISA. 
 
 nothing to the improvement of natural science. 
 In this university, however, Physics found the 
 earhest protection: it boasts the first anatomical 
 theatre and the first botanical garden in Europe ; 
 both created before the middle of the sixteenth 
 century. The botanical chair is now admirably 
 filled by the learned and amiable Santi: yet, in 
 general science, Pisa is declined much below the 
 fame of Pa via. 
 
 The library is full of civil and canonical law, 
 polemics, councils, fathers, and metaphysics ; but 
 in science or polite literature I saw nothing very 
 curious or rare. On the classical shelves are some 
 early Italian editions, the remains, I presume, of 
 the Aldine legacy. The Observatory is adjoining, 
 and includes a school for astronomers ; but no 
 student intrudes at present on Dr. Slop's repose. 
 
 The lectures were formerly given in Latin from 
 the chair, and were then recapitulated in Italian 
 under the portico of the schools ; but this stoic 
 exercise, and the Latin, are both fallen into disuse. 
 That censorial discipline which once expelled 
 members through the window is now obsolete and 
 unknown. Attendance passes for merit; time, 
 terms, and the archbishop, confer academical rank. 
 
UNIVERSITY. 19 
 
 How infinitely more important are private 
 schools scattered over the country than institutes 
 like this, which young men seldom enter till they 
 are able to teach themselves ! In universities the 
 very multitude of helps only tends to relax, to 
 dissipate, or embarrass the attention. Neither 
 Pisa, nor any academical city in Italy, has given 
 birth to a man of transcendent genius, if we except 
 Galileo, who was dropped here by chance. 
 
 That excluding spirit which prevails in other 
 universities is here unknown. No religion is pro- 
 scribed. All degrees, except in divinity and ca- 
 nonical law, are open to heretics and Jews. Such 
 liberality must win a number of volunteers. Others 
 are forced to attend as a qualification for legal 
 practice ; for in Tuscany every attorney's clerk is 
 a doctor. 
 
 Pisa, though long posterior to Bologna, was the 
 second school of law in Italy. Some ascribe this 
 early eminence to her possession of the Pandects ; 
 but this celebrated manuscript was so hoarded, 
 both here and at Florence, that instead of restoring 
 the Roman law, it remained useless and lost to 
 study, till Politian was allowed by Lorenzo the 
 c 2 
 
20 PISA. 
 
 Maanificent to collate it with the Pandects first 
 published at Venice. Politian's collated copy of 
 that edition escaped the sack of the Medici library 
 in 1494, and after a long train of travels and 
 adventures it at last re-appeared at Florence in 
 1734. 
 
 Pisa lays some claim to the introduction of alge- 
 bra, which Bonacci is said to have transplanted 
 hither from the east ; while the Florentines con- 
 tend that their Paolo dell' Abbaco was the first to 
 use equations. Algebra was certainly known in 
 Europe before 1339, the date of this university. 
 
 The professorships are in general reduced to 
 one-fourth of their original emolument. Francesco 
 Bartolozzi, in a paper read at the Accademia Eco- 
 nomica, states their mean salary to have been 
 2,000 crowns, at a time when the great Macchiavel 
 received only 180, as secretary to the Florentine 
 republic* Such was the encouragement that 
 drew the celebrated Decius so often back to Pisa 
 from contending powers ; for this great oracle of 
 
 * Bartolozzi calculates from a curious fact — that for four centuries 
 wlieat was bartered in Tuscany for its weight of butcher's meat, of 
 oil, of flax, or of wool, however the money-prices might fluctuate. 
 
UNIVERSITY. 21 
 
 the laws appeared so important a possession to 
 Louis XII. and to Venice, that they threatened 
 hostihties on his account. 
 
 POETS. 
 
 Ma qui la morta poesia risorga. Dante. 
 
 Italian poetry has for some time revived from 
 the torpor of two centuries, and seems now to 
 flourish in a second spring. Every book-shop, 
 every circle, swarms with poets ; and the Pisan 
 press is now selecting a Parnassus of the living, 
 as a rival to that of the dead. 
 
 Where should we seek for the principle which 
 multiplies poets so incalculably in this country? 
 Is it in the climate or in the language ? Is it edu- 
 cation, or leisure, or fashion, or facility, or all these 
 together? Interest it cannot be. No where is 
 poetry so starving a trade ; nor do its profits, rare 
 as they are, arise so much from the sale of books 
 as from dedication-fees. Gianni prints his flattery 
 in very small retail. In a single duodecimo he 
 
22 PISA. 
 
 gives thirteen dedications, twelve of which were 
 lucrative, and one was thrown away on sensibility. 
 A certain Count lives by this speculation: his 
 works serve only as a vehicle to their inscriptions. 
 
 Satirists, perhaps the most useful of all poets, 
 write under other discouragements : the censure 
 of the press, and the sacredness of public men and 
 measures. Hence their brightest things are con- 
 fined to private circles, where they come out with 
 hesitation and fear from the pocket-book. Hence 
 the necessity of masking their satire has led some 
 to a beauty, when they sought only a defence. 
 
 In reviewing some of these bards, I shall begin 
 with Pignotti, as he still belongs to Pisa. So little 
 does this elegant fabulist owe to genius, that his 
 very ease, I understand, is the result of severe 
 study ; and, conscious of his own faculty, he seems 
 to describe it in these lines : 
 
 La natura 
 
 Parra che versati habbia da vena 
 Facil versi che costan tanta pena. 
 
 Pignotti admires and resembles Pope. Both 
 seem confined to embellish the thoughts of others ; 
 and both have depraved with embellishment the 
 
POETS. ^3 
 
 simplicity of the early Greeks. Pope's Homer is 
 much too fine for the original ; and Pignotti, for 
 want of Esop's naivete, has turned his fables into 
 tales. Some of his best novelle are reserved for 
 private circles. I heard him read one on " the art 
 of robbing/' which could not be safely published 
 by a Tuscan placeman. In the man himself you 
 see little of the poet, little of that refined satire 
 which runs through his fables and has raised those 
 light-winged, loose, little things to the rank of 
 Italian classics.* 
 
 Bertola is, perhaps, a more genuine fabulist than 
 Pignotti. He does not labour to be easy ; for he 
 has naturally the negligence, and sometimes the 
 vacuity of a rhyming gentleman. His fugitive 
 pieces are as light as the poetical cobwebs of his 
 friend Borgognini. His sonnets run upon love or 
 religion, and some inspire that mystic, unmeaning 
 
 * Pignotti, who is now engaged on a history of Tuscany, once 
 rejicated to me, with great satisfaction, what Gibbon says of the 
 Italian historians, among whom he anticipates a niche for himself. 
 This led him to compare Mr. Roscoe's Life of Lorenzo with Fabroni's 
 history of the same great man, when Monsignore himself entered the 
 room and stopped his parallel. Why does that prelate write modern 
 lives ill an ancient language ? Is he ashamed, in this silver age of 
 Italian letters, to appear a " f abbro del parlar materno ?" 
 
24 PISA. 
 
 tenderness which Petrarch infuses into such sub- 
 jects. Bertola is too fond of universality and 
 change. He has been a traveller, a monk, a secu- 
 lar priest, a professor in different universities and 
 in different sciences, an historian, a poet, a bio- 
 grapher, a journalist, an improvvisatore. 
 
 Bondi has also been bitten by the " estro" of 
 sonnet, though more conspicuous as a painter of 
 manners. His " conversazioni" and " alia moda" 
 expose some genteel follies with great truth of 
 ridicule. His " gioi'nata villareccia" is diversified, 
 not by the common expedient of episodes, but by 
 a skilful interchange of rural description, good- 
 natured satire, and easy philosophy. The same 
 subject has been sung by Melli in Sicilian, a lan- 
 guage now the Doric of Italian poetry and full of 
 the ancient Theocritan dialect. 
 
 Cesarotti is the only Italian now alive that has 
 shewn powers equal to an original epic ; powers 
 which he has wasted in stooping to paraphrase 
 the savage strains of Ossian, and in working on 
 Homer's unimprovable rhapsodies. The Iliad he 
 pulls down and rebuilds on a plan of his own. He 
 brings Hector into the very front, and re-moulds 
 
POETS. 25 
 
 the morals and decoration of the poem; modern- 
 izes too freely the manners, and gives too much 
 relief to its simplicity. 
 
 Parini has amused and, I hope, corrected his 
 countrymen by the Mattino and the Mezzogiorno, 
 for the other two parts of the day he left imperfect. 
 An original vein of irony runs through all his pic- 
 tures, and brings into view most of the affectations 
 accredited in high life or in fine conversation. 
 He lays on colour enough, yet he seldom carica- 
 tures follies beyond their natural distortion. His 
 style is highly poetical, and, being wrought into 
 trivial subjects, it acquires a curious charm from 
 the contrast. He is thought inferior to BettinelU 
 in the structure of blank verse ; but the seasoning 
 and pungency of his themes are more relished 
 here than the milder instruction of that venerable 
 bard. 
 
 Fantoni, better known by his Arcadian name 
 Labindo, is in high favour as a lyric poet. This 
 true man of fashion never tires his fancy by any 
 work of length; he flies from subject to subject, 
 delighted and dehghting. You see Horace in 
 every ode, Horace's modes of thinking, his variety 
 
26 PISA. 
 
 of measures, his imagery, his transitions. Yet La- 
 bindo wants the Horatian ease ; he is too studious 
 of diction, and hazards " some taifeta phrases, 
 silken terms precise," which remind us of our late 
 Delia Crusca jargon. 
 
 Pindemonte was connected with some of our 
 English Cruscans, but he cannot be charged with 
 their flimsy, gauzy, glittering nonsense. He thinks, 
 and he makes his readers think. Happy in de- 
 scription, sedate even in his light themes, generally 
 melancholy and sometimes sublime, he bears a fine 
 resemblance to our Gray, and, like Gray, has 
 written but little in a country where most poets 
 are voluminous. 
 
 Casti* is the profligate of genius. He rivals La 
 Fontaine in the narrative talent, and surpasses 
 him in obscenity. His late work, " Gli Animali 
 parlanti," though full of philosophy and gall, must 
 soon yield to the fate of all political poems. Its 
 form and its agents are tiresome. We can follow 
 a satirical fox through a short fable, but we nau- 
 seate three volumes of allegorical brutes connected 
 
 * Casti, and several persons mentioned in this and some of tlic 
 following articles as living, have died since I left Italy. 
 
POETS. 27 
 
 by one plot. His " novelle" are, on the contrary, 
 too attractive, too excellently wicked. Such also 
 is their reverend author. He has lived just as he 
 wrote, has grown old in debauchery, and suffered 
 in the cause : yet is he courted and caressed in 
 the first circles of Italy, as the arbiter of wit, and 
 the favourite of the fair. 
 
 All these gentlemen seem to have renounced 
 that epic chivalry, both serious and burlesque, 
 which forms the principal poems in the language. 
 Most of them have imbibed the philosophical spirit 
 of the present day, a spirit destructive of the sub- 
 lime, which it poorly compensates by the terse, 
 the correct, the critical. They borrow language, 
 imagery, and illusions incessantly from science. 
 They affect the useful and the didactic. Some 
 have sung the rights of man ; others the topogra- 
 phy and economics of their country ; a few have 
 attempted the scientific themes which the Phy- 
 siocritics of Siena introduced into poetry. 
 
 Such subjects naturally led their poets into 
 blank verse, which, from its very facility, has 
 grown into a general abuse. JNIany Italians could 
 go spinning " versi sciolti" through the whole 
 
28 PISA. 
 
 business of the day ; though it is more difficult to 
 excel in these than in rhyme. I heard some un- 
 published hero'ids flow with such ease from that 
 benevolent chemist, the Marquis Boccella, that I 
 forgot he was reading verse. Blank verse requires 
 a certain poetical chemistry to concentrate, to 
 fuse, to sublime the style, and to separate its 
 measures from the rhythm of periodical prose. 
 
 THE CLIMATE. 
 
 O utinam hybernx dupliceiitur tempora brums ! Puopertius. 
 
 The great evil of this climate is humidity. Both 
 the Arno and its secondary streams glide very 
 slowly on beds which are but little inclined, and 
 nearly level with the surface of the Pisan territory. 
 Hence their embankments, however stupendous, 
 cannot ultimately protect the plain. They may 
 confine to these channels the deposite of earth 
 left by floods ; but an accumulation of deposites 
 thus confined has, in many parts, raised those 
 channels above the level of the country. Should 
 
THE CLIMATE. 29 
 
 any water, therefore, escape through breaches 
 into the plain, the difficuhy of draining it must 
 yearly increase ; for even the bed of the sea has 
 been rising for ages on this coast, and has stopped 
 up some ancient outlets. 
 
 Drainage, however, made very important con- 
 quests during the last century, and has greatly 
 improved the climate. Scotto, with the spirit of 
 a merchant accustomed to wholesale success, lately 
 attempted to drain his part of the marshes between 
 Pisa and Leghorn ; but the villas which he built 
 for his future tenantry were filled the first winter 
 with water. The Ferroni, who have doubled 
 their rental by their colmate near Pescia, are now 
 pursuing a still grander design on the lake of 
 Bientina. 
 
 We may calculate the mischief of inundations 
 in this country from the violence of the rain ; for 
 its annual height (47 inches) is about double that 
 of our climate, while its duration is not one half. 
 It generally falls in large round drops direct to 
 the ground : it never breaks into mist, nor dims 
 the air, nor penetrates the houses, nor rusts metals, 
 nor racks the bones, with the searching activity 
 of an English shower. 
 
30 PISA. 
 
 Winter is by far the finest season at Pisa and 
 fully as mild as our Spring. The East wind, in- 
 deed, being screened only by the Verrucola, is 
 exceedingly sharp, and freezes at 35°. The South 
 West, being flat, lies open to the Libecci, which 
 is therefore more felt than the other winds, and 
 is fully as oppressive on the spirits as the leaden 
 sirocco of Naples. 
 
 Some Pisans feel the climate colder, and I 
 should suppose it drier too, since the neighbouring 
 Apennines were cleared of their woods. Others 
 compare the quantity of snow on these with that 
 on the mountains of Corsica ; and, if the former 
 exceed the latter, they expect fair weather ; if the 
 reverse, rain : but I remained here long enough 
 to find the prognostic fallible. One reverend 
 meteorologist aecovinted to me more philosophi- 
 cally for a chill which I once complained of in 
 Lent. " This cold (said the priest) is a mortifi- 
 cation peculiar to the holy season, and will con- 
 tinue till Easter ; because it was cold when Peter 
 sat at the High-priest's fire on the eve of the 
 crucifixion." 
 
 The Spring is short, for violent heat generally 
 
THE CLIMATE. 31 
 
 returns with the leaf. In Summer, the mornings 
 are intensely hot; at noon the sea breeze springs 
 up ; the nights are clamp, close, suffocating, when 
 not ventilated by the maestrale. Pisa may reverse 
 what physicians say of the capital — " They hardly 
 conceive how people can live at Florence in Win- 
 ter, or how they can die there in Summer." 
 
 The Lung' Arno di mezzo giorno, which is in 
 fact the north side of the river, is usually recom- 
 mended to invalids as the healthiest quarter of the 
 city. The hottest it certainly is, for its curve 
 tends to concentrate the meridian rays ; but on 
 that very account it appears to me scarcely habi- 
 table in Summer. On this side, the house fronts 
 are baked by a powerful sun which throws into 
 the chambers a close fetid warmth, and more than 
 their proportion of the moisture which it pumps 
 up. On the opposite side the houses are all damp, 
 and many are covered with lichens. On both 
 sides, the exhalations from the river seem unable 
 to clear the lofty tops of the palaces which line it ; 
 for walking at night on the quays, I have often 
 perceived my stick and my hair moistened with 
 the descending vapours. Convinced, therefore, 
 that the general temperature of Pisa is mild 
 
32 PISA. 
 
 enough for any constitution, I should prefer the 
 quarter of Santo Spirito, or Via Santa Maria, as 
 sharing only the common weather of the place, 
 and being free from adventitious heat, or hu- 
 midity. 
 
LUCCA. 
 
 LiBERTAs. Inscriptio7i on the Gate. 
 
 I ENTERED the Lucchese territory at Ripafratta ,• 
 a frontier which indicates, by its name, how httle 
 the proudest imbankments can resist the Serchio, 
 when its floods are repelled by a South wind. 
 On passing this frontier I remarked a national 
 change of feature, and a costume distinct from 
 the Pisan. All the women were slip-shod : their 
 dress was precisely ahke: — the colour scarlet. 
 
 This little state is so populous, that very few 
 acres, and those svibject to inundation, are allotted 
 to each farmer on the plain. Hence their supe- 
 rior skil^ in agriculture and draining : hence that 
 variety of crops on every enclosure, which gives 
 to the vale of Serchio the economy and show of a 
 large kitchen-garden. So rich is the creation of 
 poor men who must render up to their landlord 
 two-thirds of their produce, and submit to what- 
 ever price he may fix on the remainder ! Even 
 
 VOL. I. D 
 
34 LUCCA. 
 
 the little that is left to their own disposal they 
 cannot sell at home ; their very milk they must 
 export every morning to a foreign state like Pisa. 
 
 Oppressed, however, as this peasantry is, per- 
 haps the advocates for large farms would find it 
 difficult to prove that the Lucchese would produce 
 better crops, if tilled by fewer tenants. Italy 
 might bring against that system the authority of 
 her Virgil, her Pliny, her Columella; the example 
 of Lucca where husbandry is so subdivided, that 
 of Tuscany where the farms are so limited, that 
 of the Roman state where they are so large. 
 Every state in the peninsula is productive, I be- 
 lieve, in proportion to the number of farmers on 
 a given space of land equally good. 
 
 This plain is skirted by vine-clad hills, where 
 the celebrated villas rise on such sites as court 
 admiration from the city. Indeed they deserve 
 to be conspicuous, as monuments of that ancient 
 lordliness which dignified the Lucchesi with the 
 epithet of Signori. 
 
 The ramparts of the city, though neglected even 
 as a walk, attest the same national magnificence. 
 
LUCCA. 35 
 
 The cannon, once tlieir ornament and happily 
 nothing but an ornament, are gone. The armory, 
 which was also admired, and useless like the can- 
 non, is now empty. The palace of the republic, 
 no longer the residence of the Gonfaloniere, bears 
 a deserted and vacant aspect. This immense and 
 august edifice makes the city round it look little ; 
 yet only half the original design is completed. 
 Those petty Italian states, when commercial and 
 free, had a public soul too expansive for the body. 
 In its present decline, I remarked through the 
 city an air of sullen, negligent stateliness, which 
 often succeeds to departed power ; a ceremonious 
 gravity in the men, a sympathetic gloominess in 
 the houses, and the worst symptom that any town 
 can have — silence. 
 
 The Cathedral is of the same age, and the same 
 marble as that of Pisa ; nor did I see any thing 
 very peculiar here except a wide arched porch 
 crowded with sculpture, and the round temple of 
 the Santo Volto insulated in the nave. 
 
 D 2 
 
THE TUSCAN REPUBLICS. 
 
 Ex Thusca Grcecula facta est. Juv. 
 
 Every city in Tuscany having been once a sepa- 
 rate republic, still considers itself a nation distinct 
 from the rest, and calls their inhabitants foreigners. 
 If we compare these little states with those of 
 ancient Greece, we shall find that in both coun- 
 tries the republics emerged from small princi- 
 palities ; they shook off the yoke by similar means, 
 and they ended in a common lord who united them 
 all. In both, we shall find a crowded population 
 and a narrow territory ; in both, a public magni- 
 ficence disproportionate to their power ; in both, 
 the same nursing love of literature and of the arts, 
 the same nice and fastidious taste, the same ambi- 
 tious and excluding purity of language. 
 
 Viewed as republics, the Tuscans and the 
 Greeks were equally turbulent within their walls, 
 and equally vain of figuring among foreign sove- 
 
THE TUSCAN REPUBLICS. 37 
 
 reigns ; always jealous of their political indepen- 
 dence, but often negligent of their civil freedom, 
 for ever shifting their alliances abroad, or undu- 
 lating between ill-balanced factions at home. In 
 such alternations of power, the patricians became 
 imperious, the commons blood-thirsty, and both 
 so opposite, that nothing but an enemy at the 
 gates could unite them. 
 
 But in no point is the parallel so striking as in 
 their hereditary hatred of each other. This pas- 
 sion they fostered by insulting epithets. The 
 Tuscans called the Pisans traditori, the Pistoians 
 perversi, the Senese2?«^^«, the Florentines* ciechi, 
 &c. The Greeks (take even Boeotia alone) gave 
 Tanagra a nickname for envy, Oropus for avarice, 
 Thespiae for the love of contradiction, &c. 
 
 Nor was their hatred satisfied with mockery : 
 it became serious upon every trifle. Athens 
 
 * The Florentines themselves account for their nickname ciechi, 
 by the whiteness of their houses which blinds so many of their inha- 
 bitants; but the other Tuscans contend that the epithet of Blind, 
 applied nationally to Florence, should mean what it meant at Chal- 
 cedon. 
 
30 THE TUSCAN REPUBLICS. 
 
 waged a bloody war on JEgma for two olive 
 stumps, the materials of two statues : Florence 
 declared hostilities against Pistoia, on account of 
 two marble arms which had been dismembered 
 from one statue.* 
 
 The first private wars among the free cities of 
 Italy broke out in Tuscany, between Pisa and 
 Lucca. Tyrant never attacked tyrant with more 
 exterminating fury, than these republics, the hy- 
 pocrites of liberty, fought for mutual inthralment. 
 No despot ever sported more cruelly with his 
 slaves, than the Thessalians and Spartans with 
 their Penestae and Helots, or the Florentines with 
 their Pisan prisoners. These last wretches were 
 brought in carts to Florence, tied up like bail- 
 goods : they were told over at the gates, and 
 entered at the custom-house as common merchan- 
 dise: they were then dragged more than half 
 naked to the Signoria, where they were obliged 
 to kiss the posteriors of the stone Marzoccho 
 
 * E liete, in cambio d'arrecarle aiuto 
 L' Italiche citta del suo periglio, 
 Ruzzavano tra loro, non altrimeiiti 
 Che disciolte poledre a calcic dcnti. Tassoni. 
 
 1 
 
THE TUSCAN REPUBLICS. 39 
 
 which remains as a record of their shame, and 
 were at last thrown into dungeons where most of 
 them died. Such was 
 
 La rabbia Fiorentina, che superba 
 Fu a quel tempo si, com' ora fe putta. 
 
 The Florentines brought home in triumph the 
 chains of the unfortunate harbour, and suspended 
 them in festoons over the two venerable columns 
 of porphyry which Pisa had presented in gratitude 
 for a former service. The Pisan chains hang like 
 a fair trophy on the foreign bank of Genoa ; but 
 to place them at Florence over those pledges of 
 ancient friendship, betrayed a defect of moral 
 taste ; and to expose them still at that sacred door, 
 which Michael Angelo thought worthy of para- 
 dise, tends only to keep up the individuality of 
 those little states, which it is the interest of their 
 common governor to efface. No trifle should be 
 left to record their separate independence, or to 
 excite that repulsive action, — that tendency to fly 
 off* from their present cluster, which is doubly fatal 
 in an age and a country so prone to partition. 
 
FLORENCE. 
 
 GABINETTO FISICO. 
 
 This, being originally an assemblage of several 
 scattered collections in natural history, is rather 
 full than complete. It is richest in fossils, corals, 
 shells, and insects; but celebrated only for the 
 anatomical imitations. 
 
 Wax was first used in imitating anatomy by 
 Zumbo, a Sicilian of a melancholy, mysterious 
 cast, some of whose works are preserved here. 
 Three of these bear the gloomy character of the 
 artist, who has exhibited the horrible details of 
 the plague and the charnel-house, including the 
 decomposition of bodies through every stage of 
 putrefaction — the blackening, the swelling, the 
 bursting of the trunk — the worm, the rat and the 
 tarantula at work — and the mushroom springing 
 fresh in the midst of corruption. 
 
 I was struck by the immensity of this collection. 
 
GABINETTO FISICO. 41 
 
 which occupies fourteen rooms; yet, considered 
 as a system, anatomists find it both defective and 
 redundant. Sig. Fabbroni told me that many 
 articles should be melted down as useless ; that 
 others were inaccurate ; that all, from the yielding 
 nature of the wax, wanted frequent retouching ; 
 and that, beginning anew, he could make the 
 system more complete in half the compass. But 
 such is ever the course of experiment. Every 
 new step in science is the correction of an old one. 
 Science may be considered as the art of remedies 
 which originate in defect and end in it. 
 
 This awful region, which should be sacred to 
 men of science, is open to all. Nay, the very 
 apartment where the gravid uterus and its pro- 
 cesses lie unveiled, is a favourite lounge of the 
 ladies, who criticise aloud all the mysteries of sex. 
 
 This museum is under the direction of Felice 
 Fontana, now a cavaliere, yet more generally 
 known than his brother by the title of Abbe; from 
 the clerical habit which he once wore, like other 
 laymen, for mere economy. Fontana seems to 
 preside here in the scientific world, rather by the 
 diffusion than the depth of his knowledge; by 
 
42 FLORENCE. 
 
 bringing into science the man-of-tlie-world faculty, 
 by a well-managed talent of display and evasion, 
 which gains him credit for much more than he 
 knows, by the art of improving the inventions of 
 others, and passing their joint work under his own 
 name. In his hands every man's ability is avail- 
 able, and nothing is lost. 
 
 Above that consequential reserve which many 
 affect on subjects where they are known to excel, 
 Fontana readily entered into the history of imita- 
 tive anatomy, " an art invented by Zumbo, and 
 revived," he said, " by me. I began with a very 
 young artist, whom I instructed to copy the hu- 
 man eye in wax. This I shewed to Leopold, who, 
 pleased with the attempt, and desirous that his 
 sons should learn anatomy, without attending dis- 
 sections, ordered me to complete the whole sys- 
 tem." 
 
 " I stood alone in a new art, without guide or 
 assistants. Anatomists could not model, and mo- 
 dellers w ere ignorant of interior anatomy. Thus 
 obliged to form workmen for myself, I selected 
 some mechanical drudges, who would execute my 
 orders without intruding into my design. Supe- 
 
GABINETTO FISICO. 43 
 
 rior artists are too full of their own plans to follow 
 patiently another's ; too fond of emhellishing na- 
 ture to toil in the slavish imitation which I 
 required. Such difficulties I surmounted; but 
 before I finished the system, the funds had failed." 
 
 This active Prometheus is creating a decom- 
 posable statue, which will consist of ten thousand 
 separable pieces, and three millions of distinct 
 parts, both visible and tangible. I saw only the 
 head and the upper region of the trunk ; which 
 appeared as sensible to the weather as its fleshly 
 original : for the wood, already warped by the 
 heat, has perceptibly altered the large contours ; 
 while the pegs which connect the members be- 
 come unfit on every change of atmosphere. When 
 I suggested this to the Cavaliere — " The objection 
 is nothing. Ivory is too dear: papier mache has 
 been tried, but it failed." 
 
 Fontana, finding wax succeed so well in the rest 
 of anatomy, applied it even to the imitation of 
 bones, and has substituted, without any necessity, 
 a waxen skeleton for the real preparation. Wax, 
 too, he has employed as a supplement to the herbal, 
 in copying the mushrooms and the thick-leaved 
 
44 FLORENCE. 
 
 plants : wax he designs for the whole sylva of 
 trees, and has already exhibited a few specimens 
 of the stump cut horizontally with a twig, leaves, 
 blossom and fruit. I asked him whether the real 
 stump would not be truer, cheaper and more 
 durable than its waxen copy; but this objection 
 glanced off from his foil. 
 
 Signor Fontana may boast that the first anato- 
 mical cabinet in Europe was created under his 
 direction; but his direction, I have been assured, 
 was only official. He left the business of dissec- 
 tion to Mauteucci and Bonicoli,* and that of mo- 
 delling to Ferini. Clementi Susini afterwards 
 united both offices, and attained such skill in this 
 museum that, from recollection alone, without 
 consulting a real subject, and by combinations 
 perfectly new, he has developed the whole lym- 
 phatic system on two statues only, with an accu- 
 racy which astonished the Pavians who had 
 ordered them. Fortunately for Fontana's pre- 
 tentions, this young man is as modest as he is in- 
 genious. 
 
 • Bonicoli, being reduced to want, lately drowned himself in the 
 Arno. 
 
GABINETTO FISICO. 45 
 
 The Cavaliere has the merit of finding out, and 
 sometimes of rearing talents which had been lost 
 in obscurity ; but those talents he lays under un- 
 sparing contributions to his own fame. He drew 
 Sig. Giov. Fabbroni from a sphere where none 
 would expect to find genius ; but this singular 
 man, who was half in all his labours, rose too ra- 
 pidly for his patron. His genius opened to him 
 advantages and celebrity which were incompatible 
 with the friendship of Fontana : language, litera- 
 ture, science broke down before him, and left 
 him nothing to conquer but invidious, academic 
 cabals. 
 
 THE ROYAL GALLERY. 
 
 The Florentines seem now to desert a place 
 where vacant frames and idle pedestals only re- 
 mind them of treasures that are gone, and lessen 
 their esteem for those which remain. 
 
 On entering this grand repository the Founders 
 meet you in the vestibule. Some of their busts 
 
46 FLORENCE. 
 
 are in red porphyry, a substance which one of 
 those Medici is said to have recovered the lost art 
 of carving ; a substance, by the way, not the most 
 proper for statuary. A statue should be of one 
 colour. That colour, too, seems the best, which 
 the least suggests any idea of colour, and is the 
 freest from any gloss or radiance that may tend to 
 shed false lights, and confuse vision. Hence I 
 should prefer white marble to black, black marble 
 to bronze, bronze to gold, and any of them to a 
 mottled surface like porphyry. 
 
 The first things that strike you in the Gallery 
 itself, are some glaring Madonnas painted on wood 
 by Greek artists in the tenth and eleventh centu- 
 ries. These pictures are uniform ; the drapery of 
 the Virgin is dark, but bespangled with stars ; the 
 posture of the child the same in all ; for when the 
 divine maternity was acknowledged at Ephesus, 
 the child was then first coupled with the Madonna, 
 but the mode of painting both was fixed by the 
 ritual. Painting in that age was satisfied with 
 producing mere forms, and did not aspire at ex- 
 pression or movement. Conscious of her own 
 weakness, she called in the aid of gold, and azure, 
 and labels, and even relief; for these pictures are 
 
THE ROYAL GALLERY. 47 
 
 raised like japan-work. They present all the 
 meagreness, the angular and distinct contours, 
 the straight, stiff parallelism of attitude, the 
 vacant yet pretty little features, which are common 
 to the productions of unenlightened art : and are 
 more or less perceptible in the Egyptian idol, the 
 Gothic statue, the Indian screen, and the Chinese 
 jar. 
 
 The paintings of this Gallery run sti'angely into 
 series — a series of Florentine portraits classed on 
 the ceiling in compartments of the same form — a 
 series of 850 illustrious foreigners running on the 
 same level in frames of the same size — a series of 
 350 painters crowded into the same apartment — a 
 series of the arts — a series of the elements, all exact 
 to the same dimensions. Such uniformity betrays 
 the furnishing taste of a tradesman. Method and 
 multitude are ever remote from excellence. What 
 a disparity of forms in a select cabinet ! There 
 every picture is a separate unit, and bears no re- 
 lation to its neighbour. As to the technical merit 
 of those pictures, I leave such metaphysics to the 
 initiated. Painting I value only as it excites sen- 
 timent, nor do I ever presume to judge beyond 
 the expression or story; convinced by the absur- 
 
48 FLORENCE. 
 
 dities which I have been so often condemned to 
 hear, that the other parts of the art are mysteries 
 to all but the artist. 
 
 The series of imperial statues and busts is the 
 most valuable of all, as they shew the iconography, 
 and the state of sculpture from Julius Caesar down 
 to Constantine. Some individuals re-appear in se- 
 veral busts, and in busts not always similar. No 
 difference of age could reconcile to me the three 
 which are called Julia daughter of Titus. Those 
 of Commodus are not very like each other, nor does 
 any one of them breathe the terrors and threats 
 remarked by Herodian. Several doubts may be 
 started on the sculpture of this gallery. The Ju- 
 lius Caesar which begins this series bears no great 
 resemblance to his effigy on coins. A head which 
 had been long called Cicero now passes for Cor- 
 bulo ; from its likeness, I presume, to the two 
 Gabine busts, which can plead only local proba- 
 bilities for the name assigned to them. Two of 
 the cross-legged ApoUos have been lately degraded 
 into Genii, and their swans into geese. 
 
 Physiognomists, who can read sermons in stones, 
 find a world of character and history in those im- 
 
THE ROYAL GALLERY. 49 
 
 perial heads. They can discover habitual paleness 
 in the face of a Caligula, can see the slaver drip- 
 ping from the lips of a Claudius, and the smile of 
 yet unsettled ferocity in a Nero. All this, I con- 
 fess, sounds mystical to me. Some heads are 
 certainly marked with appropriate mind ; but in 
 others, as Titus, Didius, Septimius Severus, I 
 looked for the men in vain. 
 
 None of those heads are absolutely entire. Most 
 of their noses and ears have been mutilated. In- 
 deed, such defects were common even in ancient 
 galleries.* An imperial nose, however, may be 
 always authentically restored, as it appears on 
 coins in profile. 
 
 In several busts the flesh is of white marble 
 and the drapery of coloured ; but neither Homer 
 nor Virgil, nor Phidias, nor Canova, nor the 
 Venus which this Gallery has lost, nor the Marsyas 
 which remainj-t no authority can defend a mixture 
 
 * Et Curios jam dimidios, humeroque nnnorera 
 
 Corvinuni, et Galbam auriculis nasoque carentera. — Juvenal, 
 t Homer brings gold, silver, and tin into the sculpture of 
 Achilles' shield. — Virgil admires the effect of gold on marble : 
 " Pariusve lapis circundatur aaro."— Phidias composed both his 
 Jupiter and his Minerva of ivory and gold. He also inserted 
 metal bridles into the heads of the marble horses which have been 
 VOL. I. E 
 
50 FLORENCE. 
 
 SO barbarous. Sculpture admits no diversity of 
 materials ; it knows no colour ; it knows nothing 
 but shape. Its purpose is not to cheat the eye, 
 but to present to the mind all the truth and beauty 
 and grace and sublimity of forms. Did the ex- 
 cellence of a statue depend on the illusion pro- 
 duced, or on the number of idiots who mistake it 
 for life, the Medicean Venus would then yield to 
 every wax-work that travels from fair to fair. 
 
 I saw nothing here so grand as the group of 
 Niobe ; if statues which are now disjoined, and 
 placed equidistantly round a room may be so 
 called. Niobe herself, clasped by the arm of her 
 terrified child, is certainly a group, and, whether 
 the head be original or not, the contrast of passion, 
 
 lately carried off from the frieze of the Parthenon. — Canova has 
 given a golden cup and spinther to his Hebe. — The Venus de' Medici 
 and the daughters of Niobe have their ears pierced for jewels. — The 
 two Marsijas are of white marble interspersed with red stains to re- 
 present the flayed flesh ; and, in gems, this figure is generally carved 
 on red jasper. So common a statue was Marsya in ancient Rome, 
 and so invariably were his hands bound, as they are here, over his 
 distorted visage, that Juvenal's image would be more obvious to the 
 Romans, and more a picture, if read, " ceu Marsya vinctns." 
 
 The ancients, in aflixing bronze heads, hands, and feet, to alabas- 
 ter bodies, probably made a sacrifice of taste to prescription alone, 
 which seemed to regulate those barbarisms, and give laws to de- 
 formity. 
 
THE ROYAL GALLERY. 51 
 
 of beauty, and even of dress, is admirable. The 
 dress of the other daughters appears too thin, too 
 meretricious for dying princesses. Some of the 
 sons exert too much attitude. Like gladiators, 
 they seem taught to die picturesquely, and to this 
 theatrical exertion we may perhaps impute the 
 want of ease and of undulation, which the critics 
 condemn in their forms. 
 
 One of the cabinets is full of Etruscan idols and 
 penates, with their implements of worship, both 
 earthen and bronze. Those little images came 
 probably from the lararia ; some of them are 
 minute enough for the lararia of children ; some 
 are as rude as a barber's block; some are wrapt, 
 like the " statuas compernes," in swathing clothes, 
 and lead us back to the very cradle of art, and 
 the infancy of the style called Etruscan. 
 
 There is certainly a class of statues scattered 
 over Italy, which bear a family likeness in their 
 long faces, their pointed chins, their flat eyes and 
 simpering mouths. But who has removed all 
 doubt of their country ? who can now trace the 
 fine limit which separates this manner of design 
 E 2 
 
52 FLORENCE. 
 
 from the later Egyptian, or the earher Greek?* 
 Stiffness of form does not indicate nation, but age; 
 not Etruscan art alone, but the art of all rude times 
 and retired situations. 
 
 * The Egyptian statues may be considered as a part of the 
 architecture for which they were formed, and have all the solidity 
 proper for that office. Their backs are flattened for adhering to the 
 wall, their arras stick close to their flanks ; and the head is secured 
 to the shoulders by broad tsenise, or by tresses falling down to the 
 breast. Such protections have preserved entire some statues of Isis 
 and Serapis, more ancient than the Ptolemies. 
 
 The sculpture of Greece, also, sprang out of architecture, Pausa- 
 nias saw in Laconia some statues which had not fully emerged from 
 the form of columns. Ruder than any Hermes, they consisted merely 
 in shafts, on which a face was carved for the capital, and toes for the 
 base. The Caryatides appear to have been afterwards adopted in 
 tlie Greek architecture, merely as an imitation of those earlier antiques. 
 We may still trace the statue blended with the column in the temple 
 of Pandrosos at Athens. 
 
 Etruria received its gods, and consequently its statuary, either by 
 direct or by secondary emigrations from both those countries: but 
 from Egypt it also contracted that pious dread of innovation which 
 checked all improvement. I should, therefore, attribute what 
 Winkelraan calls the second and third styles of Etruscan sculpture, 
 either to Greece, or to the Greek part of Italy. 
 
LIBRARIES. 
 
 Multiplici pariter conditapelle latent. Mart. 
 
 The Laurentian library contains only the public 
 manuscripts, which are chained to desks and over- 
 spread with woollen cloth. Ancient manuscripts 
 being in their nature unique and in their loss irre- 
 parable, will justify the precaution of securing 
 them, when thus exposed to the world. But how 
 illiberal do the chains appear in some colleges 
 tethering printed books which money can always 
 replace ! 
 
 The oldest monument that this library possessed 
 was the Virgil written, it is supposed, in the reign 
 of Valens, and corrected by the consul Asterius in 
 the fifth century ; but this celebrated book, which 
 had been formerly stolen and re-stolen, disap- 
 peared during the late war, and is now lost for 
 ever to Florence. 
 
 The Pandects were better guarded, and sent to 
 
54 FLORENCE. 
 
 Palermo for safety. Government, indeed, had al- 
 ways kept them under its own key, and opened 
 them only by torch-light to the great, on an order 
 from the senate. Tradition says that this famous 
 code was discovered in a barrel at Amalii ; and 
 Hume, who believes the story, ascribes to this dis- 
 covery the revival of the Roman law. But it is 
 far more probable that the Pisans brought it from 
 Constantinople while their commerce flourished in 
 the Levant, and it is certain that, before they took 
 Amalfi, Irnerius had been teaching the Pandects 
 at Bologna. 
 
 The earliest works that now remain here, of a 
 date inscribed or otherwise ascertained, are some 
 venerable classics, both Greek and Latin, of the 
 eleventh centui*y, which are far more legible than 
 the illuminated writing that succeeded. In the 
 older illuminations I saw nothing to admire but 
 the brilliancy of their colours, which were used in 
 the virgin state, perhaps only because the art of 
 mixing them was unknown. This brilliancy is, I 
 believe, the chief merit of Gothic miniature, if that 
 can be merit which arose from ignorance. 
 
 Some of those illuminations came from the pen- 
 
LIBRARIES. 55 
 
 cii of Oderisi, whom Dante extols as " the honour 
 of the art;" an art which grew afterwards into a 
 luxui'y baneful to learning. Every copyist became 
 a painter, and wasting his time in the embellishing 
 of books, rendered books in general rare. Early 
 in the fifteenth century this art made a most 
 rapid progress, as appears very eminently in some 
 of these manuscripts; and Attaventi, who wrought 
 for the magnificent founder of this library, had 
 brought it near to perfection, when printing gave 
 a check to its importance. Hence the works 
 usually shewn here as objects of beauty, such as 
 the Pliny, the Homer, the Ptolemy, the Missal of 
 the Florentine Republic, are all of that age, and 
 contain portraits of the Medici painted in the 
 initials and margins. 
 
 Manuscript-miniature is now confined to the 
 few artists necessary for the repair of such libraries 
 as this. I found Ciatti, who ranks first in the art, 
 supplying here lost or damaged leaves ; copying 
 in fac-simile the writing of every age, and giving 
 vellum the due tinge of antiquity. His enrich- 
 ments have all the system of modern composition^ 
 thouffh inferior to the old illuminations in their 
 
56 FLORENCE. 
 
 general effect. In the former, we admire an har- 
 monious design ; in the latter, a rich confusion. 
 Such is an English carpet compared with a 
 Persian. 
 
 The MagUabecchian library is the great reposi- 
 tory of printed books, and the seat of the Floren- 
 tine academy, a name in which the Delia Crusca 
 and two others are now lost. 
 
 It has been the fate of the greatest libraries to 
 resound with the trifling of poets. Asinius Pollio 
 founded the first poetical meeting and the first 
 public library in Rome, probably for each other. 
 The Apollo and the Ulpian were appropriated to 
 the ancient recitations. The Magliabecchian 
 affords a similar vent to a thousand ephemeral 
 poems, which could never aspire to a place on its 
 shelves. 
 
 I once attended here a solemn Accademia, 
 which always supposes the presence of the sove- 
 reign. The king, however, was only represented 
 by his picture hung on the throne, and his chair 
 of state was reversed on the audience. On each 
 
LIBRARIES. 57 
 
 side of the throne M'ere academicians seated round 
 tables, and in the gallery was a band of music, the 
 only thing excellent that I heard. 
 
 Sarchiani, being Lettore d'eloquenza Toscana, 
 opened the Accademia with an oration elegantly 
 dressed in the common-place of elogy. Then 
 music. Next rose La Fantastici and read a copy 
 of verses on the late peace ; a subject which en- 
 tered allusively into all the succeeding compo- 
 sitions in Italian, Latin, and Greek. These were 
 read by their authors. My blind acquaintance 
 Giotti recited some sonnets. Music and applause 
 crowned the recitations ; but the applause came 
 chiefly from the academicians themselves, for the 
 audience gradually withdrew, muttering — " sec- 
 catura .'" 
 
 IMPROVVISATORL 
 
 Andiarao al bel ciiiieiito 
 
 Sullc ;ili del niomento. La Fantastici. 
 
 Florence has long been renowned for Improv- 
 visatori. So early as the fifteenth century the 
 
58 FLORENCE. 
 
 two blind brothers Brandolini excelled here in 
 singing Latin extempore. The crowned and pen- 
 sioned Gorilla drew lately the admiration of all 
 Italy, and Signora Fantastici is now the improv- 
 visatrice of the day. 
 
 This lady convenes at her house a crowd of 
 admirers, whenever she chooses to be inspired. 
 The first time I attended her accademia, a young 
 lady of the same family and name as the great 
 Michael Angelo began the evening by repeating 
 some verses of her own composition. Presently 
 La Fantastici broke out into song in the words of 
 the motto, and astonished me by her rapidity and 
 command of numbers, which flowed in praise of 
 the fair poetess, and brought her poem back to 
 our applause. Her numbers, however, flowed 
 irregularly, still varying with the fluctuation of 
 sentiment; while her song corresponded, changing 
 from aria to recitativo, from recitativo to a mea- 
 sured recitation. 
 
 She went round her circle and called on each 
 person for a theme. Seeing her busy with her 
 fan, I proposed the Fan as a subject; and this 
 little weapon she painted as she promised, " col 
 
IMPROVVISATORI. 59 
 
 pennel divino di fantasia felice." In tracing its 
 origin she followed Pignotti, and in describing its 
 use she acted and analyzed to us all the coquetry 
 of the thing. She allowed herself no pause, as 
 the moment she cooled, her estro would escape. 
 
 So extensive is her reading that she can chal- 
 lenge any theme. One morning, after other clas- 
 sical subjects had been sung, a Venetian count 
 gave her the boundless field of Apollonius Rho- 
 dius, in which she displayed a minute acquaintance 
 wdth all the Argonautic fable. Tired at last of 
 demigods, I proposed the sofa for a task, and 
 sketched to her the introduction of Cowper's 
 poem. She set out with his idea, but, being once 
 entangled in the net of mythology, she soon trans- 
 formed his sofa into a Cytherean couch, and 
 brought Venus, Cupid and Mars on the scene ; 
 for such embroidery enters into the web of every 
 improvvisatore. I found this morning-accademia 
 flatter than the first. Perhaps Poetry, being one 
 of the children of pleasure, may, like her sisters, 
 be most welcome in the evening. 
 
 I remarked that La Fantastici, when speaking 
 of her art, gave some cold praise to her rival La 
 
60 FLORENCE. 
 
 Bandettini ; but she set an old Tuscan peasant 
 above all the tribe, as first in original and poetic 
 thinking. She seemed then to forget her once- 
 admired Gianni, the Roman Stay-maker. This 
 crooked son of Apollo was the contested gallant 
 of the first beauties in Florence, where he dis- 
 played powers yet unequalled in impromptu ; 
 defying all the obbligazioni or shackles that the 
 severest audience could impose on him. The 
 very idea, however, of imposition is a violence fatal 
 to genius ; and the poetical commands thus exe- 
 cuted, like laureate odes and other tasks, may 
 shew skill, practice, talent ; but none of the higher 
 felicities of art. 
 
 Such " strains pronounced and sung unmedi- 
 tated, such prompt eloquence," such sentiment and 
 imagery flowing in rich diction, in measure, in 
 rhyme, and in music, without interruption, and 
 on subjects unforeseen, all this must evince in La 
 Fantastici a wonderful command of powers ; yet, 
 judging from her studied and published composi- 
 tions, which are dull enough, I should suspect that 
 this impromptu-exercise seldom leads to poetical 
 excellence. Serafino d'Acquila, the first improv- 
 visatore that appeared in the language, was gazed 
 
IMPROVVISATORI. 61 
 
 at in the Italian courts as a divine and inspired 
 being, till he published his verses and dispelled 
 the illusion. 
 
 An Italian improvvisatore has the benefit of a 
 language rich in echoes. He generally calls in the 
 accompaniment of song, a lute, or a guitar, to set 
 off his verse and conceal any failures. If his theme 
 be difficult, he runs from that into the nearest 
 common-place, or takes refuge in loose lyric mea- 
 sures. Thus he may always be fluent, and some- 
 times by accident be bright. 
 
 I once heard a little drama given extempore with 
 great effect, from the acting talent of the poet : 
 but dramatic poetry is not so much the subject 
 of Italian impromptu, as it was among the Greeks. 
 The Greek language and the Italian appear to me 
 equally favourable to this talent. Equally rich and 
 harmonious and pliant, they allow poets to alter 
 the length and the collocation of words, to pile 
 epithets on epithets, and sometimes to range among 
 different dialects. 
 
 In attending to the Italian improvvisatori, I 
 began to find out, or perhaps only to fancy, several 
 
62 FLORENCE. 
 
 points in which they resemble their great prede- 
 cessor Homer. In both may be remarked the same 
 openness of style and simplicity of construction, 
 the same digressions, rests, repetitions, anomalies. 
 Homer has often recourse to shifts of the moment, 
 like other improvvisatori.* Like them he betrays 
 great inequalities. Sometimes when his speech 
 is lengthening into detail, he cuts it short and 
 concludes. Sometimes when the interest and 
 difficulty thicken, the poet escapes, like his heroes, 
 in a cloud. I once thought of Homer in the streets 
 of Florence, where I once saw a poor cyclic bard 
 
 * Homer seems to have kept a stock of hemisticLs, which recur 
 incessantly at the close of verses ; as BTtea Tj-TEpoEvra •Kfoa-riv^a.Qia 
 ■yXavuSliTrti 'Aflnvn, &c. ; expletive epithets, as, JTos — ^aifj-oyin, &c-, 
 which appear in so many, and so opposite meanings that they cease 
 to liave any meaning at all ; expletive phrases which he applies in- 
 discriminately, as the op^afjcoi; avJ'^Sv, holh to the monarch and the 
 swine-herd ; set forms whicli introduce his speeches, as, Tov ^ 
 airafji.si^ofA.ivcg Trpoa-i'ptj, &:c. — or else begin them, as, 'Avsce; i^e (piXoi, 
 &c., ;ind thus leave him time to collect thoughts for the speech itself. 
 When he has killed one warrior, in comes the Asttiio-ev h 'Kiriuv, &c., 
 and allows him a moment to look about for another victim. How 
 often does he serve up, particularly in the gluttonous Odyssej', the 
 same t' apa. r akXa feast, to refresh himself as well as his heroes ! 
 How often does the'^H^wos $■' 'Hpiyivsia <})av>i, &c. begin the business 
 of the day ! The return of such passages was a breathing-place to 
 the improvvisatore. The names and titles which he heaps on his 
 Gods, were only, says Lucian, an expedient to fill up a verse. Such 
 was Homer and such is the Italian ; both literally singers ; and the 
 harp of the 'aoiKc is now most generally represented by a guitar. 
 
IMPROVVISATORI. 63 
 
 most cruelly perplexed in a tale of chivalry. He 
 wished to unravel ; but every stanza gave a new 
 twist to his plot. His hearers seemed impatient 
 for the denouement, but still the confusion in- 
 creased. At last, seeing no other means of escape, 
 he vented his poetical fury on the skin of his 
 tambourine, and went off with a " maledetto." 
 
 THE THEATRE. 
 
 Quara non adstricto percurrat pulpita socco ! Hor. 
 
 The Italian theatre would be the oldest now in 
 existence, if traced up to the Istrioni of the twelfth 
 century ; but those were mere ballad-singers, and 
 never rose to histrionic imitation. No dialogue 
 was attempted before the Moralities of the next 
 age, nor did these monkish pastimes bear any 
 other mark of drama, until the history of Abraham 
 appeared here in 1449. Thirty years afterwards 
 Politian revived, in his Orfeo, the ancient form of 
 acts and choruses ; a form which excited so many 
 imitations of the Greek, that a regular theatre, 
 
04 FLORENCE. 
 
 the first in modern Europe, was built at Milan in 
 1490 on the Greek model. 
 
 Tragedy now began to speak Italian. The first 
 was Carretto's Sofonisba in 1502; for that of Tris- 
 sino did not appear till 1515. After a lapse of 
 some years came Alamanni, Martelli, Speroni, 
 Giraldi, Anguillara, Dolce, Tasso, Torelli. All 
 these tragedians wrote on the ancient plan in long 
 solemn dialogues, quite foreign from the purpose 
 of playing, and as heroically stiff as our own imi- 
 tations of the Greek drama. 
 
 Comedy was first introduced by Hercules, duke 
 of Ferrara, in his translation from Plautus. Then 
 came Ariosto with a comedy of his own. The 
 crowd that succeeded wrote plays as exercises for 
 princes and scholars, who recited those comedies, 
 now called " Erudite," in courts, academies, and 
 colleges. The very title, the purpose, the place, 
 and the players, seem to have condemned the 
 whole species to stupidity and oblivion. The 
 best of that class were unfortunately obscene, a 
 vice unknown on the present stage. 
 
 The •' Commedie dell' arte" took a different 
 
THE THEATRE. 65 
 
 aim. Being matle for a profession of men who 
 subsisted on the pubhc curiosity, they were obUged 
 to catch and to reflect all the popular humours. 
 Their very essence was action, they seldom ven- 
 tured into print, their plots alone were chalked 
 out, and the dialogue was trusted to the extempo- 
 rary wit of the actors. Each of these was confined 
 to a single character, and bred to his own mask ; 
 yet though always re-appearing as Harlequin and 
 his fellows, those maskers could furnish an inces- 
 sant variety of story, satire, and fun. 
 
 Tragedy could not, like her sister, descend to 
 the mob ; and therefore sunk under the heavy 
 coalition of her scholastic poets and gentlemen- 
 players. To rouse her from this lethargy, they 
 applied the fatal remedy of music. In 1597 Vec- 
 chi and Rinnuccini introduced the recitative into 
 tragedy, and about fifty years afterwards, II Ci- 
 gnonini interspersed this recitativo with airs. The 
 result was the Opera, that genuine child of the 
 Seicento. 
 
 Nothing so extravagantly unnatural as the opera 
 has ever stood so long. For the opera, Italians 
 have erected their grandest theatres, invented a 
 
 VOL. I. F 
 
66 FLORENCE. 
 
 new system of decoration, instituted academies, 
 and mutilated men. Music, though introduced 
 only as an assistant to tragedy, soon became the 
 principal ; and any poetry was thought good 
 enough for an entertainment where no poetry 
 could be understood. 
 
 The musical demon fell next upon comedy, and 
 begot the monster called opera huff a; a composi- 
 tion more wretched, if possible, than the serious 
 melo-drama. This last innovation, however, pam- 
 pered the two great appetites of the nation with 
 music and buffoonery, and drew the upper classes 
 of society away from poor prosaic Harlequin, who 
 sunk to the level of our Bartholomew-Fair. 
 
 In this low state was the Italian theatre when 
 Goldoni appeared. Obliged, like Moliere, to ac- 
 quiesce for a while in the established barbarisms, 
 he at first wrote for the old masks ; but, intro- 
 ducing beauties which were foreign and unfit for 
 them, he gradually refined the taste of the specta- 
 tors, made them ashamed of their former favour- 
 ites, and then ventured to exclude the whole 
 Harlequin family. Chiari and his adherents cla- 
 moured against this exclusion ; but Goldoni has 
 so completely succeeded, that his own masked 
 
THE THEATRE. 67 
 
 comedies are now banished from the regular stage 
 to the mar'wnnettc. This revokition necessarily 
 reduced the numher of acting plays, and though 
 Federici is very diligent in supplying the defi- 
 ciency, the public appears at present to prefer 
 translations from the German and French to 
 Italian originals. 
 
 The players seem to keep pace with the poets 
 in improvement. As if ashamed of their descent 
 from the " maschere dell' arte," they have re- 
 nounced the rant and buffoonery of the old stage, 
 and affect a temperance bordering upon tameness. 
 Yet still degraded in society, subject in some states 
 of Italy to a police as humiliating as the ancient,* 
 and every where rated below the warbling wethers 
 of the opera, they claim no respect for an art 
 which denies them the rank and emolument of 
 liberal artists : they style it only recitation ; they 
 expose, like showmen in the streets, their scenes 
 " painted upon a pole and underwrit ;" and they 
 close each performance with a long imploring in- 
 vitation to the next. 
 
 * " Praetoribus jus virgarum in histriones esset." — Tac. In one 
 part of Lucian we find the players subject to be whipped at the dis- 
 cretion of the audience ; in another we find the a9^o9eTa exercising 
 tliat right : at this moment tliey He under the same scourge at Rome. 
 T? 9. 
 
68 FLORF.NCE. 
 
 The theatrical year is divided into four or five 
 seasons. Each season brings a different company 
 of performers to each theatre. The singers and 
 dancers, whom I ignorantly omit in this review, 
 are perpetually changing their engagements ; but 
 the comedians adhere to their manager, and fol- 
 low him from city to city. Most of the comic 
 troops are composed of Lombards, and of these 
 the best are inlisted under Goldoni, a relation of 
 the great dramatist. In his company are the two 
 first actors of the day, Zanerini and Andolfati. 
 
 Zanerini's walk is the " padre nobile," and 
 surely in pathetic old characters he carries the 
 exquisite and the forceful as far as they can exist 
 together. 
 
 Andolfati excels as a caratterista, and has dra- 
 matised for himself some passages in the life of 
 Frederic II., whom he imitates, tale quale, in his 
 voice, walk, and manner. But Andolfati's merit 
 rises far above mimicry ; he can thrill the heart 
 as well as shake the sides, and (what is more dif- 
 ficult than either) he can excite through long 
 scenes that secret intellectual smile which, like the 
 humour of Addison, never fatigues. 
 
THE THEATRE. 69 
 
 The scene of their dramas lies so often in 
 England, that they should learn to dress them 
 more truly. I have seen Milord Bonfil appear in 
 three different comedies, with a broad silver lace 
 on the calf of his right leg to represent the garter. 
 Their scenery often corresponds with their dress. 
 Ill painted, ill set, inappropriate, rumpled, ragged 
 and slit, it presents its strolling poverty in the 
 face of the noblest architecture. No illusion can 
 be attempted on a stage, where the prompter rises 
 in the front, and reads the whole play as audibly 
 as his strutting echoes, who, from their incessant 
 change of parts, can be perfect in none. 
 
 Benefits are allowed only to the chief per- 
 formers. A prima donna is bound to call on all 
 the gentry of the place, to solicit their attendance, 
 and on the evening allotted to her, she sits greedily 
 at the receipt of custom, bowing for every crown 
 that is thrown on her tea tray. The price of a 
 ticket is but three Pauls, nor will this appear so 
 low, when you consider the short roll of actors, 
 their small salaries, their mean wardrobe, and the 
 cheap composition of an orchestra, where noble- 
 men volunteer their fiddles with the punctuality 
 of hirelings. 
 
70 FLORENCE. 
 
 Every theatre in Tuscany has its epithet and 
 device, as the ImmobUi and their windmill, the 
 Infuocati and their bomb, &c. An epithet, de- 
 vice, and motto, were thought necessary here to 
 every society, to every prince, to every academy, 
 and to every academician. 
 
 Previous to Alfieri, there was not a tragedy in 
 the Italian language that would now draw an au- 
 dience. The players, therefore, finding nothing 
 else better adapted to the buskin, had recourse to 
 Metastasio's operas, which they still recite occa- 
 sionally, omitting the airs. But verses composed 
 for a composer of music are not the language of 
 men speaking to men ; nor can much passion be 
 excited by speeches so antithetical, so measured, 
 and so balanced as those of Metastasio. 
 
 Hence tragedy is but seldom performed, and 
 very few performers excel in that sphere. No 
 tragic genius has yet appeared here equal to that 
 of a boy, who died lately at the age of fifteen. 
 This little prodigy was the son of Count Montauti, 
 governor of Leghorn. Though born a dwarf, he 
 had the perceptions of a hero ; he could grasp the 
 gigantic thoughts of Alfieri, present them to their 
 
THE THEATRE. 71 
 
 author in all their original grandeur, and force 
 him, against his nature, to admire. 
 
 Alfieri is, next to Dante, the Italian poet most 
 difficult to Italians themselves. His tragedies are 
 too patriotic and austere for the Tuscan stage. 
 Their construction is simple, perhaps too simple, 
 too sparing of action and of agents. Hence his 
 heroes must often soliloquise, he must often de- 
 scribe what a Shakspeare would represent, and 
 this to a nation immoderately fond of picture. 
 Every thought, indeed, is warm, proper, energe- 
 tic ; every word is necessary and precise ; yet this 
 very strength and compression, being new to the 
 language and foreign to its genius, have rendered 
 his style inverted, broken,* and obscure ; full of 
 ellipses, and elisions ; speckled even to affectation 
 with Dantesque terms ; without pliancy, or flow, 
 or variety, or ease. 
 
 * The periodical and voluminous st^le of Italian tragedies having 
 led actors into a musical monotony, it was to correct this vice that 
 Alfieri cut his speeches into short and unequal members. Such a 
 precaution at first betrayed him into a harshness of versification 
 which, though indignant at the critics who dared to blame it, he was 
 obliged to file down in the second edition of his plays. Parini told 
 him his defect fairly : 
 
 Dove il pensier tuona, 
 
 Non risponde la voce arnica e franca. 
 
72 FLORENCE, 
 
 Yet where lives the tragic j)oet equal to Alfieri ? 
 Has England or France one that deserves the 
 name ? Schiller may excel him in those peals of 
 terror which thunder through his gloomy and tem- 
 pestuous scenes ; but he is poorer in thought, and 
 inferior in the mechanism of his dramas. 
 
 Alfieri's conduct is more open than his works 
 to censure. Though born in a monarchy, and 
 living under mild princes, this Count concentrated 
 in his heart all the pride, brutality and violence 
 of the purest aristocracies that ever oppressed 
 Genoa or Venice. Whoever was more or less 
 than noble became the object of his hatred or his 
 contempt. The same pen levelled his Tirannide 
 against princes, and his Antigallican against ple- 
 beians. The patriotism which he once put on 
 could never sit easy upon such a mind, nor fall 
 naturally into the forms and postures of common 
 life. In forcing it violently on he rent the un- 
 sightly garb, then threw it aside, and let the tyrant 
 go naked. 
 
 This hatred of princes led him to dedicate his 
 Agis to our Charles I. I admit the jurisdiction 
 of posterity over the fame of dead kings. But 
 
THE THEATRE. 73 
 
 was it manly, was it humane, to call up the shade 
 of an accomplished prince, a prince fully as un- 
 fortunate as he was criminal, on purpose to insult 
 him with a mock-dedication ? and of all Italians, 
 did this become Alfieri, the reputed husband of 
 that very woman whose sterility has extinguished 
 the race of Charles ? 
 
 His aristocratical pride, working on a splenetic 
 constitution, breaks out into disgusting eccentrici- 
 ties, meets you at his very door,* bars up all his 
 approaches, and leaves himself in the solitude of 
 a sultan. How unbecoming of a poet was his 
 conduct to General Miollis, the declared friend of 
 all poets living and dead! How often has he de- 
 
 * He posted up in bis lobby tlie following advertisement, whicb 
 breathes precisely the same sentiment as bis answer to General 
 Rliollis, who had politely invited bira to his quarters : " Vittorio 
 Alfieri non riceve in casa ne persone, ne ambasciate di quelli che non 
 conosce e da' quali non dipende." 
 
 The following was his grateful return to Count Delce for a present 
 of two tragedies : 
 
 Tragedie due gia fe 
 Che il solo sa 
 Satire or fa 
 Saran tragedie tre. 
 Of his scurrility take this curious specimen addressed to another 
 poet : 
 
 Losco, lo:^co, io li conosco ; 
 
 Se avessi pane, non avrcsti tosco. 
 
74 FLORENCE. 
 
 scended from his theatrical stateHness to the 
 lowest scurrility ! How true is his own descrip- 
 tion of himself! 
 
 Or stimandomi Achille, ed or Tersite. 
 
 ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 Tal sopra sasso sasso 
 
 Dl GinO IX GIRO ETERNAMP.NTE 10 STRUSSI ; 
 
 Che cosi passo tasso, 
 Alto girando al ciel mi ricondussi. 
 
 Inscription. 
 
 The edifice which commands our chief attention 
 here, as beginning a new era in the history of 
 architecture, is the Cathedral founded by Lapo in 
 ] 298, and crowned by the cupola of Brunelleschi, 
 the object of the above inscription. 
 
 This is the first church that Italians raised in 
 the present proportions of the arcade. It is gene- 
 rally considered as a mean between the Gothic 
 style and the Greek ; yet nothing can be con- 
 ceived more remote from either. In opposition 
 to the fretted, frittered surfaces, and spiry flights 
 
ARCHITECTURE. 75 
 
 of the Gothic, here is the most naked simphcity 
 and strength unconcealed. Of the Greek, on the 
 other hand, not a particle entered into the original 
 idea. Instead of columns, the exterior decoration 
 consists of three kinds of marbles composed into 
 panels, and the interior in pillars and round arches ; 
 but no arches were known in Greek architecture, 
 nor can be traced in the ruins of free Greece. 
 What architecture then is this but the ancient 
 Roman, revived as completely as the purposes of 
 the church would admit ? 
 
 Brunelleschi has raised here the first double 
 cupola, and, I believe, the widest in Europe. No 
 columns assist as latent buttresses to shore it up. 
 The same coloured marbles that face the walls con- 
 tinue their decoration round the drum. Though 
 this cupola is polygonal, and bears on the per- 
 pendicular, it may fairly be considered as the pro- 
 totype of St. Peter's. Michael Angelo drew his 
 famous bravado from the Pantheon, but this grand 
 enterprize of Brunelleschi gave him the assurance 
 of performing it. 
 
 Under the cupola is the choir, corresponding in 
 plan with the great polygon above ; but its Ionic 
 
76 FLORENCE. 
 
 elevation, though fine, is at variance with the 
 fabric, and seems a beauty as foreign to this 
 cathedral as the Grecian screen is to that of Win- 
 chester. Cathedrals in general, lying under the 
 control of tasteless or interested men, have lost 
 their original unity, and become mere galleries of 
 architecture ; in which specimens of every style 
 are built side by side, just as pictures of every 
 school are hung upon the same wall. A choir 
 thus enclosed is necessarily darker than the nave. 
 Here is just that " dim religious light" which 
 pleases poetical and devout minds ; a light which 
 heightens the effect of the lamps and candles, of 
 the gold, silver, and brocade of Catholic worship, 
 while it shades the mediocrity of the paintings 
 and sculpture. 
 
 This cathedral contains very few pictures, and 
 none of any value. I remarked a portrait of the 
 English condottiero John Hawkwood, painted and 
 even cut out, prancing over the military praise 
 which he obtained by traitorously selling to Flo- 
 rence the Pisans who paid him to defend them. 
 
 Next to our honest countryman stands an an- 
 tique picture of Dante, painted by Orcagna several 
 
ARCHITECTURE. 77 
 
 years after his death, and placed here by the same 
 repubHc which had condemned him to the stake. 
 Such was the poor palinodia of Florence to the 
 man who made her language the standard of 
 Italy : while three foreigners, in three different 
 ages, raised to him in a foreign state his sarcopha- 
 gus and tomb and funeral chamber. Well might 
 he call his countrymen 
 
 — — Quelle 'ngrato popolo maligno 
 
 Che discese di Fiesole ab antico, 
 
 E tien' ancor del moiite e del macigno. 
 
 I have been assured that not only this, but all 
 the portraits now existing of Dante are, like those 
 of " our divine poet," posthumous : yet as all re- 
 semble this venerable work of Orcagna, uniformity 
 has given a sanction to the common effigy of the 
 bard. Not so Shakspeare's. Most of the portraits 
 that pass for his are dissimilar ; the only effigy 
 recorded by a contemporary was in bronze. None 
 of the pictures are authentic, none certainly ori- 
 ginal, none such as the mind can repose on, and 
 fix its idolatry.* 
 
 * Dante and Shakspeare form a striking parallel — as the master- 
 bards of Italy and England — oppressed with praise and annotation 
 at home, and ridiculed as barbarians by foreign critics — Dante rose 
 
78 FLORENCE. 
 
 The other churches of Florence have nothing 
 very pecuhar or important in their construction. 
 The chapel de' Depositi is a work of Michael An- 
 gelo's, and the first he ever built ; but the design 
 is petty and capricious ; consisting in two insigni- 
 ficant orders, altogether unworthy of the impres- 
 sive monuments which he raised within it. The 
 contiguous chapel de' Medici is more noble and 
 more chaste in the design itself; though its archi- 
 tect was a prince, and its walls were destined to 
 receive the richest crust of ornament that ever 
 was lavished on so large a surface. 
 
 The palaces may be divided into those of re- 
 publican date, and the modern. The former had 
 originally towers, like the Pisan, which were in- 
 troduced towards the close of the tenth century, 
 
 before the dawn of letters in Italy : and Shakspeai'c soon after they 
 had spread in England. — Finding their native tongues without sys- 
 tem or limit, each formed another language within his own ; a lan- 
 guage peculiar as their creators, and entering only like authorities 
 into conmion Italian and English : to add nerve, and spirit, and dig- 
 nity, and beauty. Both have stood the obliterating waste of ages, 
 have seen younger styles grow old and disappear, have survived all 
 the short-lived fopperies of literature, and flourish now in unabated 
 fashion, inviting and resisting ten thousand imitations. 
 
 Altri Danteggia 
 
 Era duri vcrsi brancola, e s'avvolge, 
 
 E si perde d'Averno tra le bolge. Pignotti. 
 
ARCHITECTURE. 79 
 
 as a private defence in the free cities of Italy. 
 To these succeeded a new construction, more 
 massive, if possible, and more ostentatiously se- 
 vere than the Etruscan itself; a construction which 
 fortified the whole basement of the palace with 
 large, rude, rugged bossages, and thus gave always 
 an imposing aspect, and sometimes a necessary 
 defence to the nobility of a town for ever subject 
 to insurrection. Such are the palaces of the 
 Medici, the Strozzi, the Pitti. This harsh and 
 exaggerated strength prevails only below. The 
 upper stories are faced with vermiculated rustics 
 or free-stone, and the whole is crowned with an 
 overpowering cornice which projects beyond all 
 authority ; for here are no columns to regulate its 
 proportions, and its very excess diffuses below a 
 certain grandeur distinct from the character of any 
 regulated style. The court is generally surrounded 
 with Greek orders, and bears no analogy to the 
 outside. 
 
 The modern palaces are generally faced with 
 stucco, but not painted. A few near Santa Croce 
 are hatched with figures " al 'sgraffito" a style 
 peculiar to Polidore Caravaggio. The larger 
 palaces, such as the Capponi, &c., run rather into 
 
80 FLORENCE. 
 
 long fronts than quadrangular courts. Their 
 doors and windows are admirably designed, and 
 being sparingly distributed they leave an air of 
 solidity and grandeur on the wall. 
 
 The interior distribution accords with the length 
 of front. One line of doors enfilades the apart- 
 ments and lays open the whole house; a plan 
 rather incommodious for private life, but very 
 proper for a gala, and suited to a hot climate. It 
 sometimes, indeed, makes a thoroughfare of Sig- 
 nora's bed-chamber ; but those sacred retirements 
 which an Englishwoman requires are unnecessary 
 in a country where ladies affect no restraint, and 
 feel embarrassed by no intrusion. In every house 
 the lower rooms are vaulted. The upper apart- 
 ments are hung very generally with silk ; never 
 with paper. The walls are coated with a stucco 
 which is rather gritty, but well adapted for fresco- 
 painting. 
 
 Columns are very seldom employed in public 
 works ; and no where happily. In the " piazza 
 della SS. Nunziata" the porticos are composed of 
 arches resting on Corinthian columns, a combina- 
 tion every where wrong, and here very meagre in 
 
ARCHITECTURE. 81 
 
 its effect. In the Uffizzi the columns stand too 
 high for so sohd an order as the Doric. The 
 triumphal arch of San Gallo is in the most perfect 
 opposition to the grave and austere architecture 
 of the city which it announces. 
 
 Some of the principal edifices have remained 
 for ages unfinished — such as the Cathedral, St. 
 Lorenzo, Santa Croce, Santo Spirito, the chapel 
 of the Medici, &c. The Pitti palace wants a 
 wing ; the Strozzi half its entablature ; the vesti- 
 bule of the Laurentian Library is still encumbered 
 by the very scaffolding which Michael Angelo 
 erected. 
 
 In the same unfinished state I saw several sta- 
 tues of this mighty master ; — the dead Christ at 
 the cathedral; the Madonna; the Day and the 
 Twilight at the tombs of the Medici ; the bust of 
 Brutus in the royal gallery ; the Victory in the 
 Palazzo Vecchio :* — and so sacred is the terror of 
 
 * I saw several of his drawings at the Buonarroti palace in the 
 same half-finished state. Most of those are the sketches of a boy, 
 but a boy who broke out an original sculptor at the age of fourteen; 
 and who excelled most in that part of sculpture which forms the very 
 
 VOL. I, G 
 
82 FLORENCE. 
 
 Michael's genius, that these statues remain un- 
 touched and inviolate in the midst of restorers who 
 are daily trifling with the sculpture of antiquity. 
 So many works thus begun and abandoned cannot 
 all be considered as failures of the chissel ; which 
 certainly, in the heat and confidence of genius, he 
 is said to have driven sometimes too deep into the 
 marble. Some, perhaps, we should impute to the 
 fastidious taste of an artist who rejected whatever 
 came short of his first conceptions ; some, to his 
 
 essence of drawing. I saw nothing finished except a Christ extended 
 as on the cross, and a figure of Fortune on her wheel; both in red 
 chalk, on thin paper ; and both full of singularity and mind. His 
 paintings in the library are much defaced; his books have lately dis- 
 appeared ; but the bust remains and is the best resemblance extant 
 of the immortal founder : for John Bologn has given the full contu- 
 sion on his nose which was flattened, as the story runs, by the fist, 
 or, as a relation of his own assured me, by the mallet of an invidious 
 rival. 
 
 Though all the great artists of that age affected universality, none 
 united so many talents as Michael Angelo. Sculptor, painter, poet, 
 architect, civil and military engineer, mechanist ; in short, here he is 
 every thing. An Italian, when at a loss for the author of any object 
 that you admire, will immediately rank it among the labours of M. 
 Angelo, the Hercules of modern art. I once stopped to examine 
 some cart-wheels which were lying in the Campo Vaccino, when the 
 maker came out, expatiated on the advantage of their enormous dia- 
 meter, and gave Michael Angelo for their inventor, — " Michael An- 
 gelo?" said I. — " Yes, surely; else why was he named Buonar- 
 roti ?" 
 
ARCHITECTURE. 83 
 
 rapid succession of designs ; designs too numerous 
 and too grand even for a life of ninety years, 
 made still more productive by the ambidexterous 
 faculty. 
 
 ENVIRONS. 
 
 -Sic fortis Elruria crevit. Vine. 
 
 The environs of Florence owe their beauty to a 
 race of farmers who are far more industrious, in- 
 telligent, and liberal,* than their neighbours born 
 to the same sun and soil. Leopold toiled to make 
 his peasants all comfortable, and the steward takes 
 
 * Tlieir liberality is conspicuous in the contributions of their 
 rural fraternities, who come in procession to Florence with splendid 
 lusciacche, and leave their donations in the churches. Hence the 
 clergy keep them well disciplined in faith, and, through the terror of 
 bad crops, they begin to extort the abolished tithes. 
 
 On Easter-eve I remarked a crowd of these farmers collected in 
 the cathedral of Florence, to watch the motion of an artificial dove, 
 which, just as the priests began " Gloria in Excelsis," burst away 
 from the choir, glided along the nave on a rope, set fire to a combust- 
 ible car in the street, and then flew whizzing back to its post. The 
 eyes of every peasant were wishfully riveted on the sacred puppet, 
 and expressed a deep interest in its flight ; for all their hopes of a 
 
 g2 
 
84 FLORENCE. 
 
 care that none shall be rich. They pass the year 
 in a vicissitude of hard labour and jollity; they 
 are seldom out of debt, and never insolvent. 
 Negligent of their own dress, they take a pride 
 in the flaring silks and broad ear-rings of their 
 wives and daughters. These assist them in the 
 field : for the farms, being too small to support 
 servants, are laboured in the patriarchal style by 
 the brothers, sisters, and children of the farmer. 
 
 Few of the proprietors round Florence will 
 grant leases ; yet so binding is the force of pre- 
 scription, so mutual the interest of landlord and 
 tenant, and so close the intertexture of their pro- 
 perty, that removals are very rare, and many now 
 occupy the farms which their forefathers tilled 
 during the Florentine republic. 
 
 The stock of these farms belongs half to the 
 landlord, and half to the tenant. This partner- 
 ship extends even to the poultry and pigeons : 
 the only pecuUmn of the farmer is the produce of 
 his hives. Hence the cattle run usually in pairs. 
 
 future harvest depended on its safe return to the altar. " Quando 
 va bene la colombiiia, va bene il Fiorentino" is an adage as ancient 
 as the dignity of the Pazzi, who still provide the car. 
 
ENVIRONS. 
 
 85 
 
 One yoke of bullocks is sufficient for a common 
 farm. Their oxen are all dove-coloured; even 
 those which are imported from other states change 
 their coat in Tuscany, where they are always fed 
 in the stall, and never go out but to labour. 
 They are guided in the team by reins fixed to 
 rings which are inserted in their nostrils ; some- 
 times two hooks joined like pincers are used, like 
 the postomis of Lucilius, which has teazed so 
 many antiquaries. 
 
 Every field in the environs of Florence is 
 ditched round, lined with poplars, and intersected 
 by rows of vines or olive-trees. Those rows are 
 so close as to impede the plough ; which, though it 
 saves labour, is considered here as less calculated 
 for produce than the triangular spade with which 
 the tenant is bound by his landlord to dig or 
 rather to shovel one-third of his farm. 
 
 This rich plain of the Val d'Arno yields usually 
 two harvests a year, the first of wheat, the second 
 of some green crop ; which last is sometimes 
 ploughed up, and left to rot on the field as ma- 
 nure for the next. This course is interrupted 
 every third or fourth year by a crop of Turkey 
 
86 FLORENCE. 
 
 wheat, sometimes of beans or rye, and more rarely 
 of oats. Barley was unknown here until the 
 breweries lately established at Florence and Pisa 
 called it into cultivation. 
 
 As you approach the skirts of this narrow plain, 
 you perceive a change in agriculture. The vine 
 and the olive gradually prevail over corn ; and 
 each farm brings a variety of arts into action ! 
 In addition to our objects of husbandry, the 
 Tuscan has to learn all the complicate processes 
 which produce wine, oil, and silk, the principal 
 exports of the state. Of corn an average crop 
 brings only five returns in the Florentine territory ; 
 in the Senese eight or nine ; and the aggregate 
 affords but ten months' subsistence to all Tuscany, 
 although the mountaineers live mostly on chest- 
 nuts.* 
 
 * One-half of Tuscany is mountains which produce nothhig but 
 timber ; one-sixth part consists of hills which are covered with vine- 
 yards or olive gardens: the remaining third is plain: The wliole is 
 distributed into 80,000 fattorie, or stewardsliips. Each fattoria in- 
 cludes on the average seven farms. This property is divided among 
 40,000 families or corporations. The Riccardi, the Strozzi, the Fer- 
 roni ; and the Benedictines rank first in the number. 
 
 This number was greatly increased b^' Leopold, who, in selling the 
 crown lands, studiously divided large tracts of rich but neglected 
 soil into a multitude of little properties, which proportionately in- 
 
ENVIRONS. 87 
 
 This garden of Tuscany seems to require more 
 manure than it produces. To keep it perpetually 
 in crop the farmers must resort to the infectious 
 sewers of the city ; they send poor men and asses 
 to pick up dung on the roads; and at certain rest- 
 ing-places on the highway they spread litter for 
 the cattle that pass to stale for their benefit. 
 
 The objects most admired in these environs are 
 the villas, particularly those of the crown. I shall, 
 however, confine my remarks to Doccia alone, on 
 account of the porcelain manufactory established 
 there about sixty years ago by the Marquis 
 Genori. 
 
 This " fabbrica nobile" had been represented to 
 me as a " cosa stupenda, portentosa," and the 
 
 creased the general produce. His favourite plan of encouraging agri- 
 culture consisted notinboards, societies, or premiums, butin giving the 
 labourer a security and interest in the soil, in multiplying small free- 
 holds, in extending the livelii, or life-leases, wherever he could, and 
 in maintaining sacredly that equal division of stock and crop between 
 the landlord and the tenant, which engages both equally in improving 
 the farm. The younger Pliny, who practised this last plan, sets it in 
 its true light. " Non numrao sed partibus locem, ac deinde ex meis 
 aliquos operis exactores fructibus ponam. Est alioquin nullum justius 
 genus reditus quara quod terra, coelum, annus refert ; at hoc niag- 
 nara fidcm, acres ocuios, numerosas manus poscit." 
 
88 FLORENCE. 
 
 villa itself conspired with the grandeur of those 
 epithets to raise ideas which none of the manufac- 
 tories realized. I found only fifty men employed 
 in the house, and some of those fellows were 
 idling from one wheel to another; some, wdiile 
 making their moulds, taught their children to 
 read ; none had the activity nor the manner of our 
 workmen. 
 
 The museum at Doccia contains a great variety 
 of fossils found in the country ; but the ware- 
 rooms were rather crowded than rich. In a 
 country anciently so famous for its pottery, I ex- 
 pected to find some near approaches to the bello 
 antico which now gives models to all our furniture 
 and fashions. Here, indeed, are casts of ancient 
 statues in chalk, gypsum, and terra-cotta; but 
 nothing else did I see that bore any print of clas- 
 sical beauty. The forms, the relief, the very 
 paintings of their vases and jars are as inferior to 
 ours as the quality of the porcelain. They exceed 
 us only in price. A dinner-service of clumsy red 
 china costs 150 sequins, a tea-pot two ; nor would 
 any of those services pass for complete at an 
 English table, where the little subdivisions of con- 
 venience are far more multiplied than in Italy. 
 
ENVIRONS. 89 
 
 At Doccia they work only for their own country, 
 and for the tastes which prevail there. When- 
 ever they imitate us, they become inferior to them- 
 selves. Our superiority in trade is acknowledged 
 universally at Florence, where the name of English, 
 or, at least, the " all' uso d'Inghilterra," is imposed 
 upon the most laboured productions of Italian and 
 German workshops. 
 
 You discover here on the very surface of things, 
 how greatly commerce has degenerated in a coun- 
 try which gave it birth, and language, and laws. 
 The counting-houses are in general dirty, dark, 
 mean vaults; the ledgers stitched rather than 
 bound, and covered with packing paper. All 
 commodities are weighed by the old steel-yard; 
 the only balance that I remarked here was held 
 by the statue of Justice. In trades no regular 
 apprenticeships are requisite ; nor are the usual 
 appropriations of sex observed. In the same 
 street, I have seen men sewing curtains, and 
 women employed at the loom and the awl. 
 
 The Italian shopkeeper only calculates down- 
 wards. His sole object is to cheat his customers. 
 He does not remount to the first sources that 
 
90 FLORENCE. 
 
 supply his shop ; he abandons the general state 
 of his own line to his merchant. In Britain, on 
 the contrary, the great fluctuations of commerce 
 may originate in the capital, but they presently 
 spread through the whole island. The common 
 retailer in the remotest town brings politics into 
 his trade, anticipates taxes, watches the return 
 of fleets, and speculates on the commercial effects 
 of peace and war. 
 
 It would be ungrateful to leave the environs of 
 Florence without mentioning the pleasure which 
 I once enjoyed " at evening from the toipo{ Fesole." 
 The weather was then Elysian, the spring in its 
 most beautiful point, and all the world, just re- 
 leased from the privations of Lent, were fresh in 
 their festivity. I sat down on the brow of the 
 hill, and measured with my enraptured eye half 
 the Val d'Arno. Palaces, villas, convents, towns, 
 and farms were seated on the hills, or difllised 
 through the vale, in the very points and combina- 
 tions where a Claude would hare placed them — 
 
 Monti superbi, la cui fronte Alpina 
 Fa di se contro i venti argine e sponda ! 
 Valli beate, per cui d'onda in onda 
 L'Arno con passo signoril cannnina ! 
 
ENVIRONS. 91 
 
 My poetical emotions were soon interrupted by 
 an old peasant, who sat down at the same resting- 
 place, and thus addressed his companion, " Che 
 beir occhiata! guardiamo un po'la nostra Firenze. 
 Quanto e bella! quanto cattiva! chi ci sta in 
 chiesa, chi ci fa birbonate. Ah Gigi! quante 
 ville! quante vigne! quanti poderi! — ma non v'e 
 nulla di nostro." Those notes of exclamation end 
 in a selfishness peculiar to age. There is gene- 
 rally something sordid at the bottom of the 
 bucket which old men throw on admiration. 
 
 Fiesole stands on a hill precipitously steep. 
 The front of it is cut into a gradation of narrow 
 terraces, which are enclosed in a trellis of vines, 
 and faced with loose-stone walls. Such a facing 
 may perhaps cost less labour, and add more 
 warmth to the plantation than turf-embankments 
 would do ; but it gives a hard, dry effect to the 
 immediate picture, which, viewed from Florence, 
 is the most beautiful object in this region of 
 beauty. 
 
 The top of the hill is conical, and its summit 
 usurped by a convent of Franciscans, whose leave 
 you must ask to view the variegated map of coun- 
 
92 FLORENCE. 
 
 try below you. Their corridores command a mul- 
 tiplicity of landscape : every window presented a 
 different scene, and every minute before sunset 
 changed the whole colouring. Leopold once 
 brought his brother Joseph up to shew him here 
 the garden of his dominions ; and this imperial 
 visit is recorded in a Latin inscription as an event 
 in the history of the convent. 
 
 The season brought a curious succession of in- 
 sects into view. On the way to Fiesole my ears 
 were deafened with the hoarse croak of the cigala, 
 which Homer, I cannot conceive why, compares 
 to the softness of the lily. On my return the 
 lower air was illuminated with myriads of lucciole 
 or fire-flies ; and I entered Florence at shutting 
 of the gates, 
 
 Come la mosca cede alia zanzara. 
 
VALLOMBROSA. 
 
 Vallonibrosa ; 
 
 Cosi fu noniiiiata una badia, 
 Ricca e bella, noii men religiosa, 
 E cortesa a chiunque vi venia. 
 
 Ariosto. 
 
 This grand solitude, which was first called Acqua 
 Bella from the beauty of its stream, takes its pre- 
 sent name from a valley ; but the abbey itself 
 stands in an amphitheatre of hills; an amphi- 
 theatre so accurately described by Milton that, I 
 am confident, the picture in his mind was only a 
 recollection of Vallombrosa : 
 
 — Which crowns with her enclosure green, 
 As with a rural mound, the champaiijn head 
 Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides 
 With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild, 
 Access denied; and over-head up grew 
 Insuperable height of loftiest shade, 
 A sylvan scene : and as the ranks ascend 
 Shade above shade, a woody theatre 
 Of stateliest view. 
 
94 VALLOMBROSA. 
 
 The intermediate approaches to the abbey are 
 planted in the open parkish style, and finely con- 
 trast with the black girdle of forest around it. 
 The abbey is a large, loose pile of various con- 
 struction, and regular only in one front. Why is 
 no convent to be found absolutely regular? 
 Surely one quadrangle might be made sufficient 
 for all the wants of a few monks. Allot three 
 sides to their cells, the fourth to the general offices, 
 refectory, librai'y, &c., and insulate the church in 
 the middle of the court ; then would the result be 
 cloisteral, connected, uniform; Religion sur- 
 rounded with her votaries ; the tabernacle in the 
 bosom of the camp. 
 
 Being introduced by a letter to the abbot, and 
 accompanied by the brother of two Vallombrosans, 
 I met here a very kind reception. Those amiable 
 men seem to study hospitality as a profession. 
 People of all ranks and religions are equally wel- 
 come, and entertained without either officiousness 
 or neglect. Though the monks then resident were 
 but fourteen in number, their famiglia, including 
 novices, lay-brethren, menials, and workmen, ex- 
 ceeded a hundred. In summer the Foresteria of 
 the abbey is usually full of strangers, and during 
 
VALLOMBROSA. 95 
 
 the winter half-year all the indigent neighbours 
 flock hither for their daily loaf. 
 
 Such indiscriminate hospitality is, however, but 
 the virtue of barbarous society. Baneful to indus- 
 try and independence, it feeds poor men, but it 
 keeps them poor ; it gives them a lodging, but it 
 weans them from home. Not that I grudge this 
 rich community the means of being so bountiful ; 
 I rather grudge it the youth, the talents, and the 
 active powers which the Institution entombs : I 
 grudge it the very virtues of the men whom I 
 found here. Those virtues tend only to palliate 
 its defects, and correct its general influence by the 
 good which they do in detail. 
 
 These excellent men bring economy to the aid 
 of beneficence. While they give bread to hun- 
 dreds, to themselves they allow but the modest 
 stipend of eighteen crowns a year : yet the reve- 
 nues of the abbey are about 40,000 crowns. Its 
 fattorias are palaces, its farms are highly culti- 
 vated, and its tenantry wealthy ; while the Insti- 
 tution, by maintaining the same unalterable plan, 
 and training all its members to the same habits, 
 secures itself from the misgovernment which a pri- 
 
96 VALLOMBROSA. 
 
 vate inheritance is occasionally exposed to. The 
 private gentleman, perhaps, spends his income 
 more profitably to the public revenue. His rents 
 do not return so directly as the monk's into the 
 mass of the people, w^hich is the ultimate destina- 
 tion of all property ; but they return through more 
 taxable channels, through cellars and shops. 
 
 Here is a museum containing some curious ob- 
 jects connected with the place ; an astonishing 
 variety of mushrooms all natives of Vallombrosa, 
 painted by Don Tozzi,* and two elephants' skulls 
 which were dug up in these mountains, and are 
 referred by some to the passage of Annibal, by 
 others to the same causes that have lodged such 
 fossils in many parts of Europe.-f- I remarked 
 
 * Is the motto of this collection right in etymology ? 
 Naturee foetus rairare, sed aufuge fungos, 
 Namque a fungendo funere nonien habet. 
 
 i" Elephants' bones have been found near Vallombrosa also in a 
 petrified state, incrusted with oyster-shells ; and from this pheno- 
 menon Fortis has deduced a very bold h^'pothesis. He maintains 
 that those bones belonged to animals which had been originally 
 marine ; that the sea left their skeletons on these mountains in a 
 remote period of the world ; that, while the continent slowly emerged 
 from the all-creative ocean, those natives of the water became gra- 
 dually terrestrial; in short, that men, quadrupeds, and birds, were 
 originally fish. — Thus the wheel of philosophy turns round, and 
 brings up again the exploded tenets of Anaximander and the reveries 
 of Telliamcd. 
 
VALLOMBROSA. 97 
 
 several immense port-folios, in which they pretend 
 that a monk has collected every Madonna yet 
 engraved since the origin of the art. Such are 
 the collections on which the misers and little minds 
 of a convent turn the accumulating passion, when 
 debarred from money. Here, too, are preserved 
 all the pastoral staves that the abbots have borne 
 since Gualberti founded the order. The first, a 
 plain black stick, had its head formed like a T ; 
 the next head resembled an adze ; the next an 
 adze without its pole ; and the rest in succession 
 bent gradually into a crosier. In the same crooked 
 manner did the abbots themselves, from subsisting 
 on the charity of a few nuns, creep into territory, 
 lordship, and jurisdiction. 
 
 On one of the cliffs is a monastery in miniature, 
 called the Paradisino, which commands a distant 
 view of Florence, the vale, and the sea. The 
 rooms are covered with a multitude of wretched 
 engravings, which we were obliged to praise, as 
 their reverend collector was our guide. The 
 chapel contains some pictures of Del Sarto, and 
 among these a beautiful accident of art. Andrea, 
 having four large saints to paint on the altar-piece, 
 was embarrassed by a pannel which divided them 
 
 VOL. I. H 
 
98 VALLOMBROSA. 
 
 into pairs. To cover this defect he carelessly 
 rubbed two cherubs on the board, and was sur- 
 prized to find these children of chance far more 
 admirable than their principals. 
 
 It was here that Don Hugford, a monk of Eng- 
 lish extraction, revived the art of ScagUuola. 
 This art had been confined to the imitation of in- 
 animate objects, until his improvements gave it 
 the chiaroscuro necessary to landscape and the 
 human figure. I remarked at Vallombrosa that 
 all Hugford's pictures are cracked in the outlines, 
 and, on my return to Florence, I mentioned this 
 defect to Stoppioni, who is Hugford's descendant 
 in the art. Stoppioni imputed it to an improper 
 oil vised in the first method ; as no such flaws 
 appear in his own works, or in those of his master 
 Gori. 
 
 Scagliuola, though its materials be different, 
 seems to bear in its effects some analogy to the 
 ancient Encaustic* It resists the action of the 
 air, it gives solidity to colour, and the selenite, 
 though inserted like mosaic, is not so subject to 
 
 * I mean here the Encaustic in wax ; for the process called ces- 
 trotuin was, in my opinion, nothing but poker-work. 
 
VALLOMBROSA. 99 
 
 dissolution. Of the ancient Encaustic no remains 
 have escaped : the art itself is lost. ReifFestein, 
 Quatremere, Requeno, and some other Spaniards, 
 have lately attempted its recovery; but, like Count 
 Caylus and Bachelier, they give us a multitude of 
 methods for want of the one sought. 
 
 H '4 
 
CAMALDOLI. 
 
 Fra due liti d' Italia surgon sassi, 
 E fann' uu gibbo che si chiama Latria ; 
 Dissott' al quale e conservato un Ermo, 
 Che suol esser disposto a sola latria. Dante. 
 
 From Vallombrosa, the region of the fir and larch, 
 we rode through a forest of oak and beech, and 
 returned to the country of the ohve and fig-tree. 
 Our guide was a Florentine cobbler, who, finding 
 little to do at home, had consigned the awl to his 
 wife, and was then strolling for subsistence from 
 convent to convent. 
 
 By this worthy tourist were we misled into 
 pathless woods, and obliged to put up at a solitary 
 inn called Uomo Morto, an object as woful in 
 aspect as in name. Its name it derives from the 
 execution of a coiner whom Dante has packed 
 among the daa..ied, as an accomplice to the three 
 counts of Romena. 
 
CAMALDOLI. 101 
 
 Ivi h Romena, la dove io falsai 
 
 La lega suggellatta del Battista; 
 Perch' io il corpo suso lasciai : 
 
 Ma s' i' vedessi qui 1' anima trista 
 
 Di Guido, o d' Alessandro, o di lor frate, 
 Per fonte Branda noii darei vista. 
 
 The castle of Romena, mentioned in these 
 verses, now stands in ruins on a precipice about 
 a mile from our inn, and not far off is a spring 
 which the peasants call Fonte Branda. Might I 
 presume to differ from his commentators, Dante, 
 in my opinion, does not mean the great fountain 
 of Siena, but rather this obscure spring ; which, 
 though less known to the world, was an object 
 more familiar to the poet himself who took refuge 
 here from proscription, and an image more natural 
 to the coiner who was burnt on the spot. 
 
 Those counts of Romena had trained here a race 
 of assassins, who transmitted the profession to 
 their descendants. Long after those Guidi had 
 lost their feudal power, when Lorenzino de' Medici 
 meditated the murder of his cousin, he sent hither 
 for a cut-throat. His own puny arm gave the 
 usurper the first blow, but Scoronconcolo dis- 
 patched him. 
 
102 CAMALDOLI. 
 
 We now crossed the beautiful vale of Prato 
 Veccliio, rode round the modest arcades of the 
 town, and arrived at the lower convent of Camal- 
 doli, just at shutting the gates. The sun was 
 set and every object sinking into repose, except 
 the stream which roared among the rocks, and 
 the convent-bells which were then ringing the 
 Angelus. 
 
 This monastery is secluded from the approach 
 of woman in a deep, narrow, woody dell. Its 
 circuit of dead walls, built on the conventual plan, 
 gives it an aspect of confinement and defence ; yet 
 this is considered as a privileged retreat where 
 the rule of the order relaxes its rigour, and no 
 monks can reside but the sick or the superannu- 
 ated, the dignitary or the steward, the apothecary 
 or the bead-turner. Here we passed the night, 
 and next morning rode up by steep traverses to 
 the Santa Eremo, where Saint Romualdo lived 
 and established 
 
 de' tacenti cenobiti il coro, 
 
 U arcane penitenze, ed i digiuni 
 Al Camaldoli suo. 
 
 The Eremo is a city of hermits, walled round' 
 
CAMALDOLI. 103 
 
 and divided into streets of low, detached cells. 
 Each cell consists of two oi' three naked rooms, 
 built exactly on the plan of the Saint's own tene- 
 ment, which remains just as Romualdo left it 800 
 years ago, now too sacred and too damp for a 
 mortal tenant. 
 
 The unfeeling Saint has here established a rule 
 which anticipates the pains of purgatory. No 
 stranger can behold without emotion a number of 
 noble, interesting young men bound to stand erect 
 chaunting at choir for eight hours a-day ; their 
 faces pale, their heads shaven, their beards shaggy, 
 their backs raw, their legs swollen, and their feet 
 bare. With this horrible institute the climate 
 conspires in severity, and selects from society the 
 best constitutions. The sickly novice is cut off 
 in one or two winters, the rest are subject to 
 dropsy, and few arrive at old age. 
 
 I saw nothing to be admired in the church but 
 a silk palliotto painted by Annibal Caracci and 
 encircled with embroidery. Caravaggio's Infant 
 Christ sleeping on a crown of thorns struck me 
 as an indecent repetition of his Cupid's sleeping 
 on a quiver. I was surprized to find, among 
 
101' CAiMALDOLI. 
 
 hermits immured on the mountains and restricted 
 to books of devotion, a library so rich in the earliest 
 classics, and in works approaching the very in- 
 cunahida of printing. Among these were Cennini's 
 Virgil, the first Greek Homer, the first edition of 
 Dante and of Lascari's Grammar. To such a 
 library and such a solitude the late bishop of 
 Antwerp retired from persecution ; and here he 
 closed his laborious life, without having executed 
 his two Herculean designs of editing the manu- 
 script histories of Germany, and re-establishing 
 the metaphysics of Plato.* 
 
 From the Santa Eremo we proceeded up the 
 mountain where Landinus represents the Platon- 
 ists of the fifteenth century holding the Disputa- 
 tiones Camaldulenses. We climbed one of the 
 
 * The bishop left the following epitapii for his own tomb : 
 Hie jacet 
 Cornelius Fran, de Nelli, 
 
 Episc. Anverp. 
 Peccator et Peregrinus. 
 But his hosts, disliking the humility which it ends in, have politely 
 concealed the last line by the flooring of the chapel. 
 
 Their politeness to Leopold has, in another inscription, adopted 
 a formula, which is certainly very common on ancient monuments^ 
 in the Imperial rescripts, and in the deifying diplomacy of the 
 lower empire ; but which sounds like blasphemy to a Christian 
 ear. — " Eremitas Carauldulenses — devot. numini niajcstutiquo ejus — 
 
 M. P." 
 
CAMALDOLI. 105 
 
 heights of Falterona which, I apprehend, is the 
 Latvia described in the motto. Our guide called 
 it the giant of the Apennines, and, if we might 
 believe him or Ariosto, it commands a view of 
 both seas ; but a distant haze prevented us from 
 ascertaining whether that be possible. 
 
 From this point on to La Verna, the upper 
 region of the hills is one continued botanic garden. 
 The beech is indigenous on their tops and the 
 oak on their sides : the chestnut-tree and the fir 
 were planted. These forests belong to the con- 
 vents of Camaldoli and Vallorabrosa, and to the 
 Cathedral-opera of Florence. Immense rafts are 
 floated down the Arno by the winter-floods, and 
 consigned to Leghorn, where the English paid 
 exorbitantly, during the last war, to the catholic 
 church, for the timber which enabled them to 
 fiffht her battles. 
 
LA VERNA. 
 
 Nel crudo sasso infra Tcvcr ed Arno 
 Da Christo prese 1' ultimo sigillo ; 
 Che le sue membra due aniii purtanio. Dante. 
 
 This singular convent, which stands on the chff's 
 of a lofty Apennine, was built by Saint Francis 
 himself, and is celebrated for the miracle which 
 the motto records. Here reigns all the terrible 
 of nature — a rocky mountain, a ruin of the ele- 
 ments, broken, sawn, and piled in sublime con- 
 fusion — precipices crowned with old, gloomy 
 visionary woods — black chasms in the rock where 
 curiosity shudders to look down — haunted caverns 
 sanctified by miraculous crosses — long excavated 
 stairs that restore you to day-light. This scenery 
 is now under the pencil of Philip Hackert, a 
 Prussian, brought by a reflux of art from the land 
 of Vandals to charm Italy with his landscapes. 
 On the top of the mountain is a mass of marine 
 
LA VERNA. 107 
 
 testaceous petrifactions, where Soldani has col- 
 lected for his microscopical work, myriads of 
 ammonites and nautili perfect in their forms, yet 
 minute as sand. 
 
 On entering the chapel of the stigmata we 
 caught the religion of the place ; we knelt round 
 the rail, and gazed with a kind of local devotion 
 at the holy spot where Saint Francis received 
 the five wounds of Christ. The whole hill is 
 legendary ground. Here the Seraphic father 
 was saluted by two crows which still haunt the 
 convent : there the devil hurled him down a pre- 
 cipice, yet was not permitted to bruise a bone of 
 him. 
 
 Pulchra Lavern 4, 
 
 Da mihi fallere, da justum sanctumque videri ! 
 
 What a pity that so great a man should be lost 
 among the Saints ! Francis appears to me a ge- 
 nuine hero, original, independent, magnanimous, 
 incorruptible. His powers seemed designed to 
 regenerate society ; but taking a wrong direction, 
 they sank men into beggars. 
 
 The sanctuary-doors were unlocked to us with 
 
108 LA VERNA. 
 
 studied solemnity. Tapers were lighted, incense 
 burnt, prayers muttered, all fell on their knees, 
 and the bead-roll of relics was displayed. They 
 particularly adored a tooth of St. Christopher 
 which, an eminent naturalist assured me, came 
 from the jaws of a rhinoceros.* I could hardly 
 refrain from an heretical smile, till I began to 
 reflect that the scene before me was the work of 
 faith. 
 
 These poor friars are more loved and respected 
 by the people who feed them than any of the 
 chartered orders. Obliged and obliging, they 
 mix intimately with the peasants, as counsellors, 
 and comforters, and friends. They give away 
 more medicine than the rich anchorites of Camal- 
 doli sell. In hospitals, in prisons, on the scaffold, 
 in short wherever there is misery you find Francis- 
 cans allaying it. They gave us a tolerable dinner 
 and the best wine of their begging barrel which, 
 if I may repeat their own pun, had been filled in 
 
 * At the Certosa near Florence I saw another grinder of the same 
 holy giant, which approached the sesquipedalian size of .Emilius's 
 teeth. A similar imposition was practised about two centuries ago 
 in France and England, where the bones of an elephant dug up near 
 Chaumont were paraded about as the remains of the giant Teuto- 
 bochus. 
 
LA VERNA. 109 
 
 Centumcellae. Thus having nothing, yet possess- 
 ing all things, they live in the apostolical state ; 
 and renouncing money themselves, leave all tem- 
 poral concerns to their Procuratore, who thank- 
 fully booked our names, as creditors for a few 
 masses. 
 
 Thus ended our pilgrimage to the three sanc- 
 tuaries. 
 
EXCURSION TO CORTONA. 
 
 Hiiic Darrlunus ortus. \'iiiG. 
 
 On returning clown to the Casentine we could 
 trace along the Arno the mischief which followed 
 a late attempt to clear some Apennines of their 
 woods. Most of the soil, which was then loosened 
 from the roots and washed down by the torrents, 
 lodged in this plain ; and left immense beds of 
 sand and large rolling stones, on the very sjDot 
 where Dante describes 
 
 Li ruscelletti che de' verdi colli 
 
 Del Casentin discendon giuso in Ariio, 
 Facendo i lor canali e freddi e moUi. 
 
 I was surprized to find so large a town as 
 BiBBiENA in a country devoid of manufactures, 
 remote from public roads, and even deserted by 
 its land-holders ; for the Niccolini and Vecchietti, 
 who possess most of this district, prefer the 
 
EXCURSION TO CORTONA. Ill 
 
 obscurer pleasures of Florence to their palaces 
 and pre-eminence here. The only commodity 
 which the Casentines trade in is pork. Signore 
 Baglione, a gentleman at whose house I slept here, 
 ascribed the superior flavour of their hams, which 
 are esteemed the best in Italy and require no 
 cooking, to the dryness of the air, the absence of 
 stagnant water, and the quantity of chestnuts given 
 to their hogs. Bibbiena has been long renowned 
 for its chestnuts, which the peasants dry in a kiln, 
 grind into a sweet flour, and then convert into 
 bread, cakes, and polenta. Old Burchiello sports 
 on the chestnuts of Bibbiena in these curious 
 verses, which are more intelligible than the bar- 
 ber's usual strains : 
 
 Ogni castagna in camiscia e 'n pelliccia 
 Scoppia e salta pe '1 caldo, e fa trictracche, 
 Nasce in mezzo del mondo in cioppa riccia; 
 
 Secca, lessa, e arsiccia 
 Si da per frutte a desinar e a cena; 
 Questi sono i confetti da Bibbiena. 
 
 The Casentine peasants are a hardy and simple 
 race. Two centuries ago a fund was left here 
 for portioning poor girls, to each of whom are 
 allotted 30 crowns ; and this humble sum, though 
 fixed for a charity, has served as a standard to all. 
 
211 EXCURSION TO CORTONA. 
 
 No farmer expects more from his wife or gives 
 more to his daughter ; so that marriage is uni- 
 versal in all classes below the gentry, where the 
 established prejudice drives the younger brothers 
 into cecisbeism or the church. 
 
 The Casentines were no favourites with Dante, 
 who confounds the men with their hogs. Yet, 
 following the divine i^oet down the Arno, we came 
 to a race still more forbidding. The Aretine pea- 
 sants seem to inherit the coarse, surly visages of 
 their ancestors, whom he styles BottoU. Meeting 
 one girl who appeared more cheerful than her 
 neighbours, we asked her, how far it was from 
 Arezzo, and received for answer — " Quanto c'e." 
 
 The valley widened as we advanced, and when 
 Arezzo appeared, the river left us abruptly, wheel- 
 ing off from its environs at a sharp angle, which 
 Dante converts into a snout, and points disdain- 
 fully against the currish race : 
 
 Bottoli trova poi venendo giuso 
 
 Ringhiosi piu che non chiede lor possa : 
 E a lor disdegnoso force '1 muso. 
 
 Arezzo took an active part in the late commo- 
 
EXCURSION TO CORTONA. 113 
 
 tions, and exposed itself to ruin; but General 
 Miollis was indulgent to a town which gave birth 
 to Petrarch, and proposed, as usual, an apotheosis 
 for the bard. Petrarch, if he really belonged to 
 Arezzo, was only her accidental child ;* but Redi 
 and Pignotti, poets more delightful than he, are 
 fairly her own, and perhaps the flower of that off- 
 spring whom she exalts above their real rank. 
 Mecaenas and II divino Pietro Aretino owe most 
 of their celebrity to the meanness of their contem- 
 poraries. The other Aretini, such as Guy, Leo- 
 nard, Charles, Amico, Francis, John, are names 
 of no great currency; Old frate Guittone is known 
 to few beside the readers of Dante ; and the labo- 
 rious Vasari is less obscure than these only be- 
 cause he wrote on an interesting subject, and 
 painted on conspicuous walls. 
 
 The cathedral of Arezzo was then receiving a 
 magnificent accession. Adimollo was painting 
 there a chapel so disproportionately large that it 
 
 * Some gentlemen of Cortona, perhaps iVom a native prejudice, 
 endeavoured to persuade nie that Petrarch was born at Incisa. 
 Montaigne says the same : " Petrarca lequel on tient, nai du diet 
 lieu Anchisa, au moins d'une maison voisine d'un mille !" But 
 Petrarch scarcely belongs to Tuscany, which he left when a boy, 
 and, though often solicited, would never revisit. 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
114 EXCURSION TO CORTONA. 
 
 appeared to me rather a second cathedral than a 
 subordinate ijiember : and all this for a little, ugly 
 figure of chalk, which had been lately found in 
 the rubbish of a cellar. But this was the Madonna 
 who headed their armies, and fought their battles, 
 and prophesied their fate. 
 
 On entering the Val di Chiana, we passed 
 through a peasantry more civil and industrious 
 than their Aretine neighbours. One poor girl, 
 unlike the last whom we accosted, was driving 
 a laden ass ; bearing a billet of wood on her head, 
 spinning with the rocca, and singing as she went. 
 Others were returning with their sickles from the 
 fields which they had reaped in the Maremma, to 
 their own harvest on the hills. That contrast, 
 which struck me in the manners of two cantons so 
 near as Cortona to Arezzo, can only be a vestige 
 of their ancient rivality while separate republics. 
 Men naturally dislike the very virtues of their 
 enemies, and affect qualities as remote from theirs 
 as they can well defend. 
 
 The knights of St. Stephen have conquered a 
 large part of this vale from the river Chiana which, 
 being subject to floods, had formed here an ini- 
 
EXCURSION TO CORTONA. 115 
 
 mense morass. The method which they employed 
 is called a cohnata, and seems to have been known 
 in the Antonine reigns. It consisted here of an 
 enclosure of stupendous dikes, which received the 
 inundations, and confined them for a while on 
 the morass. When the river had fallen, this water 
 was sluiced off into its channel ; but, during its 
 stagnation on the surface enclosed, it had left 
 there a deposite of excellent earth ; and a succes- 
 sion of such deposites has given solidity to the 
 bog, raised it above the level of ordinary floods, 
 and converted it into the richest arable. By this 
 enterprize has the Religion of St. Stephen deser- 
 vedly become the first proprietor of the plain; 
 while the lands immediately round Cortona count 
 more masters than any township in Tuscany. 
 
 CoRTONA, rising amidst its vineyards, on the 
 acclivity of a steep hill with black mountains be- 
 hind, struck me at a distance like a picture hung 
 upon a wall. From Santa Marguerita it commands 
 a magnificent prospect of the Thrasimene and 
 Clusian lakes, the mountains of Radicofani and 
 Santa Flora, the wide, variegated vale of Chiana, 
 skirted with vine-covered hills, and beautifully 
 I 2 
 
116 EXCURSION TO CORTONA. 
 
 strewed with white cottages, white fattorias, white 
 villas, and convents of sober grey. 
 
 This is a favourite seat of " Bacco in Toscana ;" 
 for good table-wine costs here but a penny the 
 large flask. One of the Aleatic wines, called San 
 Vincenzo, is equal to any in Redi's Dithyrambic, 
 though it does not appear among his valued file. 
 But Redi, as an Aretine, was the natural enemy 
 of Cortona, which celebrates its ancient and im- 
 mortal hatred by an annual procession most insult- 
 ing to its neighbour. 
 
 Cortona, being considered as the capital of an- 
 cient Etruria, is the seat of the Etruscan academy, 
 and of course swarms with antiquaries. In the 
 museum is a portrait of the late Lord Cowper, as 
 Lucomone of that academy ; and in the library, I 
 conversed with the canon Maccari, who is secretary 
 and father of the Institute. This venerable man 
 has greatly enriched its present collection, and 
 hinted a design of leaving it all that he possesses. 
 Italy owes half its public institutions to the celibacy 
 of rich men. 
 
 Here are more than 40 noble families in a town 
 
EXCURSION TO CORTONA. 117 
 
 reduced to 4000 inhabitants. A society thus ba- 
 lanced between the two orders or Ceti, must be 
 miserably split by that Gothic distinction. Leo- 
 pold classed his subjects in too simple a manner 
 for Cortona. When a foreign prince asked him 
 how many Ceti there were in his dominions, 
 " Two," replied the philosopher, " men and 
 women." Indeed, quality is here so rigidly main- 
 tained, that the heir of the rich Tommasi, having 
 lately married a plebeian, is now shunned by his 
 Ceto, and obliged to take refuge in the crowd of 
 Florence. Neither the lady's accomplishments, 
 nor her husband's high descent could open to her 
 the obstinate Casino de Nobili. Nobility is every 
 where punctilious in proportion to its poverty; for 
 rank becomes from necessity important to a man 
 who has no other possession. Few of the Tuscan 
 nobility are titled : still fewer represent the old 
 feudal barons. Most of them are descended from 
 ennobled merchants, or referable to the order of 
 Capitam or Valvassores, which was first esta- 
 blished in the free cities of Lombardy. 
 
 The original walls of Cortona still appear round 
 the city as foundations to the modern, which were 
 built in the thirteenth century. Those Etruscan 
 
118 EXCURSION TO CORTONA. 
 
 works are the most entire towards the north. 
 Their huge, uncemented blocks have resisted, on 
 that side, the storms of near three thousand 
 winters ; while, on the south, they have yielded 
 to the silent erosion of the Sirocco. None of the 
 stones run parallel ; most of them are faced in the 
 form of trapezia ; some are indented and inserted 
 in each other like dove-tail. This construction 
 is peculiar to the ruins in Tuscany : it is far more 
 irregular, and therefore, I presume, more ancient 
 than the Etruscan work of Rome. No part of 
 these walls remains fortified. The army which 
 lately laid Arezzo open, has also demolished the 
 few defences of Cortona. 
 
 Arreti muros, Coriti nunc diruit arcem. 
 
SIENA. 
 
 THE CITY. 
 
 Con MAGis TiBi Sena pandit. Inscription. 
 
 Such is the inscription on the Camullia or Flo- 
 rentine gate, where you enter a long, irregular 
 street which nearly bisects this ill-built and ill- 
 peopled town. In this master-line you see none 
 of the principal objects, such as the Lizza, the 
 citadel, the cathedral, the Piazza del Campo ; 
 but you see men, you see groups proportioned to 
 the extent of Siena. Leave this line, and you 
 pass into a desert. 
 
 The streets are paved with tiles laid in that 
 fish-bone manner which Pliny calls the " Spicata 
 testacea." A stranger coming from the large flat 
 stones of Florence feels the transition unpleasant ; 
 
l!20 SIENA. 
 
 but the extreme inequality of ground subject to 
 ice in winter, would render the Florentine pave- 
 ment unsafe for Siena. 
 
 Every gentleman's house is called, by the cour- 
 tesy of the place, a palace, although few of them 
 include courts, which, in most languages, are the 
 very part of a house that qualifies a palace. Some 
 of those old mansions are built in the mixt, demi- 
 gothic style which marks all the public works of 
 their two great architects Agostino and Agnolo. 
 The windows are beset with an awkward angular 
 fret-work which I have no where else observed. 
 
 "^rhe grand piazza is sloped, like an ancient 
 theatre, for public games ; and, like that, it forms 
 the segment of a circle, in the chord of which 
 stands the Palazzo Pubblico. This palace is a 
 work of different dates and designs, and parcelled 
 out into very different objects ; such as the public 
 offices, the courts of law, the theatre, and the 
 prisons. The whole fabric was shaken by the 
 earthquake of 1 797, which cracked all the frescoes 
 of Meccarino in the Sala del Consistorio, damaged 
 half the palaces in the city, and frightened the 
 late pope out of it. 
 
THE CITY. 121 
 
 In the cathedral we find marble walls polished 
 on both sides, and built in alternate courses of 
 black and white — a front overcharged with orna- 
 ments on the outside, and plain within — a belfry 
 annexed, but not incorporated with the pile — a 
 cupola bearing plumb on its four supports — cir- 
 cular arches resting on round pillars — doors with 
 double architraves — columns based upon lions 
 tearing lambs. All these are peculiar to the Tus- 
 can churches built in the Lombard style \ but here 
 too are indisputable marks of the Gothic, particu- 
 larly on the front, the vaults, and the windows. 
 
 The pavement of this cathedral is the work of 
 a succession of artists from Duccio down to Mecca- 
 rino, who have produced the effect of the richest 
 mosaic, merely by inserting grey marble into white, 
 and hatching both with black mastic. The grand- 
 est composition is the history of Abraham, a figure 
 which is unfortunately multiplied in the same com- 
 partments ; but vv^hen grasping the knife, the 
 patriarch is truly sublime. These works lay ex- 
 posed at least for 100 years to the general tread, 
 and have been rather improved than defaced by 
 the attrition; for one female figure which had 
 never been trodden looks harsher than the rest. 
 
122 SIENA. 
 
 Those of the choir were opportunely covered two 
 centuries ago. 
 
 This engraved inlay has occasioned more dis- 
 cussion than it deserves. It is certainly interesting 
 as a monument of early art ; but were the design 
 more admirable than it really is, the very simplicity 
 of execution unfits it for a pavement, and requires 
 distance to soften and set off the forms. The 
 work is not mosaic, for there is no tessellation. 
 It is not strictly the " pavimentum sectile," for 
 that consisted in regular-lined figures. It can 
 hardly be classed with ancient vase-painting, 
 merely because it expresses the contours and the 
 drapery by dark lines. Here it passes for the 
 invention of Duccio,* and original on this floor. 
 
 A barbarous taste for the emblematic pervades 
 this cathedral. Its front is covered with animals, 
 all symbols of cities. Even the lion under its 
 columns conceals, I presume, an enigma; for I 
 
 * Dante, who was almost contemporary with Duccio, had per- 
 haps seen some work of this kind when he wrote these verses : 
 Monstran anchor lo duro pavimento ; 
 Qua! di pcnncl fu maestro, o di stile, 
 Che ritrahesse 1' ombre e' tratti, ch'ivi 
 Mirar fariano uno 'ngegno sottile ! 
 
THE CITY. 123 
 
 have seen it at the doors of several Tuscan 
 churches.* The pillars of the aisles are crossed 
 by alternate courses of black and white marble, 
 which I failed to admire, conceiving that even a 
 pillar, if round, should appear one piece : — " but. 
 Sir," said a Senese, " black and white are the 
 colours of our city banner." 
 
 Round the vault of the nave is a set of staring 
 heads cast in terra cotta, each bearing the name 
 of a different Pope, although several came evi- 
 dently from the same mould. Whoever is deter- 
 mined to complete a series will forge what he 
 cannot find. I have seen things as rude and 
 unauthentic as these installed as originals by our 
 portrait engravers. 
 
 The pulpit is universally admired as a beautiful 
 specimen of marble and carving ; but perhaps it 
 presents too many specimens, too many patterns 
 
 * The statues of lions were placed at the doors of Egyptian tem- 
 ples to represent a watch, as Valerian remarks at Mycense. Perhaps 
 the idea of the gold and silver dogs, which Homer posts at Alcinous' 
 door, may be traced back to Egypt, the great source of his anti- 
 quities. 
 
124 SIENA. 
 
 of decoration, for the unity of design necessary to 
 so small an object. Being built, as usual, of mar- 
 ble, it becomes a part of the cathedral itself, and 
 hurtful to the general symmetry. Instead of this 
 fixt and established dignitary, I wovdd call occa- 
 sionally into use a poor old itinerant, the wooden 
 preaching bench of St. Bernardine, which stands 
 mouldering here in all the simplicity of holiness. 
 
 The Chigi chapel glares with rich marble, silver, 
 gilt, bronze, and lapislazzoli ; where the sweeping 
 beard and cadaverous flanks of St. Jerome are set 
 in contrast with the soft beauty of a Magdalene, 
 which Bernini had transformed from an Andro- 
 meda, and thus left us the affliction of innocence 
 for that of guilt. 
 
 Fronting this chapel is a library without books; 
 for scored music and illuminated psalms hardly 
 deserve that title. It contains a series of gaudy, 
 gilt pictures which, though painted by Pinturri- 
 chio, bear the name of Raphael, from some acci- 
 dental touches lent by the immortalizing master. 
 Whatever Raphael sketched, or began to sketch, 
 walls which he never painted, jars which he never 
 
THE CITY. 125 
 
 saw, statues which he never cut, are still called 
 Raphael's. 
 
 The Dominican church sustained such a shock 
 from the late earthquake, that it no longer serves 
 for worship, nor contains the celebrated Madonna 
 of Guido da Siena, the first Italian painter whose 
 works bear a date. The two Birramani and Baro- 
 raba, who had appeared before him, were Greeks. 
 Hence the Senese pretend, from the date of this 
 picture, 1221, that their school of painting was 
 the earliest in modern art. 
 
 At present they can boast neither school nor 
 artist, and were lately obliged to call in Adimollo, 
 who has painted three palaces and is too much 
 admired here for the fire, the diversity, the " este- 
 tico"' of his compositions. It is easier to delineate 
 violent passion than the tranquil emotions of a 
 great soul ; to set a crowd of figures on the stretch 
 of expression, than to animate but one hero by an 
 action which shall leave him the serenity natural 
 to a hero. What a distance from the bloated hy- 
 perboles of Lucan to the unrestrained majesty of 
 Virgil! from the attitudes of a player to the natural 
 dignity of a prince ! fi-om the vivacity and exer- 
 
126 SIENA. 
 
 tion of AdimoUo to the grace and silent pathos of 
 Raphael ! 
 
 Might I point out the pictures which gave me 
 most pleasure at Siena, the first should be Vanni's 
 Descent from the Cross, a jewel concealed in the 
 obscure church of San Quirico, Here the horror 
 inherent in the subject is softened by that amiable 
 artist, who has finely diversified the affliction of 
 the three Marys, and made the mother's something 
 both human and heavenly. Casolani's Flight into 
 Egypt, in the same church, is full of the tranquil 
 graces, and beautifully mellow ; but should the 
 child be old enough to travel on foot ? 
 
 Perruzzi's Sibyl at Fonte Giusta is a sublime 
 figure, but perhaps too sedate for the act of pro- 
 phecy. She does not, as in Virgil, pant, labour, 
 rage with the God ; nor, like the Pythia, does she 
 reel and stare and foam with the poison of the 
 Delphic mofeta : she rather displays the " folgorar 
 di bellezze altere e sante" of Sofronia. The 
 clergy, as if vain of any connexion between 
 classical objects and Christianity, seem partial to 
 this prophetical being ; for the Cathedral has ten 
 different sibyls figured on its pavement. 
 
THE CITY. 127 
 
 Sodoma's* torso of Christ, in the Franciscan 
 cloister, is a damaged figure, but much admired 
 by the learned in art, for its colovu-ing and anatomy. 
 The Luccherini gallery and other collections will 
 not compensate the slavery of praising them, for 
 here, being conducted by the master himself, you 
 must admire and not pay. 
 
 * This is the land of nicknames. Italians have suppressed the 
 surnames of their principal artists under various designations. Many 
 are known only by the names of their birth-place, as Correggio, 
 Bassano, &cc. Some by those of their masters, as II Salviati, San- 
 sovino, &c. Some by their father's trade, as Andrea del Sarto, 
 Tintoretto, &c. Some by their bodily defects, as Guercino, Ca- 
 gnacci, &c. Some by the subjects in which they excelled, as M. 
 Angelo delle battaglie, Agostino delle perspettive. A few (I can 
 recollect only four) are known, each as the prince of his respective 
 school, by their Christian names alone — Michael Angelo, Raphael, 
 Guide, Titian. 
 
128 SIENA. 
 
 THE ASSUMPTION. 
 
 Hi ritus, quoquo modo indued, antiquitate defenduntur. Tac. 
 
 The Vergine Assunta, being the patroness of 
 Siena, collects here in August all the neighbours 
 that love either masses or debauchery. This fes- 
 tival calls forth the senate, or rather the red man- 
 tles of the senate, borne by men who are satisfied 
 with the title of Eccelsl, divested of its powers 
 and its duties. It calls forth the waggon which 
 was conquered from Florence, and a votive wax- 
 work which is conveyed in solemn procession to 
 the Cathedral. This last usage is important only 
 from its high antiquity. Having furnished for 
 many centuries a group of sacred images which 
 differ every year, Siena may partly ascribe to it 
 her priority in art. 
 
 On this occasion the horse-races of the piazza 
 seemed to revive, among the different wards* of 
 
 * Those wards are denominated eacli by a respective animal 
 or emblem, as, La contrada della Lupa, La contrada dell' Acquila, 
 &c., not, as in Lombardy, by the gates. Boccace, indeed, mentions 
 a quarter in Siena called the Porta Salvia; but the name is now 
 obsolete. 
 
THE ASSUMPTION. 129 
 
 the city, the same rivality that prevailed in the 
 four factions of Rome. Every sovil in each ward 
 was a party engaged in the same cause, and 
 trembling for the glory of the same horse. At 
 the close of the race all was riot and exultation. 
 The victorious ward tore their jockey from his 
 saddle, stifled him with kisses, and bore him oft' 
 in triumph to the wine-flask. 
 
 Most cities in Italy are split into little sections 
 which may sometimes unite, but which more rea- 
 dily repel. The strongest bond of union among 
 Italians is only a coincidence of hatred. Never 
 wei'e the Tuscans so unanimous as in hating the 
 other states of Italy ; the Sanesi agreed best in 
 hating all the other Tuscans ; the citizens of Siena, 
 in hating the rest of the Sanesi ; and in the city 
 itself the same amiable passion was subdivided 
 among the different wards. 
 
 This last ramification of hatred had formerly 
 exposed the town to very fatal conflicts, till at 
 length, in the year 1200, St. Benardine instituted 
 Boxing as a more innocent vent to their hot blood, 
 and laid the bruisers under certain laws which 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
130 SIENA. 
 
 are sacredly observed to this day. As they im- 
 proved in prowess and skill, the pugilists came 
 forward on every point of national honour; they 
 were sung by poets, and recorded in inscriptions.* 
 
 * One of these I select as a burlesque on the Latin inscriptions 
 
 which are prostituted every where in Italy. 
 
 Rosso, 
 
 Senensium Bajulorum facile principi, 
 
 Quod tres agatliones Florentinos 
 
 In hac caupona combibentes, 
 
 Dum invido morsu 
 
 Senarum urbi obloquerentur, 
 
 Pugnis liberaliter exceptos 
 
 Egregie niultaverit 
 
 Bajuli Senenses patriae vindices 
 
 M. P. 
 
 Sucli has been ever the rage for inscriptions in Italy, that some 
 
 have been found scratched on ancient bricks and tesseraj. 
 
 You will often see Latin inscribed here, absurdly enough, on 
 temporary erections, and in notices addressed to the people ; yet 
 if Latin inscriptions can be defended in any modern nation, it is here. 
 Here the public monuments, being built for remote ages, require 
 an unvarying record which may outlive the present idioms. Now, 
 if we may judge of the future by the past, the Latin alone can aflord 
 such a record. The Latin is the ancient language of this country, 
 and is still the language of its religion. The Latin is more intelligible 
 to this people, than to any other. It infinitely excels the Italian in 
 the lapidary style, which delights in brevity and the ablative abso- 
 lute. It has received the last perfection in that style from modern 
 Italians, as Politian, Pontanos, Rota, Egizzio, &c. and from the 
 metallic history of the Popes. 
 
THE ASSUMPTION. 131 
 
 The elegant Savini ranks boxing among the 
 holiday-pleasures of Siena — 
 
 Tazze, vivande, compagnie d'arnici, 
 Maschere, pugni, ed il bollor lascivo 
 D'un teatro foltissimo di Belle. 
 
 The pope had reserved for this great festival 
 the Beatification of Peter, a Sanese comb-maker, 
 whom the church had neglected to canonize till 
 now. Poor Peter was honoured with all the solem- 
 nity of music, high-mass, an officiating cardinal, a 
 florid panegyric, pictured angels bearing his tools 
 to heaven, and combing their own hair as they 
 soared ; but he received five hundred years ago 
 a greater honour than all, a verse of praise from 
 Dante.* 
 
 A solemn accademia was then held by the In- 
 tronati, who recited several dozens of fresh sonnets 
 on the assumption of the Blessed Virgin. On 
 this holy theme have those prolific academicians 
 been rhyming for three hundred years."!" 
 
 * a raemoria m' hebbe 
 
 Pier Pettinagno in sue sante orazioni, 
 A ciii di me per caritate increbbe. 
 f The Introiiati of Siena are generally considered as the oldest 
 academy in Europe ; yet the Rozzi of this city, if really associated 
 
 K 2 
 
132 SIENA. 
 
 Italy produces annually an incalculable number 
 of bad sonnets ; but perhaps it is the only country 
 that ever produced good ones. The few who 
 excel in these compositions, strike them off at 
 one " colpo di pennello." Like the fresco-painters, 
 they never return to the plaster. A language so 
 full of similar and sonorous terminations gives 
 them peculiar facilities for the sonnet, which if not 
 finished at one heat, they usually throw away. 
 How unlike to those laboured and retouched 
 things which are slowly hammered into the size 
 and shape of sonnets on our English anvils ! Such 
 workmanship, if originally bad, became worse by 
 following the advice of Horace : 
 
 " Male tornatos incudi reddere versus." 
 
 Why are our Wartonians so perversely partial 
 to rhymes and restraints which our language will 
 not bend to ? Why do they court unnecessary 
 
 for literary pursuits, (as some of their own body have assured me,) 
 were anterior to the Intronati, and even to the club of Platonists 
 whom old Cosirao de' Medici collected round him. Such is the 
 passion here for academies, that tlie noble college Tolomei has 
 formed three out of fifty students. So early as the sixteenth cen- 
 tury Siena counted sixteen academies. In the following age a female 
 one was founded here by the Grand Duchess Vittoria d' Urbino , 
 but this did not long survive its foundress. 
 
SIENA. 
 
 133 
 
 difficulty ? Mere difficulty surmounted never gave 
 pleasure in poetry, except to the poet himself 
 The chaining of a flea, or the shiftings of a fiddler, 
 may amuse us for a moment, in relation to the 
 means ; but, in the fine arts, we never consider 
 the labour bestowed ; we consider only the ex- 
 cellence produced. 
 
 English poets cannot plead for the sonnet one 
 successful precedent. Even the greatest of them 
 all, Shakspeare, Milton, Spenser, split on this rock 
 and sank into common versifiers. Can all the 
 sonnets in our language collected together match 
 the " Italia ! Italia ! O tu cui fea la sorte," so 
 prophetically striking at this moment ? Have we 
 any so exquisitely ludicrous as the sonnet written, 
 I believe, in this town, on discovering that the 
 sarcophagus of king Porsenna had served for ages 
 as the washing-trough of monks? I contend, 
 however, against fashion. The English sonnetteer 
 will persist in his work of torture, and yet com- 
 plain of the engine which cramps him. But is 
 that fair ? 
 
 In questo di Procuste orrido letto 
 
 Chi ti sfurzii a giacer? forse in rovina 
 Andra Fainaso senza il tuo sonetto ? 
 
134 SIENA. 
 
 THE COUNTRY. 
 
 QuiSQUIS IIUC ACCEDIS 
 
 Quod tibi iionRENDUJi videtur 
 
 Mmi AMCENUM EST 
 
 Si dklectat maneas 
 
 Si TJtUT.T ABEAS 
 
 Utrumque gratum. 
 
 Inscriptioit. 
 
 All the country for twenty miles round Siena is 
 hill or mountain. The more rugged hills are 
 planted with olive-trees. The rest are arable, in- 
 termixed with vineyards. Some of these vineyards 
 are celebrated. Montepulciano produces " the 
 king of wines," and Chianti yields from its canine 
 grape a " vino scelto" which many prefer to his 
 majesty. 
 
 Before Leopold freed agriculture from its old 
 restrictions, the Sanese scarcely raised grain 
 enough for its own consumption ; but now it 
 exports to a large amount. Though the produce 
 is trebled, the price of wheat is also risen from 
 4 pauls a staio to 12 or 14 ; but this rise, being 
 balanced by the increased circulation of specie, 
 
THE COUNTRY. 135 
 
 does not aggrieve those classes which are not en- 
 gaged in farming. 
 
 Thus the landholders are undeservedly enrich- 
 ed hy improvements which they do not contribute. 
 Born and bred in the city, they seldom visit their 
 estates, but for the Villeggiatura in autumn ; and 
 then, not to inspect or improve their possessions ; 
 not even to enjoy the charms of nature or the 
 sports of the field ; but to loiter round the villa 
 just as they loiter round the town. During the 
 year those mansions present nothing 
 
 But empty lodgings and unfurnished halls, 
 Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones. 
 
 Those villas are necessarily large to accommo- 
 date the swarm of bachelors, which must result 
 from the system established among this nobility. 
 In general, the uncles and brothers of the heir 
 inherit, as their patrimony, a right to board and 
 lodging in every house belonging to the family. 
 
 None of these possess so many villas as the 
 Chigi. Centinale, which lies in a wide, scraggy 
 oak-wood about ten miles from Siena, owes its rise 
 and celebrity to the remorse of an amorous cardinal 
 
136 SIENA. 
 
 who, to appease the ghost of a murdered rival, 
 transformed a gloomy plantation of cypress into a 
 penitential Thebais, and acted there all the auste- 
 rities of an Egyptian hermit. Another Cardinal 
 of the Chigi family, afterwards Alexander VII., 
 made this his favourite retreat, and has left marble 
 tiaras at every corner. On the porch of the casino 
 is the inscription which I have placed above.* 
 
 From Centinale we rode to Gelso, another large 
 and still more neglected villa, where mouldy pic- 
 tures and disjointed furniture were thinly scatter- 
 ed to make up a show. We passed through the 
 richest vineyards, over hills clad with olive-trees, 
 and on roads lined with wild myrtle ; but we 
 looked in vain for that thick-matted herbage, and 
 those umbrageous masses of wood which distin- 
 guish an English landscape from all others. 
 
 Our next visit was to Colle, a town stretched 
 on the ridge of a steep hill. Here we saw a cathe- 
 dral, and churches, and convents, and black old 
 
 * I picked up at the gate of Casino, near Bladdaloni, another 
 such inscription which has still niore salt in it. 
 Amicis, 
 Et, ne paucis pateaf, 
 Etiam iictis. 
 
THE COUNTRY. 137 
 
 palaces, where a poor nobility live intrenched In 
 etiquette ; but not an inn could the city boast. 
 We therefore returned to the Borgo below, where 
 we found paper-mills, industry, and a dinner. 
 
 Farther south is the Maremma, a region which, 
 though now worse than a desert, is supposed to 
 have been anciently both fertile and healthy. The 
 Maremma certainly formed part of that Etruria 
 which was called from its harvests the annonaria. 
 Old Roman cisterns may still be traced, and the 
 ruins of Populonium are still visible in the worst 
 part of this tract : yet both nature and man seem 
 to have conspired against it. 
 
 Sylla threw this maritime part of Tuscany into 
 enormous latifundia for his disbanded soldiers. 
 Similar distributions continued to lessen its popu- 
 lation during the empire. In the younger Pliny's 
 time the climate was pestilential. The Lombards 
 gave it a new aspect of misery. Wherever they 
 found culture they built castles, and to each castle 
 they allotted a " bandita" or military fief. Hence 
 baronial wars which have left so many picturesque 
 ruins on the hills, and such desolation round them. 
 Whenever a baron was conquered, his vassals 
 
138 SIENA. 
 
 escaped to the cities, and the vacant fief was 
 annexed to the victorious. Thus stripped of men, 
 the lands returned into a state of nature : some 
 were flooded by the rivers, others grew into horri- 
 ble forests which inclose and concentrate the 
 pestilence of the lakes and marshes. 
 
 In some parts, the water is brackish and lies 
 lower than the sea ; in others it oozes full of tartar 
 from beds of travertine. At the bottom or on the 
 sides of hills are a multitude of hot springs which 
 form pools, called Lagoni. A few of these are 
 said to produce borax : some, which are called 
 fmnacJie, exhale sulphur ; others, called bulicami, 
 boil with a mephitic gas. The very air above is 
 only a pool of vapours which sometimes imdulate, 
 but seldom flow off. It draws corruption from a 
 rank, unshorn, rotting vegetation, from reptiles 
 and fish both living and dead. 
 
 All nature conspires to drive man away from 
 this fatal region ; but man will ever return to his 
 bane, if it be well baited. The Casentine peasants 
 still migrate hither in winter to feed their cattle : 
 and here they sow corn, make charcoal, saw wood, 
 cut hoops, and peel cork. When summer returns 
 
THE COUNTRY. 139 
 
 they decamp, but often too late ; for many leave 
 their corpses on the road, or bring home the Ma- 
 remmian disease. 
 
 The hills, in proportion as they retire from the 
 sea, are healthy and populous. Instead of cluster- 
 ing into hamlets and villages, every cottage stands 
 alone in the midst of the farm. This dissemina- 
 tion formed an obstacle to Leopold's design of 
 establishing parish schools. All children are first 
 taught to read in Latin ; none attempt the Italian 
 till they can spell through their prayers. Those 
 farmers who cannot read, keep their accounts with 
 the steward by the old " tapster's arithmetic" of 
 wooden tallies. 
 
 This country is full of little, local superstitions, 
 and overgrown with monkish faery. Every ruin 
 is haunted, every spring has its saint, every district 
 maintains its strega, or witch. This beldam is 
 descended, I imagine, from the ancient Strix ; for, 
 like that obscure being, she is supposed to influ- 
 ence the growth of children and cattle, and thus 
 she subsists on the credulity of her neighbours. 
 
 Some of the country towns are surrounded with 
 
140 SIENA. 
 
 old embattled walls. In the larger is a Vicario, 
 who judges in civil and criminal cases, subject to 
 the revision of two higher magistracies : in the 
 smaller a Podesta, acting as justice of peace ; an 
 officer who appears in Juvenal invested with the 
 same title : 
 
 An Fidenarum, Gabiorumque esse Potestas. 
 
JOURNEY TO ROME. 
 
 I SET out for Rome after the first rains of Sep- 
 tember. On reaching San Quirico, I found the 
 people there just recovering from a consternation 
 caused by a black spectre which had lately ap- 
 peared in the air. Wild screams were heard : the 
 very cattle caught the alarm. The profane pro- 
 nounced the apparition to be a monk ; the monks 
 insisted that it was the devil himself; and the cu- 
 rate was preparing to exorcise the parish, when at 
 last the phantom descended in the shape of an 
 eagle, and carried off a kid. On returning for 
 fresh prey, he was shot by the peasants, and 
 roasted at our inn for their supper. 
 
 Near San Quirico is the hamlet of Lucignan 
 (T Asso, where a shower of stones fell in 1 794, 
 nineteen hours after the great eruption of Vesu- 
 vius. One of those stones, which Soldani, abbot 
 of La Rosa, shewed me, weighed about three 
 
142 .TOURNEY TO ROME. 
 
 pounds, and contained malleable iron, a substance 
 never produced by volcanic heat. Soldani called 
 the attention of the scientific world to this phe- 
 nomenon, and received from all hands a diversity 
 of explanations ; but these he refutes as they rise, 
 to make room for one more surprising than them 
 all. — In short, he forges those stones in the air 
 itself! First he raises a whirlwind, and thus 
 brushes up from the earth some white clay. This 
 he suspends aloft in a little fiery vortex ; mixes it 
 up with sulphurs, bitumens, oils, minerals ; vitri- 
 fies it by electricity, and then plays it off by vibra- 
 tion and gravitation. 
 
 Padre Ricca, the most profound yet elegant 
 scholar in this country, gave me a solution far less 
 sublime than Soldani's. He supposes these stones 
 to have been ejected — not from Vesuvius, as Sir 
 William Hamilton conjectured, but — from the very 
 ground where they fell. For, as that neighbour- 
 hood is full of chalk, impregnated with pyrites 
 and ferruginous matter, small masses of the com- 
 position may have escaped from some superficial 
 explosion there, and been afterwards ignited in the 
 electrical cloud which attended the phenomenon. 
 
JOURNEY TO ROME. 
 
 143 
 
 I might add, in favour of this opinion, tliat two 
 such showers had formerly fallen near the same 
 spot. My excellent and learned friend P. Gan- 
 dolfi denies the fact given: but Soldani persists in 
 his hypothesis, and is now writing a history of 
 stone-showers, deduced from Livy's reports down 
 to his own. 
 
 We turned off to the Baths of St. Philip, where 
 Dr. Vegni has employed the water upon works of 
 art. This water being calcareous, the more it is 
 broken the finer is its deposite. He therefore 
 makes it fall in spray from the ceiling upon 
 moulds placed below, where it gradually lodges a 
 tartar which hardens into exquisite cameos and 
 intaglios. 
 
 On crossing the volcanic mountain of Radico- 
 FANi, I remarked on its cone the ruins of a fort 
 which was often conspicuous in the history of 
 Italy. In the course of events it had lost its im- 
 portance, and the Tuscan government, grudging 
 to maintain yet unwilling to dismantle it, was for 
 a long while balancing the expense against the 
 advantage of the place, when at last the powder 
 magazine blew up, and decided the point. 
 
144 JOI RNEY TO ROME. 
 
 This frontier has been ever notorious for high- 
 waymen. It was once the haunt of Ghino di 
 Tacco, an outlaw celebrated by Dante and Boc- 
 cace, nay, knighted by the Pope himself, for rob- 
 bing in a gentleman-like manner. A few months 
 before we passed, a soldier, while escorting a 
 courier, was attacked here and murdered by a 
 pious ruffian, who held a pistol in his right hand 
 and a rosary in his left. 
 
 On entering the Papal State, we were long fa- 
 tigued with the same sad colour of dry clay. At 
 length AcQUAPENDENTE broke fresh upon us, 
 surrounded with ancient oaks, and terraces clad 
 in the greens of a second spring, and hanging 
 vineyards, and cascades, and cliffs, and grottos, 
 screened with pensile foliage. Then the Lake of 
 BoLSENA expanding at San Lorenzo displayed 
 its islands, and castellated cliffs, and banks crowned 
 with inviolate woods, and ruins built upon ruins, 
 Bolsena mouldering on Volsinii. Such scenes 
 lift the mind above its prosaic level. I passed 
 through MoNTEFiASCONE and Viterbo without 
 any poetical emotions; nor could Soractes long 
 black ridge, though sacred to Apollo, and sung by 
 
JOURNEY TO ROME. 145 
 
 two of his noblest sons, raise any admii'ation on 
 this Hne of road. 
 
 The vintage was in full glow. Men, women, 
 children, asses, all were variously engaged in the 
 work. I remarked in the scene a prodigality and 
 negligence which I never saw in France. The 
 grapes dropped unheeded from the panniers, and 
 hundreds were left unclipt on the vines. The 
 vintagers poured on us as we passed the richest 
 ribaldry of the Italian language, and seemed to 
 claim from Horace's old vindemiator a prescriptive 
 right to abuse the traveller. 
 
 RoNCiGLioNE has suffered horribly from the last 
 war. All its elegant houses were burnt into black 
 shells, abandoned to ruin by their impoverished 
 owners, who, having joined the insurgents of 
 Orvietto, were left thus to expiate the offence of 
 both. 
 
 We reached Baccano when it was dark, and 
 were therefore obliged to stop at the first inn, 
 which may probably be the inn pointed out by 
 Ariosto, though certainly the worst that I ever 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
146 JOURNEY TO ROME. 
 
 entered. In the court were several carriages 
 which served as a decoy ; but within we found 
 famine, filth, and a table to sleep on, a pestilential 
 air, and horrible noises, like those of the ancient 
 orgies which gave name to the place. The next 
 morning we arrived at Rome. 
 
ROME. 
 
 TOPOGRAPHY. 
 
 Hinc septem doniinos videre moiites 
 
 Et totani licet eestimare Roraam. Mari 
 
 That rage for embellishing, which is implanted 
 in every artist, has thrown so much composition 
 into the engraved views of Rome, has so exagge- 
 rated its ruins and architecture, or so expanded 
 the space in which they stand, that a stranger, ar- 
 riving here with the expectations raised by those 
 prints, will be infallibly disappointed. 
 
 The Flaminian Gate, after repeated changes of 
 both place and name, remains the great entrance 
 of Rome, and lays open its interior to the first view 
 by three diverging streets. The streets seem to 
 have been made only for the rich. Their small 
 l2 
 
148 ROME. 
 
 reticular pavement galls the pedestrian, they aflford 
 no protection against the fury of carriages, and are 
 lighted only by the lamps of a few Madonnas. 
 Public reverberes had been once proposed: but 
 the Roman clergy, who order all things prudently 
 for the interest of religion, found darkness more 
 convenient for their decorous gallantry. 
 
 Whichever road you take, your attention will be 
 divided between magnificence and filth. The in- 
 scription " Immondezzaio" on the walls of palaces 
 is only an invitation to befoul them. The objects 
 which detain you longest, such as Trajan's column, 
 the Fountain of Trevi, &c., are inaccessible from 
 ordure. Ancient Rome contained one hundred 
 and forty-four public necessaries, besides the SellcB 
 PatrocUance. The modern city draws part of its 
 infection from the want of such conveniences. 
 
 In the inhabited quarters you will find palaces 
 and churches, columns, obelisks, and fountains ; 
 but you must cross the Capitol, or strike oft' among 
 the mounts, before the Genius of Ancient Rome 
 meets you amid its ruins. 
 
 The study of these antiquities leads you first to 
 
TOPOGRAPHY. 149 
 
 trace the figure, extent, mould, and distribution of 
 the city. This you may begin on some eminence, 
 as that denoted in the motto, now considered as 
 part of the Corsini garden; or on any of the 
 towers that command all the hills. On each hill, 
 except the Viminal, the most difficult of all, you 
 will find one master-object, as the Villa Medici on 
 the Pincian, the Papal Palace on the Quirinal, the 
 three basilicas on the Esquiline, Caelian and Vati- 
 can, &c. which will serve each as a point of general 
 reference, and enable you to combine the perspec- 
 tive with the plan. You may then trace on foot 
 the outlines of those hills, the successive boundaries 
 of the ancient city, neglecting the division of the 
 Augustan regions or the modern Rioni; and at last 
 make the circuit of the inviolable walls. 
 
 This circuit will bring into view specimens of 
 every construction from the days of Servius TuUius 
 down to the present ; for, to save expense, Aurelian 
 took into his walls whatever he found standing in 
 their line ; and they now include some remains of 
 the Tullian wall, the wall of the Praetorian bar- 
 racks, the facing of a bank,* aqueducts, sepulchral 
 
 * The Muro Torto lias been considered as part of the Domitian 
 tomb, and iu that view Venuti refers its obliquity to the side of a 
 
150 ROME. 
 
 monuments, a menagery, an amphitheatre, a pyra- 
 mid. Thus do they exhibit the uncemented blocks 
 of the Etruscan style, the reticular work of the 
 republic, the travertine preferred by the first em- 
 perors, the alternate tufo and brick employed by 
 their successors, and that poverty of materials 
 which marks the declining empire. The first 
 Romans built with a prodigal solidity, which has 
 left the cloaca maxima to astonish perhaps as many 
 generations to come as those which have yet be- 
 held it. Later architects became scientific from 
 very parsimony. They calculated expenses, the 
 resistance of arches, the weight of superstructures, 
 and with mathematical frugality they proportioned 
 their work to the mere sufficient. Since the first 
 dreadful breach made by Totila, the walls have 
 been often and variously repaired ; sometimes by 
 a case of brick-work filled up with shattered mar- 
 bles, rubble, shard, and mortar; in some parts the 
 
 pyramid, a pyramid which completed would exceed the Egyptian 
 immensity ! The Domitian tomb did certainly stand near this spot- 
 and from that vicinity has the Muro Torto been called also the wall 
 of Domitia's garden. That it did face some garden seems probable 
 both from its inclined state, and its situation on the " Collis Hortu- 
 lorum." But the garden of Nero's aunt was at Fort St. Angelo ; 
 that of Antoninus's mother was at the Lateran. These two are tlie 
 only Domitia; whose gardens enter into history, and the Muro Torto 
 is of a construction anterior to botli. 
 
 1 
 
TOPOGRAPHY. 
 
 151 
 
 cementitious work is unfaced : here you find stone 
 and tufo mixed in the " opus incertum :" there* 
 tufo alone laid in the Saracenic manner : the lat- 
 ter repairs bear the brick revttement of modern 
 fortification. 
 
 Of the gates, some have been walled up for ages ; 
 others recently to save the trouble of guarding 
 them. Eight are still open on the Latin side of 
 the river, and four on the Tuscan. Their ancient 
 names have been long the subject of contest. 
 Very few are certain, and even to these few the 
 antiquaries have superadded other names, as if on 
 purpose to renew contentions. Thus the gate of 
 San Lorenzo, though admitted to be the Tiburtine, 
 has been called also the Porta inter Aggeres, the 
 Esquilina, the Libitinensis, the Taurina, the Me- 
 tia, the Randuscula, the Praenestina, the Gabiusa; 
 and each of these epithets has borne its debate. 
 On the other hand, they assign the same name to 
 very different gates. Thus some would fix the 
 Naevia between the Capena and the Tiber; others 
 confound it with the Porta Maggiore ; others con- 
 tend that the Porta Maggiore was originally no 
 gate at all. We cannot bring all the ancient ways 
 to their respective gates; nor can we trace the 
 
152 ROME. 
 
 translation of the same gate from the TiilHan walls 
 to Aurelian's, which coincide but a short way. 
 How doubtful then must the three gates of Ro- 
 mulus be ! 
 
 The bridges, on the contrary, deny us the plea- 
 sure of disputing on them. Some are broken, and 
 those which are entire from reparation, bear mo- 
 dern names : yet the first names and situations of 
 all are certain. Between these bridges you still 
 see the city-mills anchored in the very currents, 
 where necessity drove Belisarius to an expedient 
 which is now general on all. 
 
 The most populous part of ancient Rome is now 
 but a landscape. Mount Palatine, which origi- 
 nally contained all the Romans, and was afterwards 
 insufficient to accommodate one tyrant, is inhabit- 
 ed only by a few friars. I have gone over the 
 whole hill, and not seen six human beings on a 
 surface which was once crowded with the assem- 
 bled orders of Rome and Italy.* Raphael's villa, 
 the Farnesian summer-house, Michael Angelo's 
 
 * Totum Palatium senatu, eqnitibus Ronianis, civitate omni, Italia 
 cuncta rcfertum. Cic. 
 
TOPOGRAPHY. 153 
 
 aviaries, are all falling into the same desolation as 
 the imperial palace, which fringes the mount with 
 its broken arches. 
 
 Would you push inquiry beyond these ruins, 
 from the Palatium of Augustus back to the Palan- 
 teum of Evander, you find the mount surrounded 
 with sacred names — the altar of Hercules — the 
 Ruminal fig-tree — the Lupercal — the Germalus — 
 the Velia; but would you fondly affix to each 
 name its local habitation on the hill, contradiction 
 and doubt will thicken as you remount. 
 
 Hie locus est Vesta qui Pallada servat et ignem : 
 Hie Stator, hoc primum condita Roma loco est. 
 
 How often have those verses been quoted here ! 
 yet who can apply them to the ground ? If you 
 fix Vesta in the round temple on the Tiber, others 
 will contend there for Hercules, or Portumnus, or 
 Volupia. If you assign the three magnificent co- 
 lumns in the forum to Jupiter Stator, others will 
 force them into a senate-house, or a portico, or a 
 comitium, or a bridge. All round the Palatine, 
 the forum, the Velabrum, and the Sacred Way is 
 
154 ROME. 
 
 the favourite field of antiquarian polemics.* On 
 this field you may fight most learnedly at an easy 
 rate. Every inch of it has been disputed; every 
 opinion may gain some plausibility, and which- 
 ever you adopt will find proofs ready marshalled 
 for its defence. 
 
 In such disputes I know no authority paramount 
 to decide. Marliano, Donati, Panvinio, Volpi, and 
 even Kircher, though a cheat, have all largely con- 
 tributed to the present stock of discovery; but not 
 one of them can be followed as a general guide. 
 Nardini is infected with that old-fashioned scrupu- 
 
 * On my first visit to the Campo Vaccino, I asked my valet-de- 
 place where the lake of Curtius was supposed to have been ? " Be- 
 hold it!'' cried he, striking with his cane an immense granite bason, 
 called here a lago. " Was this then the middle of the forum ?" — • 
 " Certainly." " Does the Cloaca Maxima run underneath ?" — " Cer- 
 tainly.'' " And was this really the lago where the ancients threw 
 the money ?" — " Certainly." Thus was the lacus of some ancient 
 fountain (probably one of those which M, Agrippa had distributed 
 through the streets) transformed by a Cicerone's wand into the Cur- 
 tian lake ; and thus are thousands cheated by sounds. The devotion 
 of Curtius may itself be a fable ; but it is a fable dear to every patriot, 
 and if retraced by some object more probable than this, would be one 
 sentiment more brought to the mind of a passenger. 
 
 Such ignorance I am far from imputing to the professed Ciceroni 
 of Rome. Many of these are profound in its antiquities ; but they 
 are generally too full of their own little discoveries, which often ex- 
 clude more important information from the stranger. 
 
TOPOGRAPHY. 155 
 
 losity which on every point must give every opi- 
 nion, the received and the exploded, all jumbled 
 together. Venuti has sifted this farrago, and 
 ground down the learning of all his predecessors 
 into so clean and digestible a mass, that whoever 
 has access to it should go to his mill.* Zoega, if 
 he completes his present topographical design, will 
 surpass them all. Vasi, Mannazale, and that tribe 
 of vade-mecums, may serve you the first week as 
 mere valets-de-place in print, but you will soon dis- 
 miss them as insufficient. Those people parcel out 
 Rome into day's-works, and throw every thing to- 
 gether, ancient or modern, sacred or profane, that 
 lies in the same round. This plan is convenient 
 enough for them who desire only to shew or to see 
 Rome ; but whoever would study it must arrange 
 the objects of his study in a different order, de- 
 duced either from their kind or their age. 
 
 There are, in fact, three ancient Romes sub- 
 stantially distinct ; the city which the Gauls de- 
 stroyed, that which Nero burned, and that which 
 he and his successors rebuilt. Such a division may 
 
 * This book, which was rather rare, has been re-publislied since I 
 left Italy, by Philip Visconti, brother of the great antiquary. 
 
156 ROME. 
 
 guide the shident who would survey Rome only 
 in books, or class its monuments as they stand in 
 history. But as I confine my review to the struc- 
 tures which I have seen existing, I shall rather 
 refer these to the grand revolutions which affected 
 both the character and the purposes of Roman 
 architecture. 
 
 WORKS OF THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 — Exuta est veterem nova Roma seiiectam. Mart. 
 
 Architecture was unknown in Rome until the 
 Tarquins came down from Etruria. Hence the 
 few works of the kings which still remain were 
 built in the Etruscan style, with large uncemented 
 but regular blocks. Those remains consist only 
 in a few layers of peperine stone and a triple vault, 
 which are found in some parts of the TuUian walls, 
 in a prison (if indeed the Mamertine be the same 
 as the Tullianum) and in a common sewer. Such 
 objects, requiring only unadorned solidity, would 
 
WORKS OF THE REPUBLIC. 157 
 
 be built as these are by any race that built well. 
 Though insufficient for retracing the architectural 
 designs of the first Romans, enough remains to 
 shew us their public masonry, and their early am- 
 bition, which thus projected from its very infancy 
 " an eternal city," the capital of the world. 
 
 Some of the kings, particularly the last, turned 
 architecture to objects connected with their per- 
 sonal glory. The republic directed every arm and 
 every art to one national object, conquest : hence 
 its first great works were military ways. For a 
 while the republicans emulated the kings in the 
 solidity of their constructions. Appius Claudius 
 founded his great way, built it like a mole, and 
 paved it with drest basaltic stones. In the next 
 century the roads of Flaccus and Albinus were 
 only covered with gravel. Their successors, im- 
 proving in economy, took advantage of hard soils, 
 and in some parts omitted the ruderation, in others 
 the statumen, in others both. 
 
 The pavement of those ways is generally hidden 
 under a modern coat of gravel. Where it is unco- 
 vered, as on the road to Tivoli; at Capo di Bove, 
 at Fondi, &c., the stones, though irregular, were 
 
158 ROME. 
 
 large and even flat ; but their edges being worn 
 into hollows, they jolt a carriage unmercifully. 
 And could Procopius really have found those stones 
 as compactly even as one continued block of flint ? 
 could any stones resist the action of wheels for 
 nine hundred years unshaken and unimpressed? 
 In some places I could distinguish parts raised 
 like a foot-pavement ; but no stones so high as to 
 serve, like the anabathra, for stirrups,* in mount- 
 ing. 
 
 Aqueducts immediately followed : but of the 
 few which belong to this period only parts of the 
 Aqua Martia remain ; and perhaps the grand ar- 
 cades, which conveyed that water to the Esquiline, 
 are due to the repairs of Augustus. Some have 
 proposed the restoration of this aqueduct : " but 
 
 * Because no stirrups appear on the ancient equestrian monuments, 
 antiquaries conclude that so simple a contrivance was unknown to 
 the Romans. But we should consider how much of the real costume 
 of the time was suppressed by sculptors — how generally the ancient 
 vases, coins, lamps, relievi, nay even triumphal arches, represent 
 chariot-horses without even yoke or traces — iiow seldom the saddles, 
 or rather ephippia, appear on statues (the spurs and horse-shoes 
 never) — how greatly the stirrups would detract from the freedom and 
 grace of an equestrian figure. Besides, something like one stirrup 
 does appear on an antique at tlie Vatican ; the avaffoKEvt of Plutarch 
 would imply a stirrup as well as a groom ; and Eustathius gives both 
 meanings to the word. 
 
WORKS OF THE REPUBLIC. 159 
 
 Rome," say the Romans, " has more water than it 
 wants." — " Give it then to the Campagna." " The 
 Campagna has no inhabitants to drink water." — 
 " And why has it no inhabitants, but for want of 
 good water as well as good air?" 
 
 Why do those aqueducts cross the Campagna 
 in courses so unnecessarily long and indirect? Se- 
 veral reasons have been alleged, all of which may 
 have influenced the ancients ; but their chief mo- 
 tive, in my opinion, was to distribute part of their 
 water to the Campagna itself, and to diffuse it 
 there into smaller veins. Besides this general cir- 
 cuit, the Romans bent their aqueducts into fre- 
 quent angles, like a screen ; not so much to break 
 the force of their currents, as to give stability to 
 the arcades. 
 
 Conquest, which was ever dearer to the Roman 
 republic than its own liberty, spread at last to 
 Greece, and brought home the fine arts in objects 
 of plunder. Their captive gods, too beautiful or 
 sublime for the rude old structures of Italy, obliged 
 the Romans to raise for them temples in imitation 
 of the Greek. 
 
160 ROME. 
 
 Some of those temples have been fortunately 
 preserved as churches. The catholic religion is 
 surely a friend, but an interested friend, to the fine 
 arts. It rejects nothing that is old or beautiful.* 
 Had ancient Rome fallen into the power of gloomy 
 prebsyterians, we should now look in vain for the 
 sacred part of its ruins. Their iconoclast zeal 
 would have confounded beauty with idolatry, for 
 the pleasure of demolishing both. They would 
 have levelled the temple and preached in a barn. 
 The catholics let the temple stand, and gloried in 
 its conversion to Christianity. 
 
 * I have found the statue of a god pared down into a Christian 
 saint — a heathen altar converted into a church-box for the poor — 
 a bacchanalian vase officiating as a baptismal font — a bacchanalian 
 tripod supporting the holy-water bason — the sarcophagus of an old 
 Roman adored as a shrine full of relics — cips, which were inscribed 
 to the Dis Manibus, now set in pavements hallowed by the knees of 
 the devout — the brass columns of Jupiter Capitolinus now conse- 
 crated to the altar of the blessed sacrament — and the tomb of Agrippa 
 now the tomb of a pope. 
 
 Nothing could protect a statue from such zealots as St. Gregory, 
 but its conversion to Christianity. That holy barbarian, though born 
 a Roman, and though pontilF of Rome, was more brutal than its 
 enemies. Alaric and Attila plundered, Genseric and Constans 
 removed ; but Gregory's atrocious joy was to dash in pieces. Yet 
 this man, who persecuted the fine arts, and (if we may believe John 
 of Salisbury) burned the imperial library of the Apollo, has lately 
 found authors to defend him. 
 
WORKS OF THE REPUBLIC. 161 
 
 Every round edifice that contains alcoves is now, 
 perhaps too generally, pronounced to have been 
 the exhedra or the caldarium of ancient baths. 
 Such is the temple of Minerva Medici ; and such 
 originally was the Pantheon. The Pantheon a 
 bath ! could that glorious combination of beauty 
 and magnificence have been raised for so sordid an 
 office ? — Yet consider it historically ; detach the 
 known additions, such as the portal, the columns, 
 the altars ; strip the immense cylinder and its 
 niches of their present ornaments, and you will 
 then arrive at the exact form of the caldaria now 
 existing in Rome. 
 
 The cell and the portal of the Pantheon are two 
 beauties independent of their union. " The portal 
 shines inimitable on earth." Viewed alone, it is 
 faultless. If the pediment, in following the pedi- 
 ment above, should appear too high from the pre- 
 sent vacancy of its tympan; that tympan was 
 originally full of the richest sculpture. If the 
 columns are not all mathematically equal; yet 
 inequalities, which nothing but measurement can 
 detect, are not faults to the eye, which is sole 
 judge. But the portal is more than faultless ; it 
 
 M 
 
162 ROME. 
 
 is positively the most sublime result that was ever 
 produced by so little architecture. Its general 
 design is best seen diagonally from the Giustiniani 
 palace. In the obscene hole where it stands, you 
 run more into the analysis of parts, the details of 
 ornament, the composition of the entablature, the 
 swell and proportions of the columns. Every 
 moulding here becomes a model for the art : even 
 the little still left round the bases of the ancient 
 capitals is white with the plaster of casts. 
 
 You enter the Pantheon by doors cased in bronze, 
 which, whether made for Agrippa, or substituted 
 by Genseric, appear to me at least of classical date, 
 as their form is common on the ancient rilievos : 
 not carved like those of the temple of Remus, but 
 studded with a variety of bullee and turning pivots. 
 The pilasters within the jambs and the vacancy 
 above betray an unfitness which I should hardly 
 expect in the original doors. A vacancy has, in- 
 deed, been remarked on some rilievos, but the 
 temples there being rectangular required it for 
 light. Not so the Pantheon. 
 
 Here a flood of light falling through one large 
 orb was sufficient for the whole circle of divinities 
 
WORKS OF THE REPUBLIC. 163 
 
 below, and impartially diffused on all. Perhaps 
 the interior elevation is beautiful where it should 
 be grand : its Corinthian, though exquisite, appears 
 too low for the walls, and made the Attic here a 
 necessary evil. Had Adrian caught the full ma- 
 jesty of the naked dome, and embellished its walls 
 with one grand order that rose to the origin of the 
 vault; so full a support would have balanced the 
 vast lacunaria of that vault, which now overpower 
 us, and the whole temple would have been then 
 " more simply, more severely great." Vast as they 
 appear, those deep coffers are really not dispro- 
 portioned to the hemisphere, and diminishing as 
 they ascend, they stop just at the point where they 
 would cease to be noble or entire. What barba- 
 rians could have white-washed so grand a canopy! 
 If their rapacity tore off its ancient covering, they 
 might have bronzed the surface exposed, and left 
 at least the colour of their plunder behind. 
 
 Though plundered of all its brass, except the 
 ring which was necessary to preserve the aperture 
 above; though exposed to repeated fire, though 
 sometimes flooded by the river, and always open 
 to the rain, no monument of equal antiquity is so 
 well preserved as this rotonda. It passed with 
 m2 
 
164 ROME. 
 
 little alteration from the Pagan into the present 
 worship ; and so convenient were its niches for the 
 Christian altar, that Michael Angelo, ever studious 
 of ancient beauty, introduced their design as a 
 model in the catholic church. 
 
 By giving more latitude than is due to a passage 
 in Cicero,* some would refer all the tombs without 
 the Capena gate to the republic, and would fix the 
 names of the Servilii, the Horatii, the Metellii on 
 towers, or rather the skeletons of towers left with- 
 out an epitaph, or mark, or tradition ; but the Cor- 
 nelian tomb, which had been classed among these 
 and was at last found within the city, should teach 
 us a little scepticism on this ground, where none 
 bear the names of their tenants save Cascilia Me- 
 tella's alone. This proud mausoleum was built 
 by Crassus, of travertine stone twenty-four feet 
 thick, to secure the bones of a single woman; 
 while the adjoining castle had but a thin wall of 
 soft tufo to defend all the Gaetani from the fury 
 of a civil war. 
 
 * Cicero led antiquaries into error by representing the Cornelian 
 tomb as without the walls. In his time it certainly was so : but the 
 Capena-gate, having been afterwards removed from the Aqua Cra- 
 bra nearly on to the Almo, left the buried Scipios within the city. 
 
WORKS OF THE REPUBLIC. 165 
 
 The general form of those tombs on the Appian 
 way is a cyUnder or a truncated cone, with a cubic 
 base, and a convex top. This combination con- 
 veys the idea of a funeral pyre, and has some ten- 
 dency to the pyramid, the figure most appropriate 
 to a tomb, as representing the earth heaped on a 
 grave, or the stones piled on a military barrow. 
 
 Near those tombs is a little temple also assigned 
 to this period, under the name of the God Redi- 
 culus. So fresh are its red and yellow bricks, that 
 the thing seems to have been ruined in its youth ; 
 so close their adhesion, that each of the puny 
 pilasters appears one piece, and the cornice is 
 sculptured like the finest marble. But could such 
 profusion of ornament have existed here in Anni- 
 bal's days? Whether it be a temple or a tomb, 
 the rich chisseling lavished on so poor a design 
 convinces me that it was fully as late as Septimius 
 Severus. 
 
 On the next hill stands another very doubtful 
 work called by some the temple of Honour and 
 Virtue, which was built in this period, and extolled 
 by Vitruvius for the scientific symmetry of its 
 order. But here the cornice is still more deco- 
 
166 ROME. 
 
 rated than its neighbours, and the space which re- 
 presents the frieze is higher than the pediment ; 
 within is another enormous frieze, or rather belt 
 of defaced stuccos, which appear very beautiful 
 and perfect in Piranesi — those lying engravers ! 
 
 ** We descended to the valley of Egeria and the 
 grotto," or rather nymphaeum ; but instead of the 
 marble magnificence which offended Juvenal here, 
 we found the vault fallen in, the walls mantled 
 with maiden-hair, the statue which passes for the 
 Nymph mutilated, the Muses removed from their 
 niches, and the fountain itself a mere trough. Its 
 water, however, was delicious, and, finding a large 
 split reed placed over the drip, I used it as a 
 conduit. 
 
 Seepe sed exiguis haustibus inde bibi. 
 
( 167 ) 
 WORKS OF THE EMPIRE. 
 
 The arts of Greece, when transplanted to Rome, 
 found an architecture estabhshed there, which was 
 different even in origin from their own. The two 
 opposite systems were presently combined, and the 
 Greek column and entablature are found co-exist- 
 ing with the Roman arch and vault, in every work 
 of the empire. A combination so unnatural broke 
 that unity of design which had prevailed here 
 during the Etruscan period : it soon altered the 
 native forms and proportions of the Greek orders; 
 it amassed incompatible ornaments ; and beauty 
 disappeared under the load of riches. 
 
 Another enemy to the beautiful, and even to 
 the sublime, was that colossal taste which arose in 
 the empire, and gave an unnatural expansion to 
 all the works of art. In architecture it produced 
 Nero's golden house, and Adrian's villa ; in hy- 
 draulics, it projected the Claudian emissary, and 
 Caligula's Baian bridge ; in sculpture, it has left 
 at the Capitol such heads and feet as betray the 
 
168 ROME. 
 
 emperors' contempt for the dimensions of man; in 
 poetry it swelled out into the hyperboles of Lucan 
 and Statins. This exaggerated spirit spread even 
 to the games. Nero drove ten horses yoked 
 abreast to his car, and double that number appear 
 on an ancient stone. 
 
 Architecture, thus enslaved to the selfishness of 
 emperors, exhausted all her powers on palaces, 
 triumphal arches, historical columns, and tombs. 
 
 The Imperial palace took root in the modest 
 mansion of Hortensius, covered the whole Palatine, 
 and branched over other hills. From Augustus 
 to Nero is the period of its increase : from Nero 
 down to Valentinian III. its history is but a suc- 
 cession of fires, devastations, and repairs. These, 
 however, would chiefly affect the walls and roofs ; 
 so that much of what remains being mere substruc- 
 tions, are probably the work of the Julian family. 
 
 In the present chaos of broken walls and arcades 
 we can no longer retrace the general design of this 
 palace, as it existed in any one reign. Palladio, 
 whose imagination has rebuilt so many ruins, for- 
 bore from these. Panvinio tried in vain to retrace 
 
WORKS OF THE EMPIRE. 169 
 
 the original plan. Biancliini went too far : he 
 spent his fortune and lost his life in excavating 
 this ground. But were the few rooms which he 
 discovered in a corner of one quarter of the palace, 
 or the ill-connected ruins above, sufficient data to 
 restore the general design, and to allot geometri- 
 cally each part of the fabric to its imperial 
 founder ? Not satisfied with the grander distri- 
 butions, and with the symmetry which he gives to 
 the whole, Bianchini boldly descends into details ; 
 he fixes the guard-rooms, the oil-cellars, the wood- 
 house, &c., and bodies forth most magnificent 
 stairs without one ancient step or stone for autho- 
 rity or guide. 
 
 If we return from those restorers to the ruins 
 themselves, we meet a nakedness of surface, which, 
 though it may baffle our modern ideas of conve- 
 nience, displays a great variety of construction. 
 The walling is full of those blind arches, single* 
 double, or triple, interchanged with straight ones, 
 which bind and diversify all the ancient brick- 
 work. In several breaches the emplecton discovers 
 itself behind the small triangular bricks which face 
 it, and which, every four feet upwards, are covered 
 with a double course of broad ones. In the vaults 
 
170 ROME. 
 
 we see the mixture of tufo, pumice, and po^ssuo- 
 lana* which made them so Hght and durable : we 
 can even distinguish every plank of the formae 
 on which that mixture was carelessly cast. In 
 the subterranean part are still some remains of 
 the oriental marbles, the stuccos, the gold, azure, 
 and painting, which were lavished on dark apart- 
 ments or lost in the obscurity of deep courts. If 
 the basement and the baths were so rich, what 
 must the imperial story have been ! 
 
 The triumphal arches are too much interred for 
 the eye to decide on their general proportions, or 
 their distant effect. If the earth were removed, 
 the columns, I apprehend, would lose all their im- 
 portance between a stylohata and an attic so im- 
 moderately high. What business or what mean- 
 ing have columns on any arch ? The statues of 
 captive kings are but a poor apology for so idle a 
 support. Ambitious to display their hero too often, 
 the multiplicity of relievos ritters their fronts into 
 
 * The Pozzuolana used bj the ancients was of the black ferruginous 
 kind, which hardens instantly. Modern builders prefer the red; 
 but they seldom purge it so carefully of common earth. In the cata- 
 combs I took up handfnls of jio:zuola7ia so very elastic that, though 
 moist when crumbled, it never stuck to my fingers. 
 
WORKS OF THE EMPIRE. 171 
 
 compartments which lessen what they would en- 
 rich. In their spandrels are four Victories, which, 
 in representing the ancient automatons dropping 
 crowns on the conqueror, seem necessary to those 
 mixt triangles so admirably filled by their wings. 
 The platform above was well adapted to the curule 
 statue. Here the triumphal car formed an his- 
 torical record : on a modern arch it is only a meta- 
 phor. 
 
 Titus's arch is so rich that I can hardly think it 
 elegant. The entablature, the imposts, the key- 
 stones, are all crowded with sculpture, yet meagre 
 in profile: but it is hard to judge the general ef- 
 fect of a mutilated thing. 
 
 In Septimius Severus's arch the composite starts 
 so often and so furiously out, the poverty of its 
 entablature meets you in so many points, as to 
 leave no repose to the eye. 
 
 Constantine's arch is larger, nobler, and even 
 more correct in its architecture, the only object 
 now in review: but is that architecture its own? 
 We know that its columns, statues, and relievi, are 
 not; and we may fairly suspect that its whole 
 
172 ROME. 
 
 composition was stolen, as Constantine's reign was 
 notorious for architectural robbery. 
 
 Gallienus's arch is a mere gateway, and that of 
 Drusus seems part of an aqueduct, yet coarse as 
 they are, each has its Corinthian columns, and 
 pediments stuck upon a fraction of the fronts. 
 
 The Janus Quadrifons is rather a compitum 
 than an arch, and is grand enough in its general 
 proportions to be classed among those of Domitian; 
 but mean details betray a worse age of the art — 
 rows of pigmy columns divided by imposts, and 
 enormous cubes of marbles cooped and scolloped 
 into niches. Our Gothic architects loved little 
 columns and little niches ; but they seldom em- 
 ployed large stones. 
 
 The historical columns are true to no order of 
 architecture. Trajan's has a Tuscan base and 
 capital, a Doric shaft, and a pedestal with Corin- 
 thian mouldings. That of M. Aurelius repeats 
 the same mixture ; but its pedestal is restored, and 
 though higher, both in proportions and in place, 
 than Trajan's, does not associate so well with its 
 shaft. These are the only regular pedestals that I 
 
WORKS OF THE EMPIRE. 173 
 
 ever remarked in Roman antiquity. The pedestal, 
 indeed, appears but a modern invention, though 
 probably derived from the ancient stylohatce^ 
 which projected sometimes under every column. 
 But those projections, though found in admi- 
 rable w^orks, are not themselves to be admired ; 
 still less is the insulated pedestal, which in archi- 
 tecture acts as a stilt to the shaft ; and is beautiful, 
 because necessary, only under monumental co- 
 lumns like these. 
 
 The spiral on these two columns gives the story 
 a continuity which horizontal rings would inter- 
 rupt : but its narrow boundary is hardly sufficient 
 to prevent the confusion which such a throng of 
 prominent figures and deep shadows must throw 
 on the general surface of the column. 
 
 The tombs of Augustus, and of Adrian, appear 
 at first view absurd, extravagant, beyond all mea- 
 sure of comparison with the size of a coffin, or 
 cinerary. The lower vaults of the first form a 
 circle large enough to serve for a modern amphi- 
 theatre : the second, though reduced to less than 
 half its tower, has been for ages the citadel of 
 Rome. Augustus, indeed, raised his tomb with 
 
174 ROME. 
 
 that liberality which so many epitaphs announce, 
 to receive not himself and his relations alone, but 
 his freedmen too, and all their families. A private 
 tomb called only for a few rows of columbaria; 
 but his imperial household required circles of 
 vaults, which are all that remains of this pile. 
 Adrian built his mausoleum on the more selfish 
 plan of Cecilia Metella's. Its figure, stript of 
 ornament, was nearly the same ; its walls were pro- 
 portionately thick, and the interior designed for a 
 few sarcofagi. 
 
 The same colossal taste gave rise to the Coli- 
 seum. Here, indeed, gigantic dimensions were 
 necessary ; for though hundreds could enter at 
 once, and fifty thousand find seats, the space was 
 still insufficient for Rome, and the crowd for the 
 morning-games began at midnight. 
 
 Vespasian and Titus, as if presaging their own 
 deaths, hurried the building, and left several 
 marks of their precipitancy behind. In the upper 
 walls they have inserted stones which had been 
 evidently drest for a (J'^^erent purpose. Some of 
 the arcades are grossly unequal: no moulding 
 preserves the same level and form round the whole 
 
WORKS OF THE EMPIRE. 175 
 
 ellipse, and every order is full of license. The 
 Doric has no triglyphs nor metopes, and its arch 
 is too low for its columns ; the Ionic repeats the 
 entablature of the Doric : the third order is but 
 a rough-cast of the Corinthian, and its foliage the 
 thickest water-plants : the fourth seems a mere 
 repetition of the third, in pilasters ; and the whole 
 is crowned by a heavy Attic. 
 
 Happily for the Coliseum, the shape necessary 
 to an amphitheatre has given it a stability of con- 
 struction sufficient to resist fires, and earthquakes, 
 and lightning, and sieges. Its elliptical form was 
 the hoop which bound and held it entire till bar- 
 barians rent that consolidating ring. Popes widen- 
 ed the breach, and time, not unassisted, continues 
 the work of dilapidation. At this moment the 
 hermitage is threatened with a dreadful crash, 
 and a generation not very remote must be content, 
 I apprehend, with the picture of this stupendous 
 monument. Of the interior elevation, two slopes, 
 by some called meniana, are already demolished ; 
 the arena, the podium are interred. No member 
 runs entire round the w^-Je ellipse; but every 
 member made such a circuit, and re-appears so 
 often, that plans, sections, and elevations of the 
 
ITG ROME. 
 
 original work are drawn with the precision of a 
 modern fabric. 
 
 When the whole amphitheatre was entire, a 
 child might comprehend its design in a moment, 
 and go direct to his place without straying in the 
 porticos, for each arcade bears its number en- 
 graved, and opposite to every fourth arcade was a 
 staircase. This multiplicity of wide, straight, and 
 separate passages, proves the attention which the 
 ancients paid to the safe discharge of a crowd ; it 
 finely illustrates the precept of Vitruvius,* and 
 exposes the perplexity of some modern theatres. 
 
 Every nation has undergone its revolution of 
 vices ; and, as cruelty is not the present vice of 
 ours, we can all humanely execrate the purpose 
 of amphitheatres, now that they lie in ruins. Mo- 
 ralists may tell us that the truly brave are never 
 cruel ; but this monument says " No." Here sat 
 the conquerors of the world, coolly to enjoy the 
 
 * Aditus complures et spatiosos oportet disponere, nee conjunctos 
 superiores inferioribus, sed ex. omnibus locis perpetuos et directos 
 sine inversuris faciendos, ut, cum populus diraittitur de spectaculis, 
 ne coiiiprimatur, sed habcat omnibus locis exitus separates sine im- 
 ped itione. 
 
WORKS OF THE EMPIRE. 177 
 
 tortures and death of men who had never offended 
 them. Two aqueducts were scarcely sufficient to 
 wash off the human blood which a few hours' sport 
 shed in this imperial shambles. Twice in one day 
 came the senators and matrons of Rome to the 
 butchery ; a virgin always gave the signal for 
 slaughter, and when glutted with bloodshed, those 
 ladies sat down in the wet and streaming arena! 
 to a luxurious supper. 
 
 Such reflections check our regret for its ruin. 
 As it now stands, the Coliseum is a striking image 
 of Rome itself: — decayed — vacant — serious — yet 
 grand ; — half grey and half green — erect on one 
 side and fallen on the other, with consecrated 
 ground in its bosom — inhabited by a beadsman ; 
 visited by every cast ; for moralists, antiquaries, 
 painters, architects, devotees, all meet here to 
 meditate, to examine, to draw, to measure, and to 
 pray. " In contemplating antiquities," says Livy, 
 " the mind itself becomes antique." It contracts 
 from such objects a venerable rust, which I prefer 
 to the polish and the point of those wits who 
 have lately profaned this august ruin with ridi- 
 cule. 
 
 VOL. I. N 
 
178 ROME. 
 
 The only circus sufficiently entire to shew 
 what a circus was, is called Caracalla's. Though 
 meaner in construction than Caracalla's acknow- 
 ledged works, it is admired for its plan, the direc- 
 tion of its spina, and the curve employed at the 
 " aequo carcere," to secure a fair start for the cars. 
 
 Annexed to this circus is a spacious court, 
 which some call Caesar's mutatorium, and others 
 an appurtenance of the circle itself. Its form, 
 however, is very unlike the figure inscribed mv- 
 TATORiVM in the ancient plan of Rome, and unfit 
 for any purpose yet assigned to that name. With 
 the circus itself it had no communication, as it 
 opened only on the Appian way. I should rather, 
 for the following reasons, suppose it a serapeon. 
 Whatever constituted a serapeon is to be found 
 here — a rectangular court — one narrow entrance 
 — a portico within — a round temple in the middle 
 — and, under that, a subterranean cell necessary 
 to the Egyptian mysteries. Rufus and Victor 
 place the temples of Serapis and Isis in this very 
 region, and point very near to this spot.*' If the 
 
 * " Apud rivuluni Almonem, Serapidis, et Isidis jedem — qui 
 interfluit Egeriam vallera, et vergit in Appiam viam." In the 
 
WORKS OF THE EMPIRE. 179 
 
 circus adjoining be really Caracalla's, it gives ad- 
 ditional probability to this opinion, for Caracalla 
 was a great adorer of Serapis, went on pilgrimage 
 to his shrine, and erected temples for his worship. 
 
 To this period belong most of the baths. 
 
 The baths of Titus, which are confounded, I 
 suspect, with his palace, were the first gallery of 
 ancient painting that was restored to the world. 
 But the subterranean saloons are now for the 
 second time buried in the Esquiline, and most 
 of the pictures which remain visible are injured 
 by the water oozing down from the incumbent 
 gardens. 
 
 Some of the ruins above ground rise up to the 
 vaulting of their alcoves ; but none shew their 
 
 Museum Capitolinum is an altar which was found near this spot and 
 thus inscribed : 
 
 I. O. M. 
 
 Serapidi 
 
 Scipio Orfiius V. C. 
 
 Augur 
 Voti compos redditus. 
 The Jewish rites, which were banished out of the pomcErium at the 
 same time with the Egyptian, perched on tliis very neighbourhood. 
 
 N 2 
 
180 ROME. 
 
 specific relation to a bath, except the Sette Sale, 
 the construction of which proves that it was nei- 
 ther a 7iymphceum, nor a tep'idarium, nor any 
 thing but a reservoir ; and proves, too, how well 
 the ancients understood hydrostatics. The stucco, 
 like that of all reservoirs and castella, is mottled 
 with fine stains, and hard enough for the turning 
 of iron, which could only arise from the tartareous 
 penetration of the water. 
 
 Caracalla's baths shew how magnificent a coarse 
 rufiian may be. The very dimensions of that hall 
 which they call the Cella Solearis* convince me 
 that Spartianus does not exaggerate its embel- 
 lishments. Those temples, and academies, and 
 exhedrce which remain were but the out-works to 
 the thermal part. Mosaic was diffused here as a 
 general flooring. I followed it on the steps of a 
 broken stair-case, up to the very summit. I found 
 the tessellation entire even where the pavement 
 
 * Whj not rather the Cella Soliaris ? Solium, whether taken for 
 a bathing-vase or for a throne, would surely be more proper than a 
 slipper to designate such a hall. We know that thousands of such 
 teases made of the finest marble stood in these very baths ; and we 
 may conclude that the throne, which followed the emperors to the 
 theatre, and gave its name to a part of it, had also a place in this 
 imperial establishment. 
 
WORKS OF THE EMPIRE. 181 
 
 had sunk, and had left round the room a vacancy, 
 which was filled with a skirting of flowered ala- 
 baster. Variegated marbles now succeeded to 
 fresco-painting, which had spread, during the three 
 Flavian reigns, from the palace to the stable. In- 
 deed such was the rage for variegation, that plain 
 marbles were stained or inlaid, and spots were 
 incrusted on the spotted : hence their pavonine 
 beds and pantherine tables. 
 
 Diocletian's baths run into the same vastness 
 of dimension as his palace at Spalatro : but here 
 I saw nothing so classical or grand as the Pinaco- 
 theca, restored by the genius of Michael Angelo. 
 The round structures, whether balnea or exhedrce, 
 are sufficiently entire to serve for churches and 
 granaries. But the general plan of these baths 
 being confounded by the contradictory plans of 
 two convents, being crossed by roads and encum- 
 bered by vineyards, is now less obvious than that 
 of Caracalla's ruins, which seem to have been 
 better distributed, and stand in a fine advantageous 
 solitude. 
 
 These baths, co-existing with others of equal 
 extent, will appear too extravagantly large even 
 
182 ROME. 
 
 for " the most high and palmy state of Rome," 
 until we reflect on the various exercises connected 
 with the bath, on the habits of the people, the 
 heat of the climate, the rarity of linen, and the 
 cheapness of bathing, which brought hither the 
 whole population of the city. 
 
 The walls of those baths run so generally into 
 absides, that some lovers of system can see no- 
 thing but baths in the temple of Venus and Rome, 
 in the great temple of Peace, in short in every 
 ruin where they find such alcoves. But the 
 alcove appears fully as frequent in the ruins of 
 the Imperial palace, and of all the ancient villas 
 that I have seen. Vitruvius makes it a consti- 
 tuent part of every basilica ; we can trace it in 
 the plan of the Emilian. In fact, the alcove seems 
 rather an imitation of the Prsetorian tent than any 
 thing peculiar to a bath. 
 
 To combine the scattered remains of those 
 baths, to distribute their interior, to give light to 
 every apartment, and find out offices for them all, 
 would puzzle any regular surveyor; but what 
 can daunt antiquaries ? Determined to restore 
 whatever is lost or dismembered, they bring in 
 
WORKS OF THE EMPIRE. 183 
 
 books to rebuild ruins, they fly to Vitruvius or 
 Lucian, they rake up the mixt biographical rub- 
 bish of the Augustan histories, and from this 
 chaos of discordant elements they evoke a crea- 
 tion of their own. 
 
 The porticos, like the baths, embraced a variety 
 of objects, such as temples, schools, libraries ; but 
 nothing certain of this kind remains except the 
 elegant Corinthian vestibule of Octavia's. Per- 
 haps the fine columns in the Piazza di Pietra 
 and some of those in the Campo Vaccino belonged 
 also to this class. Porticos w^ei'e so numerous in 
 this period, and so generally colonnaded, that we 
 are probably obliged to them for half the ancient 
 columns that subsist. 
 
 The brick remains of this period, though infe- 
 rior to the stone in character and effect, are far 
 more general and more entire, for the ancient 
 bricks imbibed the cement so intimately, that they 
 break rather than separate. Of those works, the 
 round bear a much greater proportion to the qua- 
 drangular now, than when both were entire. Most 
 of the ancient edifices now subsisting as churches 
 are round. In mixt constructions, the circular 
 
184 ROME. 
 
 part of the walls has resisted time much better 
 than the flat ; and of the roofs nothing remains 
 that is not referable to the circle. The circular 
 form, though destructive of regularity in a private 
 house, saves ground, prevents confusion, and cuts 
 off useless corners in a pubhc edifice. Beautiful 
 in itself, it needs less decoration than flat sur- 
 faces ; it is more capacious than angular forms of 
 equal perimeter, and more commodious for any 
 assembly, whether met for worship, or sport, or 
 deliberation. 
 
 The remains of this period discover an increas- 
 ing partiality for the Corinthian order. Apply- 
 ing it to every variety of erection, the Romans 
 were obliged to seek a corresponding variety in 
 its ornament and style. For variety, they en- 
 riched the capitals with the olive, the laurel, the 
 acanthus, or the thistle, in foliage very differently 
 disposed. For variety, they brought griffins, 
 eagles, cornucopiae, and other emblems into the 
 volutes. In the entablatures may be found every 
 variety of moulding : and what is the Composite* 
 
 * Vitruvius nevf r mentions the Composite as a distinct order. 
 He only hints at compositions which may be resolved perhaps into 
 
WORKS OF THE EMPIRE. 185 
 
 order but another variety of the Corinthian ? In 
 the Pantheon, in the Campo Vaccino, the Capi- 
 tol, the Sacred Way, every where in Rome, have 
 they left us a richer Corinthian than can be found 
 in Greece, where that order seems to have been 
 rare. 
 
 The Ionic, on the contrary, has rather degene- 
 rated here. Too meagre at the Coliseum, too 
 clumsy for its entablature at Marcellus's Theatre, 
 irregular, nay, unequal at the Temple of Concord, 
 full of disproportions in that of Fortuna Virilis, 
 (I mean the stucco entablature which it received 
 during the empire,) no where in Rome is it com- 
 parable to the Ionic of the Erectheon, which, had 
 its capital a similar volute, might be proposed as 
 the canon of this beautiful order. 
 
 The Doric appears here in very few monu- 
 ments, and so latinized that we lose the original 
 order. In the Roman temples columns were a 
 mere decoration, or, at most, supported the pedi- 
 
 a confusion of orders : but this, if we adhere too strictly to his rules, 
 would embrace half the ancient architecture extant, beginning with 
 his own denticulated Doric at the Theatre of Marcellus; if that 
 theatre was really built by Vitruvius. 
 
186 ROME. 
 
 ment alone. In the Grecian, they formed an in- 
 tegral part of the edifice ; not engaged in the 
 wall, but rather the wall itself. Hence arose a 
 necessary difference in their proportions. At 
 Rome the ancient Doric is about 7^ diameters. 
 At Athens the greatest height of the column is 
 but 6, at Pestum 4g, at Corinth only 4. 
 
 Of the order called Tuscan nothing is to be 
 found in these, nor, I believe, in any ruins. The 
 total disappeai'ance of this order I would impute 
 to its own rules. In Tuscan edifices, the inter- 
 columniations were so wide, that wood became 
 necessary to form the architrave, and a mixture 
 of brick rendered the whole fabric more destruc- 
 tible. Vitruvius found the Tuscan existing only 
 in antiquated temples. It afterwards yielded to 
 the taste for Greek, and the chief ruins in Italy 
 are of the orders most remote from the Tuscan 
 proportions. 
 
 The Attic, which, notwithstanding its name, is 
 an Italian order, intrudes upon the noblest monu- 
 ments of Rome, as the Pantheon, the Coliseum, 
 the triumphal arches, the temple of Pallas, &c., 
 and was more general, I suspect, than we can 
 
WORKS OF THE EMPIRE. 187 
 
 calculate from ruins ; for in every ruin the Attic 
 would be the first part to disappear. This bastard 
 order, or rather accessory, seems too ignoble to 
 surmount the Corinthian. Its proportions and its 
 place are ever at variance. Sometimes it may 
 hide a roof, but then, unfortunately, it crowns the 
 elevation. 
 
 The Romans now began to accumvdate different 
 orders on the same pile. We see four at the 
 Coliseiuii. Each of the Septizonia had seven, 
 and though these structures have disappeared, 
 perhaps in consequence of this very accumulation, 
 we may estimate their probable effect from the 
 leaning tower of Pisa, and a poor effect it is. 
 The very nature of the orders seems to forbid 
 their association. Admit only two on the same 
 front, and suppress, if you will, the unnecessary 
 cornice of the first ; still the upper cornice will, 
 of necessity, be either too large for its own column, 
 or too small for the general elevation. 
 
ROME. 
 
 WORKS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 Alii Constantin! di quanlo mal fu madre, 
 Non la tua conversion, ma quella dote 
 Che da te prese il primo ricco Padre! Dante, 
 
 CoNSTANTiNE founded schools for architecture 
 here ; but the architects he employed on his new 
 creation in Thrace. Ambitious that Rome should 
 appear but the second city of his empire, he aban- 
 doned its ancient edifices to ruin, or to robbery, 
 or to the church. The church, building for a 
 new religion, introduced a new style of architec- 
 ture, or rather a new corruption of the old ; the 
 creature of occasion, cobbling its basilicas out of 
 temples and tombs. 
 
 These basilicas are generally regarded as copies 
 of the old Roman Basilica, perhaps from bearing 
 its name : yet the name traced historically leads 
 to no such conclusion. A basilica seems at first 
 to have been part of a palace. It is sometimes 
 represented as a simple portico. It then included 
 
WORKS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 189 
 
 the buildings which were afterwards annexed. 
 Some of those buildings, which had served as 
 basiliccs for law and trade, became places of wor- 
 ship to the primitive Christians ; and the first 
 churches that were erected expressly for that 
 worship, erected perhaps on the site of some 
 ancient has'iUcce, retained the same name. But 
 do these churches coincide with Vitruvius's de- 
 scription of his own basilica ? have they double 
 porticos on the four sides ? have they an upper 
 gallery to represent the pluteus ? was the chalci- 
 dicimi open like our transepts ? was it not every 
 where else a hall ? Is there any thing like a tran- 
 sept in the Emilian basilica carved out on the 
 old plan of Rome ? Is there any thing like the 
 walls of a church, or any walls, in that plan, or on 
 the coin, or in Vitruvius's details ? And was an 
 open Exchange, then, a fit model for the house 
 of God ? 
 
 The plan of these basilicas is excellent in the 
 abstract. Most churches, Gothic or modern, are 
 complicate in proportion as they are grand. You 
 must go round and round them before you can 
 collect their symmetry and composition. Here, 
 on the contrary, the aisles are divided by single 
 
190 ROME. 
 
 columns ; the side-altiirs are not closeted oft"; you 
 comprehend at one view both the design and the 
 dimensions. This simplicity of plan leaves the 
 mind in repose at any point of view, yet diversi- 
 fies the picture at every step. 
 
 Their plan, however, is too large for the eleva- 
 tion, too wide for the thickness of their walls and 
 columns, too economical in the supports. If the 
 height of the columns, which generally formed 
 four rows, were to determine that of the pile, the 
 whole would be disproportionately low and dark. 
 To obviate this fault, the entablature due to a 
 colonnade was suppressed, arches rose above the 
 shafts, and high walls and windows above the 
 arches. But where columns stand so close the 
 arch must be pitifully small ; the v/alls piled above 
 this slender support make the nave too lofty for 
 the aisles ; the front also suffers from this dispro- 
 portion, and looks, in some basilicas, like an old 
 church set upon a modern house. Wherever the 
 plan is unfit, in building upon it you may exchange 
 one fault for another, but a fault must remain. 
 
 St. John Lateran was built by Constantino in 
 the precincts of his own palace, and became part 
 
WORKS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 191 
 
 of the rich endowment which Dante laments in 
 the motto. But Bovromini has been here, and 
 robbed us of the basilica. The old architecture 
 of the church lies concealed in the modern, its 
 imperial columns, too weak to sustain the load of 
 additions, are now bvu'ied in the heart of sacrile- 
 gious pillars : these pillars actually start out into 
 niches : every niche holds a prophet : and a new 
 band of white saints and apostles besieges the 
 front of this unfortunate pile : 
 
 Egregias Lateranoriini obsidet sedes 
 
 Tota cohors. 
 
 The adjoining Baptistery discovers more of its 
 original form and materials. This imperial work, 
 being the first of its kind, became the model and 
 type of the catholic baptisteries, and prescribed 
 its polygonal form to all. Prescription is, for good 
 reasons, a very high authority among priests. 
 They pretend that Constantino himself was bap- 
 tized here ; but what a multitude of lies has the 
 Roman church told, and made the fine arts repeat, 
 on that doubtful character ! Built in an age when 
 converts went doiv?i in crowds to be baptized, this 
 edifice blends the temple with the bath. Hence 
 its central and grand object is the font : hence, 
 
192 ROME. 
 
 too, the font is sunk below the pavement and large 
 enough for the total immersion of adults. Like 
 all Constantine's works, this is but a compilation 
 of classical spoils: a mere thief of antiquity. How 
 august must the temple have been which resigned 
 those two stupendous columns of porphyry, to 
 patch the brick-wall of this ecclesiastical farrago ! 
 
 St. PauVs, though founded by Constantine, is, 
 in its present state, the work of Honorius ; often 
 repaired, but not altered, like the Lateran. The 
 columns which support it, particularly those of 
 the nave, are admired for their marble, their pro- 
 portions, and their purpose. Here indeed they 
 are aliens, removed, it is said, from Adrian's tomb, 
 and forced into these aisles as a matter of con- 
 venience. Such beauty as theirs was too natural; 
 it was not difficult or confused enough to be ad- 
 mired in this monkish period. But pass into the 
 cloister, and you will find other columns, true 
 natives of the place, tortured into every variety 
 of ugliness ; some spiral, some twisted, some 
 doubly twisted, some spiral and twisted at once, 
 with the hideous addition of inlay. 
 
 The chancel of this church terminates in a large 
 
 I 
 
WORKS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 193 
 
 abs'fS or alcove, which is crowned with a mosaic 
 of the fifth century, exhibiting a few grim old 
 saints on an azure and gold ground. A model so 
 glaring, so grotesque, so imperial, could not escape 
 the ambition of succeeding church-builders. Some 
 Greek artists propagated the taste through Tus- 
 cany and Venice, and the art itself was practised 
 by monks ; but what a stride from their bespangled 
 works to the modern mosaics of St. Peter's ! 
 
 So admirable is the effect of insulated columns 
 and of a circular plan, that all the barbarisms of 
 that ambiguous temple, or church, or bath, or 
 market-place, called Santo Stefano Rotondo, 
 cannot defeat it. Those ill-set and ill-assorted 
 columns, that hideous well in the roof, that tower 
 of Babel in the middle, that slaughter-house of 
 saints painted round the wall ; all those are dis- 
 armed and lose the power of disgusting ; for the 
 very plan alone fascinates the mind with the full 
 perception of unity, of a whole varied but not 
 concealed ; while the two circles of the peristyles 
 change their combinations at every step, and the 
 shadows projected from one luminous orb play 
 fancifully on the pavement. A third ring of 
 columns is lost in the walls. So many concentric 
 
 VOL. I. o 
 
194 ROME. 
 
 circles would render any structure too dark except 
 an open colonnade, which, I apprehend, was the 
 original state of the edifice: but then how im- 
 moderately unequal must the intercolumniations 
 have been, if all the columns radiated from a 
 common centre ! 
 
 St". Constantia's is another round and ambiguous 
 church, or baptistery, or temple, or mausoleum ; 
 where a circle of coupled columns produce, but 
 in a less degree, the effect which I have just 
 admired. 
 
 Sf. Agnese, St". Maria in Trastevere, and San 
 Lorenzo, were built early in this period. They 
 all retain their basilical forms, all are supported 
 by multifarious columns which, though forced from 
 more beautiful temples into the Christian service, 
 have been thus preserved to shew us the caprices 
 of ancient architecture ; such as flutings within 
 flutings on the shafts, Jupiters carved on the 
 abacus, and lizards and frogs in the volutes. 
 
 Santa Croce, Santa Maria Maggiore, and 
 others of equal antiquity, have lost their original 
 forms in a succession of repairs, and leave us 
 
WORKS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 195 
 
 nothing to remark under this head, except, per- 
 haps, some rich tessellated pavement referable to 
 the founders. 
 
 These basilicas had probably been built before 
 the points of the compass became a point of reli- 
 gion ; for several of their chancels stand in a 
 western direction. So superstitious are some of 
 the Gothic churches in this particular, that where 
 their walls deviate by necessity from the east and 
 west line, the spine of the vault is observed to in- 
 cline to that side of the chancel where the east 
 lies. 
 
 Rome was always preserved from the Gothic 
 taste which reigned in the north of Italy during 
 this period. Indeed, architecture, acting by rules 
 and measures which require no genius to observe 
 them, would not decline so rapidly as her sister- 
 arts in a city full of Vitruvian structures. The 
 very ruins of Rome supplied both models and 
 materials which kept the Romans within the pale 
 of their ancient architecture. Some approaches 
 to the Gothic struck me at the papal altars of St. 
 Paul's and the Lateran ; but those pyramidal, 
 turretted and notched erections can be regarded 
 o2 
 
196 ROME. 
 
 only as the furniture of the church, and then- 
 columns or their arches give theuT a certain mix- 
 ture of Latinity. 
 
 To this head we may perhaps refer the Cata- 
 combs ; for though excavated during the empire 
 as quarries of tufo ; yet, when they afterwards 
 gave retreat to the living and the dead, they 
 assumed certain forms of habitation which retrace 
 the state of art during this period. 
 
 The catacombs run into long, low, narrow gal- 
 leries, nearly parallel, and generally ending in a 
 lapse of earth or in stagnant water. Those galle- 
 ries are intersected by others at oblique angles, 
 and where they cross, the corner is supported by 
 masonry. At St. Sebastian's, the largest and once 
 the richest of them all, there are two stories of 
 catacombs, and in each of these is a kind of master- 
 line. The chambers or chapels are all square, 
 with arched recesses and rectangular gaps both in 
 the walls and flooring to receive coffins. Wher- 
 ever there are columns the orders are coarse. 
 Indeed nothing beautiful could be expected in 
 such a place and among persecuted men. The 
 paintings exhibit a medley of the two religions 
 
WORKS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 197 
 
 which were then m conflict. In the midst of 
 scripture subjects sits Orpheus among the brutes. 
 Wherever Christ performs a miracle he employs 
 a wand, hke Moses at the rock. 
 
 MODERN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 Loco si vede raro 
 
 Di gran fabbrica, e bella, e ben intesa. 
 
 Ariosto. 
 
 Man, though the child of imitation, imitates 
 with reluctance : his ambition, as an artist, is to 
 invent. In architecture, however, the grand 
 objects of invention are anticipated ; the con- 
 stitutive parts and proportions are already fixed ; 
 the mind must circulate round these, and be satis- 
 fied with innovating only in combinations. The 
 artist must recur to the models established in his 
 art, and from them he derives notions of excel- 
 lence which confine him but the more. He 
 cannot safely depart from those models ; yet he 
 grudges every approach that he makes. His 
 
198 ROME. 
 
 poverty but not his will consents. Whatever he 
 steals he disfigures : he changes the scale, he 
 transposes the parts, he tries to efface the mark 
 of the original master, and inserts something of 
 his own to conceal the theft. No other principle 
 can account to me for the degenerate architecture 
 of a city which contains the Pantheon, or why 
 artists should daily borrow the details of that 
 edifice, and never adopt the simplicity of its 
 design. 
 
 The ancients seem to have excelled us more in 
 architecture than in painting, or even in sculpture. 
 They trusted to magnitude and design for the 
 effects which we seek in ornament. It is perhaps 
 the misfortune of modern Rome to have employed 
 painters and sculptors too often as her architects. 
 Michael Angelo injured some of his edifices by a 
 passion for the awful and the singular ; Bernini, 
 by his addiction to the brilliant and the ingenious ; 
 Pietro da Cortona, by a luxuriance and prodigality 
 of composition; Domenichino is charged with 
 some licenses of the picturesque ; Julio Romano 
 built more chastely than these; his master Raphael 
 built but little, and little of what he did build 
 subsists. 
 
MODERN ARCHITECTURE. 199 
 
 Architecture is more a science than her sister 
 arts ;* more fixt in her principles, less susceptible 
 
 * Though usually classed with Painting and Sculpture, it may 
 be questioned whether Architecture be, like them, one of the fine 
 arts. A fine art appears to me to imply the faculty of inventing, 
 and embellishing, and expressing, or imitating whatever can affect 
 the moral or intellectual powers of man. Now, as this can be done 
 only through the medium of words, or of forms, or of both, perhaps 
 the fine arts may, in relation to these mediums, be reduced to three 
 — 1. Poetry, including Oratory — 2. Painting and Sculpture, as the 
 joint arts of design — 3. The Histrionic Art. 
 
 Poetry and Oratory, having the same powers, the same vehicle, the 
 same object, and being separated by limits which are neither neces- 
 sary nor ascertained, may be considered as branches of the same 
 art ; an art which excludes history, ethics, and every exertion of 
 language that can neither invent nor embellish. 
 
 Painting and Sculpture, though they work with different tools 
 and upon different materials, have ultimately the same object, and 
 the same faculty of speaking, by the imitation of forms, both to the 
 memory and the imagination, to the judgment and the affections. 
 Their limits are more distinct than those of Poetry and Oratory, 
 yet not absolute ; for relievo goes far into the system of Painting, 
 and both are often blended in the same object of imitation. 
 
 But has Architecture the same powers, or the same end ? Archi- 
 tecture may serve as a base to Sculpture and Painting ; but can it, 
 like them, create a fiction or tell a story ? can it imitate like them ? 
 is it an imitative Art at all ? if it be, what are its prototypes but a 
 cottage or a cavern ? Architecture may aftect the soul with admiration 
 and even witli awe. A temple or a palace may strike us as sublime ; 
 but so does a ship of war under sail ; yet is ship-carpentry therefore 
 classed among the fine arts ? 
 
 The Histrionic Art, though not so elemental as the other two, 
 differs from both, and yet combines tliem. From Poetry it borrows 
 words ; from tlie arts of design, decoration. Its own vehicle is motion 
 and speecli. Motion connects it with dancing (in the latitude which 
 
SOO ROME. 
 
 of increase or alteration than these, and rather 
 the subject of rules than of fancy. Of her three 
 cardinal virtues, stability is the object of science 
 alone; conveniency, of good sense; and beauty, 
 of taste: but taste is perhaps as nearly allied to 
 reason as to sentiment, though it has no common 
 measure with either. 
 
 I do not, indeed, admire the philosophy which 
 has lately broken into architecture, nor the con- 
 tempt which some affect for Vitruvius. I would 
 not subvert the authority of example ; nor be too 
 severe on the ancient superstitions of the art. 
 Their very antiquity, if it does not satisfy our 
 reason, has a charm over the fancy ; and they fill 
 up a space, which our reverence for what is old 
 
 Lucian gives to this art;) speech, with music. But dancing and 
 music appear only as accessories to the histrionic art, and derive all 
 their dignity from that connexion. 
 
 Music, divested of poetry, is but a sensual art, and, as such, it 
 should be classed with cookery and perfumery. Its direct object 
 is to please one sense alone. It can excite sensations, but not ideas- 
 it may effect the soul and elevate the spirits; but can it create or 
 combine facts? can it convey one intelligible notion to the mind? 
 can it imitate any thing in nature but sounds? can even its imitation 
 of sounds be perfect, without breaking its own rules and ceasing to 
 be music ? 
 
 I beg pardon for this digression. 
 
MODERN ARCHITECTURE. 201 
 
 would make it difficult foi* a reformer to fill up 
 more pleasingly. A second order of columns on a 
 lofty edifice, a pilaster on the face of an arcade, 
 an entablature under a vault, a pediment over an 
 altar, all these, rigorously considered, may be 
 thought superfluous or even improper; but though 
 we may still blame their abuse, who shall now 
 dare to proscribe what is found here in the work 
 of every age and of every architect ? 
 
 In Rome, however, the darling fault of architec- 
 ture is excess of ornament; an excess more licen- 
 tious in the sacred buildings than in the profane, 
 and in sacred buildings most licentious in the most 
 sacred part. Every where you see ornament 
 making great edifices look little, by subdividing 
 their general surfaces into such a multitude of 
 members as prevents the eye from re-combining 
 them. Sometimes, indeed, those decollations may 
 favour neighbouring defects ; as the jewels of an 
 ugly dowager kindly divert us from her face.* 
 
 * The love of finery, however, is often the property of thesloven. 
 Those very artists, who labour their mouldings with pedantic preci- 
 sion, leave the holes of their scaffolding in the walls. This practice 
 may plead the example of ancient brick ruins. On the Palatine and 
 at the Baths are rows of such holes wherever the walls are lofty; but 
 traces of a scaffold suggest only the idea of an unfinished work, or 
 the expectation of repairs. 
 
202 ROME. 
 
 The churches are admirable only in detail. Their 
 materials are rich, the workmanship exquisite, the 
 orders all Greek. Every entablature is adjusted 
 to the axis of each column with a mathematical 
 scrupulosity which is lost to the eye. One vision- 
 ary line runs upward bisecting superstitiously 
 every shaft, triglyph, ove, bead, dentil, mutule, 
 modillion, lion's head that lies in its way. — But 
 how are those orders employed ? In false fronts 
 which, rising into two stages of columns, promise 
 two stories within — in pediments under pediments, 
 and in segments of pediments — in cornices for ever 
 broken by projections projecting from projections 
 — in columns, and pilasters, and fractions of pilas- 
 ters grouped round one pillar. Thus Grecian 
 beauties are clustered by Goths : thus capitals and 
 bases are coupled, or crushed, or confounded in 
 each other ; and shafts rise from the same level to 
 different heights, some to the architrave, and some 
 only to the impost. Ornaments for ever interrupt 
 or conceal ornaments : accessories are multiplied 
 till they absorb the principal : the universal fault 
 is the too many and the too much. 
 
 Few churches in the city shew more than their 
 fronts externally. Their rude sides are generally 
 screened by contiguous buildings, and their tiled 
 
MODERN ARCHITECTURE. 203 
 
 roof by a false pediment, which, rising to an im- 
 moderate height above the ridge, leads to certain 
 disappointment when you enter. Every front 
 should be true to the interior. In the ancient 
 temple this principle was religiously observed, and 
 the pediment resting on a colonnade, became, as 
 genius willed it, either beautifid or grand ; but so 
 simple a polygon would neither suit nor conceal 
 the vaults and aisles of a Roman church. 
 
 Those aisles, shelving out under the side win- 
 dows, give rise to a series of connected faults. 
 First two orders of columns become necessary in 
 front, and make it " a splendid lie." — Then, the 
 lower order must extend on each side beyond the 
 upper, in order to cover the aisles. To palliate 
 their inequality, the upper order is flanked by two 
 huge, reversed consoles, like inverted ears, pro- 
 ducing a mixt polygon, a vicious outline both 
 straight and curved, more fit for joinery than for 
 reaular architecture. The Romans seem fondest 
 of those fronts, where most columns can be stuck 
 and most angles projected. Some, as St^. Maria 
 in Portico, the Propaganda Fede, &c., are bent 
 out and in, like brackets. Quadrangular fionts. 
 
204 ROME. 
 
 like those of St. Peter's, the Lateran, &c., are 
 fitter for a palace than for a church. How speci- 
 fically truer is the old Gothic front which admits 
 but one large window similar in form to the front 
 itself! 
 
 The belfries are generally composed of stories 
 formed by the ancient orders. But the belfry is 
 an object unknown to the ancients. It is of Go- 
 thic, or rather of Moorish origin. Springing out 
 of that spiry architecture, it tends naturally to the 
 lofty, and therefore should not be crossed by ho- 
 rizontal divisions, but spun upwards in narrow, 
 lengthening members. In fact, the belfry will 
 never harmonize with any work that imitates a 
 temple. 
 
 The cupolas are built entirely of brick, and 
 generally rest on four concave pannels. An Ita- 
 lian cupola is in itself a fine object, and opens to 
 Painting a new region, new principles, and effects 
 unknown to the ancients ; but its drum, being 
 narrower than the church, is adjusted to it by 
 segments of intersecting vaults, which are rather 
 airy than grand. 
 
MODERN ARCHITECTURE. 205 
 
 Some churches, as those twins in the Piazza del 
 Popolo, those at Trajan's column, &c., seem con- 
 structed for their cupolas alone. Their fronts will 
 admit but one order of columns, and so essential 
 is simplicity to their plan, that they are beautiful 
 inversely as they are rich. To the cupola-form 
 we may refer also the Corsini, Borghese, and 
 Perretti chapels, which some admire even for the 
 architecture ; but more, I suspect, for the sculp- 
 ture and precious materials of their tombs and 
 altars. 
 
 The Palaces are built rather for the spectator 
 than for the tenant. Hence the elevation is more 
 studied than the plan. Some are mere fronts 
 " facciate (said a friend of mine) con mobilia e 
 quadri dietro." Their fronts, too, are so crowded 
 with stories, that the mansion of a prince often 
 suggests the idea of a lodging-house. The lower 
 range of windows is grated like a gaol : the upper 
 are divided by wretched mezzanines. Where 
 different orders are piled in front, which is fortu- 
 nately rare, their natural succession is seldom ob- 
 served ; it may be seen even reversed. The gate- 
 way, with the balcony and its superstructure, 
 generally forms an architectural picture at discord 
 
206 ROME, 
 
 with the style of the palace, and breaks its front 
 into unconnected parts. This is conspicuous at 
 Monte Cavallo, Monte Citorio, &;c. In private 
 palaces, it forms the grand scene of family pride 
 which makes strange havoc on the pediments. 
 Sometimes the armorial bearings break even into 
 the capitals of columns ; as the eagle at the Gius- 
 tiniani-^a[diCe, the flower-de-luce at the Panfili. 
 This last edifice, though the finest of the four 
 which belong to Prince Doria, has been erected 
 in contradiction to the first elements of the art : 
 its corners are pared round, and the corners of 
 the windows, to sympathize in absurdity, are filled 
 up with mouldings which break the rectangle, and 
 remind us of swallows' nests. 
 
 Wherever the palace forms a court, the porticos 
 below are composed of arches resting on single 
 columns. This jumble of arcade and colonnade, 
 of two architectures different even in origin, was 
 unknown to the ancients, and crept first into the 
 basilical churches from economy in building, and 
 from a command of ancient columns. Its light- 
 ness will not compensate a certain look of instabi- 
 lity, which arises from truncated arches and in- 
 terrupted forms. Coupled columns, like those of 
 
MODERN ARCHITECTURE. 207 
 
 the Borghese palace, rather extenuate than remove 
 the defect : they lose just half their own beauty, 
 and in widening the vacuum of an arch, they 
 only tend to destroy the equilibrium of the mass 
 supported. 
 
 You enter the palace in search of the Vitruvian 
 decorum. A staircase of unexpected grandeur, 
 usurping perhaps more than its proportion of the 
 interior, tends both to expand and to ventilate the 
 mansion. Its grandeur does not consist in those 
 quaint, difficult, incommodious curves which only 
 shew the wit of our stone-cutting architects, and 
 frighten people with the appearance of unsup- 
 ported weight. Here you always ascend by a few 
 flights, straight, easy, and wide, but sometimes 
 tremendously long, which lead to the Sala. 
 
 This Sala is the common hall of the palace, and 
 if the prince has the right of canopy, here stands 
 the throne fenced with a rail. Its ceiling opens 
 a wide field for fresco, and, being loftier than all 
 the apartments on the same floor, it leaves in the 
 intermediate height a range of low rooms, which 
 give rise to vicious mezzanines. 
 
208 ROME. 
 
 From this ^^reat ball, when it occunies the 
 middle of the first floor, you command the palace 
 in different directions, and can pierce it at a 
 glance through lengthening files of marble door- 
 posts. In the distribution of the houses the grand 
 object is the picturesque. Nothing is done for 
 the comfortable, a term unknown to the Italian 
 language, and a state unfelt in a hot country. 
 Even in England, where it is most studied and 
 best understood, the comfortable is rather a win- 
 ter-idea and a winter-feeling. 
 
 The ViUas are to this day the " ocelli Italiae." 
 Their casinos generally stand to advantage in the 
 park. Light, gay, airy, fanciful, they seem to 
 court that load of ornament to which all architec- 
 ture must here submit. Some of their fronts are 
 coated with ancient relievos, and their porticos 
 composed of ancient columns. The Belvedere 
 above is often a blot in the symmetry, an excres- 
 cence too conspicuous; a hut stuck upon a house- 
 top, and seldom in the middle. 
 
 In the ancient villas, the buildings were low, 
 lax, diffused over the park, and detached. In the 
 
MODERN ARCHITECTURE. 209 
 
 modern, they are more compact, more commo- 
 dious, and rise into several stories. In both, the 
 gardens betray the same taste for the unnatural ; 
 the same symmetry of plan, architectural groves, 
 devices cut in box, and tricks performed by the 
 hydraulic organa. Could the ancient Topiarii 
 transform wood or water into more fantastic shapes, 
 than we find in the ViUa Paiifili! — walls of laurel, 
 porticos of ilex, green scutcheons, and dipt coro- 
 nets vegetating over half an acre, theatres of jets 
 d'eau, geometrical terraces, built rocks, and mea- 
 sured cascades ! 
 
 The Fountains of Rome display a great variety 
 of composition, without borrowing, so incessantly 
 as ours do, the furniture of ancient fountains. 
 Some of them are beautiful ; one or two are grand. 
 On an object so simple as the emission of water, 
 the danger of doing wrong will be ever in propor- 
 tion to the quantity of embellishment used. On 
 this principle the magnificent vases before St. 
 Peter's, and the Farnese palace, are much safer 
 from criticism than Bernini's creation in the 
 Piazza Navona, which affects puzzling conceits, 
 and looks like a fable of Esop done into stone. 
 The sculpture of Trevi is another pompous con- 
 
 VOL. I. p 
 
210 ROME. 
 
 fusion of fable and fact, gods and ediles, aque- 
 ducts and sea-monsters : but the rock-work is 
 grand, proportioned to the stream of water, and a 
 fit basement for such architecture as a castel cVac- 
 qua required, not for the frittered Corinthian 
 which we find there. The design of Termini, 
 (Moses striking water from the rock,) if better 
 executed, would be more appropriate to this seat 
 of religion, more simple and sublime than any. 
 The basalt lions spouting water there bear some 
 relation to Moses as an Egyptian ; but those 
 lions were made in Egypt for a nobler character, 
 as symbols of the Sun in the sign Leo bringing on 
 the inundation of the Nile ; on modern fountains 
 a spouting lion has neither meaning nor beauty. 
 The Acqua Paola derives all its effect from the 
 volumes of water ; for its elevation is poor, and 
 absurdly imitates the gable of a church. Had 
 the divided streams been collected into one sheet, 
 and committed with the glorious site to the genius 
 of M. Angelo, what a number of faults would there 
 be for the critics ! but how sublime the result ! 
 
 The Gates of Rome, as they announce a seat 
 of art, not a fortress, might adopt the style of its 
 triumphal arches. M. Angelo's part of the Porta 
 
MODERN ARCHITECTURE. 211 
 
 del Popolo, owes its principal defect to the four 
 ancient columns which were assigned for its deco- 
 ration. These, being too small for the elevation 
 sought, obliged him to raise the other members 
 of the order beyond their due proportions ; and 
 even then he failed of the expected grandeur. 
 But this will ever happen, where the design, in- 
 stead of commanding, is made subject to the mate- 
 rials ; as the same great artist experienced in his 
 colossal David. On the Porta Pia he has heaped 
 lintels and entablatures sufficient for three gates, 
 and mixed the polygon, the parallelogram, the 
 circle, the triangle with masks and festoons in the 
 most capricious confusion. In his villa-gates he 
 seems too fond of interweaving rustics with the 
 most elegant orders of architecture. The columns 
 stand there like the old Termini, shewing only 
 their heads and feet, their capitals and bases ; 
 while the body lies buried in hatched, chipped or 
 vermiculated blocks, which sometimes re-appear 
 in the entablature, or shoot up into the pediment. 
 
 The public Stairs at Trinita de' Monti, the 
 Ripetta, the Capitol, St. Peter's, &c., have a cer- 
 tain air of grandeur, and a compact solidity un- 
 known in our climates, where the splitting frosts 
 p 2 
 
2\2 ROME. 
 
 and penetrating thaws soon impair such construc- 
 tions. Some stairs, intended for carriages, pre- 
 sent an incUned plane paved with upright bricks, 
 and crossed by narrow bands of marble which indi- 
 cate steps. Bramante's spiral staircase at the Bel- 
 vedere,"* and two of its imitations at the Barberini 
 and Cavalieri palaces, are made for horses as well 
 as men. The ancients have left nothing admira- 
 ble in this kind. At the temples their stairs are 
 incommodiously steep: at Caracalla's baths they 
 are wretchedly narrow; at the Coliseum we can 
 praise only their multiplicity. Stairs form no 
 article in Vitruvius, and could not be very im- 
 portant in ancient palaces, where the master's 
 apartments occupied the ground -floor. 
 
 These remarks will appear, I hope, fairly drawn 
 from the general architecture of Rome. In blam- 
 ing the puerile, poetical taste of the seicento 
 builders, I do not advert to single extravagancies, 
 nor the wild conceits of Borromini alone. Bor- 
 romini being mad, I am surprized at nothing that 
 he has done. I am surprized only that, after 
 
 * Perhaps Ariosto alludes to this work of his contemporary: 
 
 ove SI poggia 
 
 Si facil che un somier vi puo gir carco. 
 
MODERN ARCHITECTURE. 213 
 
 having built one cliurcli, he was ever employed 
 on a second ; yet the man went on, murdering the 
 most sumptuous edifices in Rome, until at last he 
 murdered himself. 
 
 CHURCHES. 
 
 Cura tibi Divuni effigies et terapla tueri. Virg. 
 
 The principal churches of Rome, however diffe- 
 rent their style of building and ornament may be, 
 are distributed in the same manner. Their aisles 
 are generally formed by arcades : over these are 
 sometimes grated recesses, but never open galle- 
 ries. The choir terminates in a cvu've, which is 
 the grand field of decoration, blazing with leaf- 
 gold and glories. In tlie middle of the cross 
 stands the high altar. The chapels of the Holy 
 Sacrament and of the Virgin are usually in the 
 transepts. Those of the Saints are ranged on the 
 sides ; and each, being raised by a different family, 
 
214 ROME. 
 
 has an architecture of its own at variance with the 
 church, which thus loses its unity amid nests of 
 polytheism. 
 
 Saint Peter's. How beautiful the colonnades ! 
 how finely proportioned to the church 1 how ad- 
 vantageous to its flat, forbidding front, which 
 ought to have come forward, like the Pantheon, 
 to meet the decoration ! How grand an enclosure 
 for the piazza ! how fortunate a screen to the 
 ignoble objects around it! But, advance or retire, 
 you will find no point of view that combines these 
 accessories with the general form of the church. 
 Instead of describing its whole cycloid on the 
 vacant air, the cupola is more than half hidden by 
 the front ; a front at variance with the body, con- 
 founding two orders in one, debased by a gaping 
 attic, and encumbered with colossal apostles. 
 
 One immense Corinthian goes round the whole 
 edifice in pilasters, which meeting a thousand 
 little breaks and projections, are coupled and 
 clustered on the way, parted by windows and 
 niches, and overtopt by a meagre attic. Yet the 
 general mass grows magnificently out, in spite of 
 
CHURCHES. 215 
 
 the hideous vestry which interrupts it on one side, 
 and the palace which denies it a point of view on 
 the other. 
 
 The right portico leads to the Scala Regia, an 
 object too much exaggerated by prints, and, like 
 its model at the Spada-palace, too evidently 
 formed for a picture. An inclined plane is not 
 the natural seat of a colonnade :* but what could 
 be natural that was borrowed from Borromini ? 
 Turning round, you enfilade the lofty vestibule, 
 vaulted with gilt stuccos, paved with various 
 marbles, lengthening on the eye by a grand suc- 
 cession of doors, and niches, and statues, and 
 fountains, till it ends in the perspective statue of 
 Charlemagne. This is one architectural picture 
 which no engraving can flatter. 
 
 On first entering the church, I was prepared 
 for that disappointment which strangers generally 
 feel; and which some regard as a merit, others as 
 a defect. Our St. Paul's, they will tell you, ap- 
 
 * Mnesicles, when obliged to build the Propyleon on an inclined 
 plane, avoided this fault. Instead of sloping, he levelled the stylobata, 
 and led to them by separate flights of stairs. Yet how superior, even 
 as a picture, is the lower aspect of the Athenian ruin to this studied 
 perspective of Bernini's at the Vatican ! 
 
216 ROiME. 
 
 pears fully as great. But greatness is ever relative. 
 St. Paul's is great, because every thing around 
 it is little. At Rome the eye is accustomed to 
 nobler dimensions, and measures St. Peter's by a 
 larger scale. Perhaps we may estimate the appa- 
 rent diminution of the whole pile from Algardi's 
 relievo, where the front figures are fifteen feet 
 long, yet appear only of the natural size. How 
 fortunate that a structure, created by so many 
 pontiffs, and subject to so many plans, should keep 
 its proportions inviolate even in the meanest orna- 
 ment! M. Angelo left it an unfinished monu- 
 ment of his proud, towering, gigantic powers, and 
 his awful genius watched over his successors, till 
 at last a wretched plasterer came down from Como 
 to break the sacred unity of the master-idea, and 
 him we must execrate for the Latin cross, the 
 aisles, the attic, and the front. 
 
 The nave is infinitely grand, and sublime with- 
 out the aid of obscurity; but the eye, having only 
 four pillars to rest on, riuis along it too rapidly to 
 comprehend its full extent. Its elevation and 
 width forbid all comparison with the side aisles, 
 which hardly deserve the common name of " na- 
 vate," and seem but passages leading along the 
 chapels. 
 
CHURCHES. 2!17 
 
 The cupola is glorious. Viewed in its design, 
 its altitude, or even its decoration; viewed either 
 as a whole or as a part, it enchants the eye, it 
 satisfies the taste, it expands the soul. The very 
 air seems to eat up all that is harsh or colossal, 
 and leaves us nothing but the sublime to feast on : 
 — a sublime peculiar as the genius of the immortal 
 architect, and comprehensible only on the spot. 
 The four surrounding cupolas, though but satel- 
 lites to the majesty of this, might have crowned 
 four elegant churches. The elliptical cupolettas 
 are mere expedients to jialliate the defect of Ma- 
 derno's aisles, which depend on them for a scanty 
 light. 
 
 Perhaps the picturesque has been too much 
 studied in the interior. The bronze canopy and 
 wreathed columns of the high altar, though admi- 
 rably proportioned, and rich beyond description, 
 form but a stately toy which embarrasses the 
 cross. The proud chair of St. Peter supported 
 by the fingers of four scribbling doctors is, in 
 every sense, a trick. The statues recumbent on 
 the great arches are beauties which break into 
 the architrave of the nave. The very pillars are 
 too fine. Their gaudy and contrasted marbles 
 
218 ROME. 
 
 resemble the pretty assortments of a cabinet, and 
 are beneath the dignity of a fabric Uke this, where 
 the stupendous dimensions accord only with sim- 
 plicity, and seem to prohibit the beautiful. Vaults 
 and cupolas so ponderous as these could be trusted 
 only to massive pillars. Hence flat surfaces which 
 demand decoration. Hence idle pilasters and 
 columns, which never give beauty unless they give 
 also support: yet remove every column, every 
 pilaster that you find within this church, and 
 nothing essential to its design will fall. 
 
 The middle vault is composed of gilt stuccos 
 on a white ground, arranged in unequal bands, to 
 comply with the windows of the vault. Those 
 stuccos consist in large, oblong coffers, including 
 each some flowered ornament, rich, noble, various, 
 not heavy, but too prominent, I apprehend, to be 
 durable ; for the roses are generally fallen in ruins 
 from the deeper lacunaria, and remain only where 
 the relief was low. Indeed the chief of those 
 stuccos has already fallen a victim to the vanity 
 of an old priest. The late Pope, whose arms are 
 carved, painted, inlaid, cast, or hammered, all over 
 St. Peter's, had long beheld with envy the middle 
 orb of the vault adorned with the dragon and 
 
CHURCHES. 219 
 
 eagle of Borghese ; but, dreading the imitation of 
 his own example, he durst not supplant it openly. 
 It therefore fell down in the dark, (by accident, to 
 be sure,) and was presently replaced by the armo- 
 rial puff of Braschi. 
 
 The statues and relievos, being all subservient 
 to the architecture, and proportioned to different 
 elevations, are differently colossal; but in the 
 colossal size it is difficult to excel, particularly 
 where the subject is young or delicate. For three 
 centuries have the greatest sculptors of Europe 
 been contending here with that module, and, 
 obliged to toil for the general perspective, have 
 produced only architectural Saints and Apostles. 
 
 The papal tombs are richer than any line of 
 kings can boast. Each kneeling, dressed in the 
 pontifical habit; but this habit is frittered into 
 too many pieces, is too jagged, and plaited, and 
 cut, to become an old man in the grave and solemn 
 act of benediction ; an act but poorly denoted by 
 the divergent fingers. The last tomb is the best ; 
 and surely, the Genius sighing celestially at the 
 foot of Rezzonico is the most beautiful statue in 
 the church. Even the lions of that tomb, (for a 
 
220 ROME. 
 
 dead Pope must always have a couple of lions or 
 of young women at his feet,) Canova's lions, are 
 unrivalled in marble. 
 
 St. Peter's no where unfolds its dimensions so 
 strikingly as on the roof, where cupolas form 
 streets, which are elsewhere lost to every eye but 
 the bird's, and the dome appears in itself one im- 
 mense temple, encircled with magnificent columns. 
 But here again comes the question ; what do these 
 columns apparently support? They mask, you 
 will say, the buttresses of the dome, and form a 
 part of those buttresses. If they do mask them, 
 they also conceal their own utility ; and, as part 
 of those buttresses, they have failed in their office, 
 for the cupola is rent. 
 
 No architecture ever surpassed, in effect, the 
 interior of this pile when illuminated at Easter by 
 a single cross of lamps. The immediate focus of 
 glory — all the gradations of light and darkness — 
 the fine or the fantastic accidents of this chiaro- 
 scuro — the projection of fixed or moving shadows 
 — the sombre of the deep perspectives — the mul- 
 titude kneeling round the Pope, the groups in the 
 distant aisles — what a world of pictures for men 
 
CHURCHES. 221 
 
 of art to copy or combine ! What fancy was 
 ever so dull, or so disciplined, or so worn as to 
 resist the enthusiasm of such a scene ! I freely 
 abandoned mine to its illusions, and ranging 
 among the tombs I sometimes mistook remote 
 statues for the living. The St. Andrew, being 
 near the luminous cross, developed all that awful 
 sublime which is obscured in the day. Above 
 the Veronica they unfolded her real handkerchief 
 impressed, said the priest on the balcony, with 
 the original features of Christ ; but the abdicated 
 king of Sardinia, who was then kneeling below, 
 seemed to think his own sudarium the genuine 
 relic of the two. 
 
 Jesus and St. Ignatius. All churches, even the 
 patriarchal class, stand at an aweful distance from 
 the majesty of St. Peter's : but if churches, like 
 men, are to take rank from their riches, these two 
 Jesuits come next. Jesus was infinitely too rich 
 to escape the late revolution. Its silver Loyola 
 went then a martyr to the furnace, and all his 
 jewels vanished ; but his altar remains the most 
 gorgeous in Rome. Its globe and columns of 
 lapislazzoli, its crystal and gilt bronze, its piles of 
 pedestals and crowds of sculpture, are left to 
 
222 ROME. 
 
 amaze the multitude. What was ever so magni- 
 ficently frightful as the burnished rail and lamps 
 which surround this most elaborate altar! 
 
 At St. Ignatius is a more temperate work of 
 Le Gros, the apotheosis of St. Lewis Gon%aga. 
 This large relievo is much admired for the group- 
 ing and the glory, for the incidence of light, the 
 suspension of clouds, the flow of drapery, the in- 
 treccio of angels and the evanescence of cherubs. 
 All this may be very heavenly, for I know nothing 
 like it on earth ; but what pleased me most was 
 the young Prince himself springing out of this 
 confusion in all the beauty of holiness. 
 
 Both these churches are horrible with the 
 works of faith. Here you see a mob of poor alle- 
 gorical wretches hurled down to hell by the light- 
 ning which issues from three letters of the alpha- 
 bet: there two ugly, enigmatical devils, which 
 pass with the vulgar for Luther and his wife, 
 blasted by a fine young woman, named Religion : 
 on this side, David with one bloody head: on 
 that, Judith with another : here the massacre of 
 the Philistines : there the murder of Sisera ; and 
 every where, death or damnation. 
 
CHURCHES. 
 
 S. Martino ai Monti. This church, once re- 
 vered for its antiquity, aims now at the elegant. 
 Its aisles are formed by ancient columns which 
 have been scoured and gilt, till they ceased to be 
 venerable. Their frieze is covered with instru- 
 ments of martyrdom, some of which are grotesque 
 enough ; yet still are they intelligible, significant, 
 appropriate to this scene of ancient persecution, 
 and more at home than the ornaments which 
 modern artists borrow from Roman temples. Fes- 
 toons, bull's s>cu\[s, paterce, fasces, lyres, &c. really 
 existed in ancient usage, and therefore belonged, 
 by right and fact, to ancient architecture ; but in 
 ours they are foreign, ideal, false, and shew but 
 the poverty of modern life which can furnish art 
 with nothing poetic or picturesque. The choir 
 is scenical in its form, and raised to the usual 
 height of a stage. Under this erection you enter 
 a sunken church, dusky and solemn ; whence you 
 descend to another still more dark and more 
 sacred, which communicates by subterranean pas- 
 sages with the baths of Trajan, or rather Trajan's 
 continuation of Titus's baths. 
 
 S. Pietro in rincoU. Here sits the Moses of 
 M. Angelo, frowning with the terrific eyebrows 
 
224f ROME. 
 
 of Olympian Jove. Homer and Phidias, indeed, 
 placed their God on a golden throne : but Moses 
 is cribbed into a niche, like a Prebendary in his 
 stall. Much wit has been levelled of late at his 
 flowing beard, and his flaming horns. One critic 
 compares his head to a goat's, another, his dress 
 to a galley-slave's ; but the true sublime resists all 
 ridicule : the offended Lawgiver frowns on unde- 
 pressed, and awes you with inherent authority. 
 
 S. Pietro in Montorio. St. Peter died in the 
 cloister of this convent, and, on the spot where 
 his cross was fixed, Bramante has erected a round, 
 little, dappled, Doric church, which is much ad- 
 mired as a model of the ancient temple. As a 
 model, indeed, it is beautiful enough, a beautiful 
 epitome : but in architecture, design and propor- 
 tion are not sufficient ; dimension is another ele- 
 ment of beauty. In its present dimensions the 
 Pantheon is sublime: but reduce it to the tiny 
 span of this templet on Montorio, and it would 
 degenerate into the pretty. 
 
 Carthusian cJiiirch. This is but a consecrated 
 hall ; for altars and crucifixes have not been able 
 to efface the original character of the Pitiacotheca. 
 
CHURCHES. 225 
 
 To tliis a circular ephedra or balneum serves as 
 vestibule, an accessory very rare in Rome, though, 
 perhaps, more necessary to worship, and to the 
 sanctity of churches, than the chapels which 
 usually besiege them. Here are no aisles to 
 diminish, or darken, or embarrass. M. Angelo, 
 in reforming the rude magnificence of Diocletian, 
 has preserved the simplicity and the proportions 
 of the original, has given a monumental impor- 
 tance to each of its great columns, restored their 
 capitals, and made one noble entablature pervade 
 the whole cross. 
 
 S. Bibiana. The Saint of this little church is 
 perhaps the nearest approach Bernini ever made 
 to the serene pathos of the antique. Nothing 
 equivocal here, like the ecstasy of his Theresa. 
 This beautiful martyr breathes chastely the celes- 
 tial hope of death. Her cinctured mantle is rather 
 a license in costume ; yet this falls in fine parallel 
 folds, free from the flutter and the eyes which 
 generally abound in Bernims drapery. At the 
 high altar is an alabaster sarcophagus filled with 
 the bones of murdered saints, and in the wall a 
 drowning-stone of rosso tV Egitto : so that mar- 
 tyrdom itself had its finery. 
 
 VOL. I. Q 
 
226 ROME. 
 
 Capuchine church. These mendicants found 
 means to preserve their St. Michael from the late 
 visitation. This figure of Guidos is the Cathohc 
 Apollo. Like the Belvedere God, the Archangel 
 breathes that dignified vengeance which animates 
 without distorting ; while the very devil derives 
 importance from his august adversary, and escapes 
 the laugh which his figure usually provokes. 
 Caravaggio, in treating the same subject, has 
 thrown a few streaks of brassy light on his fiend, 
 and plunged the monster part of him into his own 
 darkness ; thus eluding the ridicule which he 
 could not conquer. 
 
 Under this church is a charnel-house divided, 
 like some of the ancient hypogcea, into recesses. 
 Each recess is faced with marrow-bones and 
 shoulder-blades of disinterred Capuchines, and 
 adorned with lamps, festoons, rosoni, crosses, &:c. 
 formed of the same reverend materials. A few 
 skeletons are drest in their tunics, and set in 
 various attitudes, each in a niche built up with 
 " reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls." 
 
 S. Maria in Araceli puts your faith to some 
 trials. You must believe that the temple of Fere- 
 
CHURCHES. 227 
 
 trian Jove stood on the very foundations of this 
 church, because Dionysius happens to place it on 
 a summit of the CapitoL You must beheve that 
 the cohmins of the aisles supported the last tem- 
 ple of Jupiter Capitolinus, in other words, that 
 granite was Pentelic marble. You must believe 
 that the altar, which gave name to the convent, 
 was raised by the Christian piety of Augustus. — 
 You must believe that a waxen figure of the 
 infant Jesus, which a friar of the convent farms, 
 and lets out to the sick, was dropped in the porch 
 at midnight by an Angel who rang the bell, and 
 flew back to heaven. 
 
 In such a multitude of churches I specify these 
 rather by chance than for their own pre-eminence ; 
 and even in these few I omit a thousand singula- 
 rities, a thousand fine pictures and statues, from 
 mere satiety. As for the mob of churches, and 
 their decorations, ceremonies, relics, miracles, 
 
 Non ragionam' di lor, ma guarda e passa. 
 
 q2 
 
228 ROME. 
 
 PALACES. 
 
 Omnibus hsc ad visenduru patebant quotidie ; doniiis erant non 
 domino magis ornamento quam civitati. Cic. 
 
 Such is the general vacancy of Rome that the 
 palaces, with all their appurtenances, cover more 
 ground than the private habitations. As the mul- 
 titude of those palaces forbids all detail, I shall 
 only select two or three as a specimen. Those of 
 the Princes display in front a row of painted 
 hatchments, one of which displays the shield of 
 Rome and the solemn formula of S. P. Q. R. 
 inscribed on it, and surmounted by a coronet! 
 others bear the arms of those foreign sovereigns 
 who protect the palace ; thus insulting the Roman 
 government as an impotent presbytery 
 
 Of Priests, and cowards, and men cautelous, 
 Old feeble carrions, and such suffering souls 
 As welcome wrongs. 
 
 The CoLONNA Palace has other decorations 
 allusive to its name — a long Doric colonnade 
 fronting the court, and the armorial column placed 
 
PALACES. 229 
 
 over the gates. Within, too, is a Httle old, gothic, 
 twisted cohimn which, they absurdly pretended, 
 was the coliimna Bellica of the Roman Republic. 
 
 This palace lately contained pictures which 
 used to excite a great deal of rapture, real or pre- 
 tended : but the finest, it seems, have been sold. 
 I saw two beautiful Claudes, and several round- 
 faced, mild, unimpassioned beauties in the form 
 of Madonnas. Those of Guido have a faint 
 tinge of melancholy diffused over their large 
 eyes and little mouths. What a world of still-life 
 do we find both in modern and in ancient art ! 
 The Madonna, like the Venus, seems multiplied 
 only as a subject of animal beauty. Deprived of 
 the interest which high passion or story gives to 
 other compositions, such figures can please only 
 by the perfection of forms. Hence they provoke 
 the'cold severity of criticism, and correct beauty 
 must compensate the want of pathos. 
 
 The saloon called the GaUeria is itself too bril- 
 liant a picture for the pictures which it contains. 
 A gallery should not draw off the attention from 
 its contents by striking architecture or glittering 
 surfaces. This, however, is supported by polished 
 
230 ROME. 
 
 columns of the richest giallo ant'ico. Its storied 
 ceiling displays the battle of Lepanto, which raised 
 a Colonna to the honour of a Roman triumph. 
 Its pavement is Parian marble laid in the form of 
 tombstones. 
 
 This pavement was sawn out of an ancient 
 pediment, of which there are still two stupendous 
 blocks lying in the palace-garden, without any 
 specific mark that could ascertain their edifice. 
 Antiquaries, who have seldom the courage to rest 
 ignorant, fly in such cases to Victor and Rufus, 
 where they are sure to find some name which they 
 can at least dispute on. As these blocks lie on 
 the Quirinal, one calls them part of the Alcssa, 
 another of Heliogabalus's female senate-house. 
 Others assign them to the temple of Health, to 
 that of Mithra, to the tower of Maecenas, to the 
 vestibule of Nero's house. Being found near 
 Constantine's baths, and too beautiful for the 
 sculpture of his age, they had been probably re- 
 moved, like the materials of his arch, from some 
 noble edifice ; and the grandeur of their style 
 would not disgrace the temple of Peace itself. 
 Palladio, who kindled at every thing great in an- 
 tiquity, has reared for those blocks an imaginary 
 
PALACES. 231 
 
 temple for Jupiter ; and, looking round for some- 
 thing to embellish his creation, the nearest object 
 he could find were the two equestrian groups of 
 Monte Cavallo, which he sets on the acroteria of 
 the enormous pediment, and supports the whole 
 front by twelve Ionic columns ! This at best is 
 but a romance built on fact. 
 
 The princely house of Colonna has produced 
 more illustrious men, and can boast nobler descent 
 than any in Rome. Petrarch calls it the glorious 
 Column on which Italy reposed her hope. The 
 present constable is too exquisitely benevolent to 
 shine, like his ancestors, in the cabinet or the 
 field, and is often obliged to retreat from excess 
 of sensibility. As for the other princes of Rome, 
 most of them date from upstart Popes. Two, 
 indeed, pretend to a higher origin, which they 
 trace from the ancient republic. Though we 
 smile at such pretensions, yet we fondly catch at 
 the very shadow of a descendant from Fabius or 
 Publicola. 
 
 The GiusTiNiANi Palace is built on the ruins 
 of Nero's baths, and contains an astonishing num- 
 ber of statues, which were found there mutilated. 
 
232 ROME. 
 
 but are now all entire. The Minerva Medica 
 came from another bath, or rather exhedra, which 
 is therefore named the temple of that Goddess. 
 But is the goddess herself rightly named ? is the 
 serpent sufficient authority for the epithet which 
 she bears ? is not the serpent a common attribute 
 of Minerva on coins ? was it not necessary to the 
 Minerva Polias, and annexed to her statue in the 
 Parthenon ? — On another Minerva the cegis forms 
 a tippet elegantly swelling over the breast, and a 
 single serpent is twisted as a tier to the Gorgon, 
 which usually serves as a clasp on the goat-skin : 
 on a third, there is no cegis at all, but a chain of 
 serpents curling into knots round the breast, like 
 a collar of the garter. 
 
 The celebrated vestal, being very ancient and 
 very stiff, passes for Etruscan. I found La Ber- 
 tinotti here consulting the drapery of the statue, 
 which appeared to me too massive, too perpendi- 
 cularly straight, too poor in effect for the vestal 
 of an opera. But is the figure really a vestal ? 
 Here is a common veil thrown over the shoulders 
 and a spiral lock of hair falling on each side the 
 neck ; but where is the wreathed mitra, found on 
 the medaUions ? where are the tceniolce and lici(B 
 
PALACES. 233 
 
 attributed by the poets ? The vestal Bellicia has 
 her head wrapt in a close night-cap bound with 
 a broad infula ; but no hair. 
 
 Here are at least a dozen statues of Venus, 
 nearly as many of Apollo, with Dianas, and Bac- 
 chuses, and Herculeses in proportion. The pro- 
 prietor, I suppose, having a command of antique 
 trunks which could be made up into such figures, 
 formed an assortment of each divinity : but some 
 appeared to me rather improperly restored. Two 
 figures of Isis (such at least the drapery on the 
 breast would indicate) are now converted into a 
 Juno, and a Ceres, by the help of a modern 
 sceptre, and a few ears of corn. 
 
 A number of female busts, probably of Nero's 
 time, shew the extravagant height of ancient hair- 
 dressing. Two tower-crowned Cybeles appear 
 among those anonymous portraits, like ladies of 
 the imperial court dressed in their tutuli* 
 
 * Tot preruit ordinibus, tot adhuc corapagibus altum 
 ^dificat caput. Juv. 
 
 Such head-dresses have led antiquaries to dignify some doubtful 
 busts with the name of an Augusta. 
 
2S4 ROME. 
 
 Caravagg'io wrought some years exclusively for 
 this palace, where he found an asylum fi'om the 
 gallows, and painted in a room which was black- 
 ened to harmonize with his genius and his heart. 
 The ruffian loved the Scriptures, and rarely ex- 
 celled out of them. His frugal pencil gives but 
 few figures, nor much of those few; for his lights 
 fall in red and partial masses without any diffusion. 
 Whatever they fall on, indeed, starts into life; 
 but the rest is lost in abrupt darkness : a transi- 
 tion hardly in nature, or true only in candlelights. 
 Here are his Christ awaking the disciples, Thomas 
 touching the wound, a faun squeezing grapes, 
 and some fine old saints. This gloomy man could 
 paint deep thoughtfulness, strong passion, intense 
 devotion or broad laughter ; but he had no pencil 
 for smiles, or beauty, or placid dignity, or love. 
 
 Here are two figures of St. John writing the 
 Revelation, the one by Raphael, the other by 
 Domenichino. Raphael places the Evangelist 
 among clouds and thunders, in the act of obeying 
 the call " Write ;" Domenichino sets him on a 
 stone, turning in ecstasy from his books and angels, 
 to the Voice which dictates. Both the figures 
 beam with beauty, and grace, and soul, and inspi- 
 
PALACES. 
 
 235 
 
 ration ; but their beauty is that of the young 
 Apollo, and St. John, at Patmos, was near a hun- 
 dred years old.* 
 
 The Massacre of the Innocents, a subject inex- 
 plicably horrible to me, forms here an admirable 
 picture, where the horror is not, as usual, dissi- 
 pated in a multitude of details. Like Aristides in 
 painting the sack of a town, Poussin gives only 
 one child and one mother, but a mother whose 
 shrieks frighten away her friends. Expression is 
 just on the extreme. Agony carried one point 
 farther would fall into the ludicrous. 
 
 Guide's Paul and Anthony is a noble picture, 
 but the glory above, which he refused to paint, 
 was obtruded, it is said, by an inferior pencil. 
 Superstition, being then the chief patron of paint- 
 ing, dictated her own absurdities to the masters 
 whom she paid: and though glories broke into 
 the art during its Gothic period, they still prevail 
 over all its philosophy and improvement. 
 
 * There are some ideal faces established in art which no painter 
 or sculptor can safely depart from. The styles of countenance for a 
 Christ and a St. Peter are as fixed as those of the Jupiter and the 
 Hercules. St. John appears most frequently in the Last Supper, 
 and is therefore known in art, only as a handsome young man. 
 
236 ROME. 
 
 The Christ before Pilate is by Honthorst. 
 Here, left to himself and in himself, the Saviour 
 awakes all those sacred prepossessions which must 
 be felt for arraigned and insulated virtue. Here 
 is no dignity of costume, no glory above him, no 
 ring nor rays round his head, no light but a 
 candle flaring on his benign features. Bring 
 round him those childish heads called cherubim, 
 and all the interest escapes : we regard the whole 
 as a fiction of the pencil. 
 
 The DoRiA Palace (I mean that which the 
 prince inhabits) contains the largest collection of 
 pictures in Rome. Where so many are excellent 
 it would be difficult, I suspect, to settle their de- 
 grees of comparison. Titian's Abraham, Annibal 
 Caracci's dead Christ, Sassoferrato's Holy Family, 
 Guido's Judith, and a few others contended for 
 distinction in the crowd, which might be thrown 
 into classes. 
 
 One of the first rooms is full of Rembrandt's 
 old heads, called here philosophers, which are all 
 marked with that strong character and cast of 
 thought peculiar to this artist. Complete the 
 figures, give each a subject or a scene, and these 
 heads, which have now only the importance of 
 
PALACES. 237 
 
 portrait, would shine in the historical sphere ; but 
 in history Rembrandt knew that he was sometimes 
 ridiculous. 
 
 Bassan is next in multitude. This indefatigable 
 painter had a hand too ready for his head : hence 
 repetitions, monotony, manner : no poetry, no 
 choice. He degrades the sublimest scripture with 
 peasant-forms, makes the history of a picture sub- 
 ordinate to the landscape, the men and angels 
 mere accessories to the brutes, and brings no 
 other merit than truth, or rather naivete, into sub- 
 jects which demand epic elevation. 
 
 Honthorst's surprizing candlelights are dis- 
 persed through the rooms to contrast with the sage 
 and sober colouring of the Italian schools ; but 
 they draw the eye mechanically from better pic- 
 tures, and are dangerous neighbours to all that 
 surround them. 
 
 This gallery is very rich in landscape. One 
 room is completely covered with Gaspar Poussin's 
 works, and now that the Claudes of Prince Altieri 
 are gone, Doria can boast the two best in Italy. 
 I was surprized to find here so many landscapes 
 
238 ROME. 
 
 by Titian, Annibal Caracci, Domenichino, and the 
 gi'eatest historical painters. 
 
 Some of the portraits are celebrated. The 
 Macchiavel is by Andrea del Sarto, the Bartolo 
 and Baldi by Raphael, the Jansenius by Titian, 
 and Joan II. of Naples by Da Vinci. I saw but 
 two family portraits, and those also were great 
 men painted by great artists ; Andrew Doria by 
 Titian, and Innocent X. by Velasquez. An 
 Italian excludes from his gallery all portraits that 
 are not excellent as pictures, or curious from their 
 antiquity: for there the painter is every thing; 
 the person painted nothing. If you wish for col- 
 lections of portraits, you must go to convents 
 and college-halls, where the mitred monk and 
 the titled scholar are the only objects admitted 
 or remarked. 
 
 Here are St. Jeromes alone sufficient to fill a 
 short gallery. This anatomical figure is the 
 favourite subject of Spagnolet, Salvator Rosa, 
 Caravaggio, and that gloomy sect. The Magda- 
 lenes also crowd on your attention. They have all 
 something meretricious in their very penitence, 
 for " loose hair and lifted eye" will hardly excuse 
 
PALACES. 239 
 
 a lascivious display of bosom. But why are those 
 courtezans called Magdalenes ? Mary Magdalene 
 seldom appears in Scripture, and never in that 
 character. 
 
 I saw nothing in the class of comic painting 
 except Albert Durer's Misers and a few Teniers, 
 to which perhaps might be added a repose in 
 Egypt, where the Virgin and Child are lulled 
 asleep by an Angel, who plays the fiddle and 
 leaves poor Joseph to hold the music-book. 
 Scripture, though a wide field, is so exhausted 
 in painting, that an artist, who received orders 
 for a Holy Family, was often driven from the very 
 poverty of the thing, into the low or the imagi- 
 nary. Sometimes he introduced a dog, a cat, a 
 sack of corn, a porringer, a washing-tub; and 
 sometimes preternatural glories. 
 
 Variare cupit rem prodigialiter unam. 
 
240 ROME. 
 
 THE VATICAN. 
 
 Hi, qui hospites ad ca quae visenda sunt ducere solebant — ut ante 
 demonstrabant quid ubique esset, ita nunc quid undique ablatura sit 
 ostendunt. Cic. 
 
 Belvedere. Who, but a Frenchman, can enter 
 the present museum without some regret? I 
 should have thought the very beauty of these 
 galleries and halls a protection to the treasures 
 for which they were erected. Here ancient and 
 modern art seem to contend for pre-eminence — 
 storied pavements assembled from distant ruins, 
 and bordered with the mosaic of the present day 
 — columns, once the ornament of temples, arranged 
 in rotondos which emulate those temples, and 
 lately embellished, like them, with the statues of 
 gods and of deified emperors. 
 
 Thinned as it is, we may still trace through 
 this museum the sculpture of ancient Rome from 
 its dawn to its decline, from the old Doric tomb 
 of Scipio Barbatus in plain Alban stone, to the 
 porphyry sarcophagi of St. Constantia and St. 
 
THE VATICAN. 241 
 
 Helen, where men stand erect under horses' bel- 
 lies. Between these extremes what a rich grada- 
 tion of rising and falling art ! but, alas ! where are 
 the glorious objects which stood on the middle 
 height ! 
 
 A natural horror of mutilation leads men to 
 complete whatever they possess ; and thus the 
 statues of Belvedere have received so much mo- 
 dern work to restore the ancient, that we can 
 hardly distinguish what is original from what is 
 added. Either the old surface is scraped into the 
 whiteness of the new, or the new has received the 
 yellow ivory gloss of the old ; while the cement 
 which unites them is so imperceptibly fine, that 
 Persius' metaphor is here realized — their juncture 
 literally eludes the severest nail. 
 
 How boldly do those restorers make up dis- 
 membered trunks, and affix attributes ! Having 
 found at Prceneste one female body in a stooping 
 posture, they stuck an ancient head with half-shut 
 eyes on the shoulders, set a pail at the feet, and 
 then called the whole a Danaid. Another female 
 being found drest like a General, in a double />«/«- 
 
 VOL. I. R 
 
24<2 ROME. 
 
 (Jamenhim without any (Pgis, the most essential 
 attribute of all, has been transformed into a Mi- 
 nerva Pacifica, by fixing a head unarmed on her 
 shoulders, a bronze helmet in her right hand, and 
 a sprig of olive in her left. Another headless 
 trunk, having the left arm wrapt in a mantle, has 
 been converted into a Perseus by the addition of 
 a winged head and a harpe. Thus we lose the 
 freedom of judging on the original trunk, and the 
 pleasurable torment of conjecture. Whoever 
 would know what really remains here of the 
 ancients must examine on the spot. Engravers 
 have published the chief objects, rather as orna- 
 ments for a cabinet or a port-folio, than as docu- 
 ments for study. Piranesi's fine prints give the 
 statues entire, and, when compared here before 
 them, they even fail in resemblance. Besides, one 
 good engraving is sufficient for any picture ; but 
 the details of a single statue would require fifty, 
 and perhaps the sublime of the original would 
 escape them all. 
 
 What this museum has lost it is now too late to 
 deplore. There still remain some excellent busts 
 and Termini, a fine statue of Nerva sitting, and 
 
THE VATICAN. 243 
 
 another of Tiberius, purchased by the present 
 pope, who has also placed here the Perseus and 
 the Creugas of Canova. 
 
 The statue of Perseus stands fronting the cast 
 of the departed Apollo, and seems to challenge 
 comparison. Alike in sentiment, in occasion, and 
 in point of time, Apollo has just shot the arrow, 
 Perseus has just cut off the beautiful head of Me- 
 dusa.* ■ Perhaps the hero is too delicate and 
 smooth for a mortal warrior ; he has the soft 
 beauty of a Mercury, or an Antinous. Instead of 
 turning in horror from the petrific head, he eyes 
 it with indignant complacency — but it is criminal 
 to object, for marble has seldom* received a form 
 so perfect. 
 
 * This Apollo is usually called the Pythian ; though such divine 
 indignation as his called for a nobler and more moral cause than the 
 death of a filthy reptile. Two great sculptors, however, gave him 
 victims still more contemptible than the serpent. Praxiteles repre- 
 sented Apollo killing a lizard ; and Scopas, crushing a field-mouse. 
 
 On the aegis of Minerva, the Gorgon is generally a flat, round, 
 gaping face ; on the vases, called Etruscan, it has the tusk of a boar ; 
 but Canova's Medusa has classic authority for its soft and feminine 
 beauty. — The Harpe, which Perseus wields, is copied from a damaged 
 picture of Herculaneum. This weapon is not, as represented ia the 
 Monumenti Inediti, a scimitar; for the blade is straight to the point, 
 and distinct from the broad reflex hook which rises on the back. 
 
^44 ROME. 
 
 The Creugas is a fine model of the Athletic. 
 His face bears the fair, frowning defiance of a 
 pugilist. " But then his posture !" said an Eng- 
 lishman to me ; " one hand on his head, and the 
 other at his back ! this is no defence, this is not in 
 our art." — " That may be true, Sir ; but Creugas's 
 agreement with his antagonist allowed no defence. 
 This posture, open for the blow, accords with 
 Pausanias and suited Canova. It developes the 
 whole figure which your scientific wards would 
 tend to collect, and pinch, and stiffen." This 
 statue has a waxen gloss which dazzles the eye,* 
 and gives such illusion to the high finishing, that 
 you imagine the very texture of the skin in the 
 marble. 
 
 The Library. A vast glaring hall brings you 
 into the middle of the library, which is near a 
 thousand feet long, and terminated on the right 
 by the richest staircase on earth, on the left by an 
 object still more beautiful, the Stan::a de Pap'iru 
 This Stanza, its design, its decorations, its mar- 
 
 * This gloss is produced by a process similar, perhaps, to the cir- 
 cumlitio, or xava-ig ; for its effect on my eyes was like that of the 
 Ephesian Hecate, " in cujus conteniplatioiie admonent anlitui parcere 
 oculis, tanta luarmoris radiatio est." Plin. 
 
THE VATICAN. 245 
 
 bles, the incomparable frescos of Mengs, every 
 object, every figure in the saloon is Egyptian, 
 except St. Peter ; but St. Peter is master of the 
 whole palace. 
 
 By the treaty of Tolentino the French obtained 
 500 manuscripts from this library. Some of the 
 old charters written on papyrus remain ; but Marini 
 informed me that all the literary works anterior 
 to the ninth century had disappeared. On the 
 book-cases are a few painted vases, the leavings 
 of the richest collection on earth. A cabinet of 
 church antiquities remains untouched. 
 
 The Pauline and Sistine Chapels. I could not 
 behold without feelings of regret, the sepulchral 
 illuminations of passion-week blackening here the 
 frescos of M. Angelo, particularly the crucifixion 
 of St. Peter, and the conversion of St. Paul. How 
 divinely terrible are his thick-bearded brawny 
 prophets ! yet these and all the vaults are sub- 
 ordinate to his Last Judgment. 
 
 This immense work of the resurrection is too 
 learned for me. I revered it rather as a monument 
 
246 ROME. 
 
 in the history of Painting, and the cause of a great 
 revolution in the art, than for any pleasure that 
 it gave me. It concludes too many pictures in 
 one. The separating figure of Christ gives order 
 and even symmetry to the upper region of the 
 work ; but plunging downwards, I was lost among 
 Gods and men — angels and demons — in air, on 
 earth, and the waters under the earth. In this 
 dingy field, you stop only to smile at singularities, 
 such as Peter restoring the keys with grim reluc- 
 tance, Dante's devils, his Minos and his Charon 
 diabolified. 
 
 How congenial the powers of the poet and the 
 painter ! Bold and precipitating, they dash on 
 to their immediate object in defiance of rules and 
 ridicule. One critic charges this mighty master 
 with anatomical pedantry, stripping every thing 
 to display the muscles. Another condemns the 
 intermixture of epic and satire, of Scripture and 
 profane fable : a third, the constant repetition of 
 the same Tuscan figure : a fourth heaps on him 
 all the sins of the sublime — gloom, harshness, 
 negligence — the fierce, the austere, the extravagant 
 — tension, violence, exaggeration. In short, had 
 
THE VATICAN. 247 
 
 we any doubt of that one transcendant merit which 
 could atone for so many faults, the very multitude 
 of his critics would dispel it. 
 
 Raphael's Saloons. This is passing from Homer 
 to Virgil. The mechanism of the glorious works, 
 which are now perishing on those damp and dusky 
 walls, discovers itself to none but the artist who 
 would copy them ; but that something beyond 
 mechanism, that diflusion of mind and philosophy 
 which Raphael has here thrown into his art, is 
 obvious to any man that can think. 
 
 A battle must be a difficult subject for a painter, 
 as it is often so to a spectator ; but that of Con- 
 stantine and Maxentius has one general effiart, a 
 regular confusion, and two grand objects to which 
 the eye can always rally from the throng. The 
 vei'y throng itself is finely detailed into groups, 
 and includes some affecting episodes. The same 
 spirit, variety, and fire, reign through the Helio- 
 dorus and the miracle at the Borgo. 
 
 The Attila is another grand composition, where 
 Raphael, as he Avrought upon Papal walls, was 
 obliged to sacrifice truth to his patron. He has 
 
248 HOME. 
 
 therefore brouglit the fable of Peter and Paul 
 into his glory, giving an idle exaggerated dignity 
 to the Pope, thrown the royal Hun, though hero 
 of the story, into the back-ground, detached him 
 from his holy suppliant, and turned a retreat, 
 which policy commanded, into a miracle. 
 
 His patron appears also in the miracle of the 
 mass, a work full of inspiration and admirably 
 adjusted to the window which divides it. The 
 deliverance of St. Peter had to contend with 
 another window which has rather injured it. 
 There indeed the apostle appears three times in 
 three different lights, and in three places not 
 separated by fi'ames but included in the same 
 picture : a license this common to the ancient 
 relievos which Raphael was so fond of studying. 
 
 The School of Athens is a composition perfectly 
 encyclopedic. Every head is a portrait, and 
 every portrait is finished with a fidelity which 
 usually enslaves ; yet what variety of expression 
 here ! Every science is separate, yet what a chain 
 of groups ! No principal action prevails, yet how 
 harmonious the whole ! How superior such mor- 
 tals, both in interest and effect, to the genii of allc- 
 
THE VATICAN. 249 
 
 gory ! How pardonable the anachronism which 
 brings such a family together! Perhaps the 
 divine painter caught his first idea from the 
 divine poet : 
 
 Vidi '1 maestro di color che sanno 
 Seder tra filosofica famiglia: 
 Tutti lo miran, tutti honor li fanno. 
 Quivi vid' io e Socrate e Platone, 
 Che innaiiz' a gli ahri piu presso gH staniio, &,c. 
 
 THE CAPITOL. 
 
 Capitolium quoquc saxo quadrato substructum e.st, opus vel in hac 
 raagtiificentia Urbis conspiciendum. Liv. 
 
 None of its ancient works remain on the Capitol 
 except a corner of the temple called Jupiter 
 Tonans, and some substructions behind the Sena- 
 tor's palace, which are probably a part of those 
 mentioned in the motto. The modern architecture 
 struck me as unworthy of ground once so sacred 
 and so august. Instead of the Herculean and 
 monumental majesty which he called forth on the 
 
250 ROME. 
 
 Farnese palace, M. Angelo has raised on the 
 Capitol two, if not three, Corinthian edifices, so 
 open, so decorated that, abstract all their defects 
 (two orders in one, the scale of orders reversed, ill- 
 proportioned columns, double pediments, broken 
 lintels, &c.) and the result will be nothing above 
 elegance. But he built for modern Rome ; he 
 built for a mount which is sunk from its ancient 
 form, and height, and sanctity, and domination. 
 
 The great statue of M. Aurelius, or rather of 
 his horse, which was once the idol of Rome, is 
 now a subject of contention. Some critics find 
 the proportion of the animal false, and his attitude 
 impossible. One compares his head to an owl's, 
 another, his belly to a cow's ; but the well-known 
 apostrophe of the third will prevail in your first 
 impressions ; the spirit and fire of the general 
 figure will seduce the most practised eye. Ancient 
 sculptors, intent only on man, are supposed to have 
 neglected the study of animals ; and we certainly 
 find very rude accessories affixed to some exquisite 
 antiques. Perhaps they even affected such con- 
 trasts as strike us in the work of the Faun and his 
 panther, the Meleager and his dogs, the Apollo 
 and his swan. The horse, however, came so fre- 
 
THE CAPITOL. ^51 
 
 quently into heroic subjects, that the greatest 
 artists of antiquity must have made him their 
 pecuhar study, and we learn that they did so. 
 But it were unfair to judge of their excellence 
 from this bruised and unfortunate animal, or even 
 from those of Venice and Portici ; as the ancient 
 bronze was too thin for figures of so large a volume. 
 On some ancient relievos, where the horse was 
 traced con amore, we find all the truth, and spirit, 
 and character which moderns have given to this 
 noble animal, the subject of their severest study. 
 
 The Museum has been impoverished rather 
 than thinned by the French. The portico they 
 left full, because it contained nothing very ex- 
 cellent ; for the warrior called Pyrrhus is admired 
 only for his armour. Near him is a hideous pan- 
 theon of Egyptian Gods, either original, or copied 
 for Adrian. In these we see the artist condemned, 
 both by his laws and his religion, to a barren 
 sameness of manner; yet allowed a variety of 
 monsters to work on. Whether standing or sitting, 
 kneeling or squatting, tlie limbs of those figures 
 are parallel, the flesh appears blown, the knees 
 inarticulate, the faces, where human, are unmean- 
 ing, the drapery indistinct, the attitudes are 
 
252 ROME. 
 
 motionless as their mummies ; and the want of 
 nature but poorly supplied by the high polish 
 given to impassive materials ; for nothing but 
 basalt, touchstone, porphyry, granite, and the 
 marbles the most improper for sculpture, was used 
 by the Egyptians. 
 
 The Stair-case is incrusted with an old plan of 
 Rome, or rather with its fragments, which, though 
 of soft alabaster, formed originally a pavement, 
 and a pavement not improper for the temple of 
 Romulus. Bellori and Amadusi have endeavoured 
 to make those detached pieces useful to topogra- 
 phy, and have brought coins to connect the plan 
 of some edifices with their elevation. 
 
 The Gallery contains a number of rejected 
 statues, and the casts of those which were taken, 
 as the warrior called the Dying Gladiator, the 
 Venus, the Faun, the Apollo, the Mercury mis- 
 named Antinous, the Philosopher called Zeno, 
 the Muse which passed here for Juno, the Cupid 
 and Psyche. 
 
 Among the objects still remaining are the two 
 Furietti Centaurs whose veined hoofs indicate 
 
THE CAPITOL. 253 
 
 that license which the ancients sometimes affected 
 in the sculpture of animals — the Praefica, which 
 some have called a Sibyl ; others Hecuba* — the 
 bronze urn which bears the names of Mithridates, 
 struck with a bodkin, and is therefore boldly 
 assigned to the King of Pontus — the four doves, 
 a mosaic still regarded here as the original of 
 Sosus. If it really is that original, Pliny's admi- 
 ration of the work only proves how greatly the 
 ancients are now excelled in the art of tessellation, 
 an art more necessary to them than to us. 
 
 The collection of Imperial busts is numerous 
 only from several repetitions of the same subject, 
 
 * The age, the expression, the retortion of head, the very dress 
 of this singular figure embodied my idea of the " mobbled Queen," 
 
 a clout upon that head 
 
 Where late the diadem stood, and, for a robe. 
 About her lank and all o'er-teemed loins 
 A blanket in the alarm of fear caught up. 
 
 She could not be a Prsefica ; for both Terence and Plutarch re- 
 present the women, who wailed at funerals, with uncovered heads 
 and dishevelled hair. The anatomical part of this figure is well 
 described by Ovid, and might be studied as an exquisite model of 
 ugliness. 
 
 Collum nervosum, scapularum cuspis acuta, 
 Saxosum pectus, laxatum peliibus uber, 
 Non uber, sed tarn vacuum quam molle, &c. 
 
254 ROME. 
 
 and, though joined to tliat of the Vatican, would 
 still leave chasms in the series. The Getas and 
 Caracallas are here much superior to the sculpture 
 of their fathers' arches. The taste for ideal 
 beauty, which alone can maintain the general 
 powers of art, had but just declined ; and must, 
 therefore, on yielding to the demands of vanity, 
 have left a few good sculptures to work on the 
 Imperial busts. 
 
 The collection of Hermes, which pass here for 
 the heads of Philosophers, was, till very lately, 
 the largest and the best in Europe. Most of 
 those which remain were found in Adrian's villa, 
 and are such as adorned the ancient libraries and 
 gardens. In gardens they stood as Termini on 
 pilasters to support the railing ; as may still be 
 observed on Constantine's arch in two cancelli; 
 an office which accounts for the square holes so 
 often found in their shoulders. Some, indeed, 
 consider those holes as designed for the metal 
 bars which supported the busts in processions : 
 but such bars have been found only in busts of 
 bronze, objects more portable than these. 
 
 Some of these busts are anonymous : and the 
 
THE CAPITOL. 255 
 
 names inscribed on others are very doubtful. 
 Ever since Cicero's time have the manufacturers 
 of antiques been affixing new names to old anony- 
 mous heads, or new heads to old inscribed busts. 
 This confusion increased under the selfish vanity 
 of the great. Caligula set his own portrait on 
 the shoulders of every God that he could purchase, 
 and his successors took the same freedom with 
 his statues. So common grew the abuse, that 
 heads have been found which were originally pre- 
 pared for the expected outrage, and made to 
 separate without fracture from the bust. Such 
 havoc and confusion did that invidious tyrant 
 make in the public collection of marble portraits, 
 that the heads could never be restored to their 
 several inscriptions.* 
 
 In the court of the opposite palace are some 
 
 heads and feet of colossal statues : the bodies fell 
 a sacrifice to artists themselves, who wanted the 
 
 * " Ita subvertit atque disjecit, ut restitui, salvis titulis, non 
 valuerint." Sueton. 
 
 I should doubt the excellence of those honorary statues, from 
 the circuitous manner in whicii they were ordered. Cicero hints 
 that the senate left the business to the consuls, the consuls to the 
 qufestor, the quscstor to the contractor, and the contractor, of course, 
 to the artist. 
 
256 ROME. 
 
 marble for small sculpture and even for building. 
 The lion tearing a horse is an ancient group re- 
 stored by M. Angelo, but not, it seems, with that 
 truth of detail which the present artists study on 
 such subjects. 
 
 A Rome Triumphant is seated here on an ancient 
 pedestal well enough proportioned to the figure ; 
 though more probably designed for the statue of 
 some Conqueror, as a Province, like Germany, sits 
 desolate in front.* The two captive kings are 
 called in the modern inscription Numidians, per- 
 haps because the marble is black : some have even 
 baptized them Jugurtha and Syphax. A statue 
 surely does better with a name than without one ; 
 but these are breeched in the Parthian anaxyrides, 
 their cJdamys seems too full and their faces too fine 
 for Africans. 
 
 The Rostral Column represents that of Duilius 
 
 * Crinibus en etiam fertur Germania passis, 
 
 Et ducis invicti sub pede moesta sedet. Ovid. 
 Several coins bear the image of a Province sitting downcast, like 
 this, and leaning her head on her hand, with the legend Germania 
 Subacta. The modern inscription calls this figure Dacia, perhaps 
 from the scaly armour and polygonal shields which appear in the 
 back ground ; but such armour and shields are also found on Germans 
 in ancient relievos. 
 
THE CAPITOL. 257 
 
 as accurately as coins can give it ; and the muti- 
 lated inscription on the pedestal has also been well 
 restored by Ciaccioni and others. Son:e antiqua- 
 ries doubt whether even the ancient part, which 
 forms a kind of oval, be the original inscription ; 
 yet the very place where it was found, the very 
 antiquity of diction which Quintilian remarked in 
 it, overcome in my mind the objections brought 
 against it from the materials being marble, and 
 from the accidental blending of two letters in the 
 word Navebuos. 
 
 In the first room, D'Arpino has painted the 
 history of the kings; in the second, Lauretti takes 
 his subjects from the infant republic, subjects 
 which, if not strictly Capitoline, are nearly related 
 to the spot. In the other rooms, Volterrano and 
 Perrugino have flown away from Rome to the 
 Cimbrian wars, and Annibal's passage over the 
 Alps. How superior in interest are the consular 
 Fasti, the bronze geese, the thunder-struck she- 
 wolf, from their local relation to the ground ! No 
 object in Rome appeared to me so venerable as 
 this wolf. The Etruscan stiffness of the figure 
 evinces a high antiquity, its scathed leg proves it 
 
 VOL. I. s 
 
258 ROME. 
 
 to be the statue which was ancient at the death 
 of Caesar, and it still retains some streaks of the 
 gilding which Cicero remarked on it. The ancient 
 statues, though thinner in the bronze than the 
 modern, received a much thicker gilding, by a 
 process different from ours. Hence the gold-coat 
 of Hercules, which remains here, has resisted the 
 file of time. Every age has been barbarous enough 
 to gild bronze statues ; yet, would it be more 
 absurd to paint marble ones ? 
 
 A gallery where Pietro da Cortona takes the 
 lead cannot be very rich. His Rape of the Sa- 
 bines, his Trivimph of Bacchus, his Sacrifice of 
 Iphigenia, and battle of Arbela display that 
 expertness of grouping which a painter, so fond 
 of bringing multitudes on his canvass, must natu- 
 rally attain. The Cojioscenti find in these pictures 
 a lucid richness of colouring, and a fire, a move- 
 ment, which appear something like flutter to me. 
 Guido has left here some unfinished things of 
 infinite promise; particularly a Blessed Spirit 
 soaring to Paradise. What pity that his passion 
 for play should have forced him to precipitate his 
 happiest conceptions, and placed a great man and 
 his works under the controul of brokers ! 
 
THE CAPITOL. 259 
 
 I had imagined that the Capitol of Rome and 
 the seat of its corporations should belong to the 
 people, and be open to the world ; but I found it 
 locked up, subdivided into different farms, and 
 rented by different keepers. Entrance fees are 
 a serious expense to the curious at Rome. You 
 pay for admission to the Pope, to the cardinals, 
 and to all other antiquities. Your first and your 
 last call on a private friend cost you a testoon: 
 
 — — — — quid te moror? Omnia Roinre 
 
 Cum pretio. Quid das ut Cossum aliquando salutes? — 
 Cogimur et cultis augere peculia servis. 
 
 s2 
 
260 ROME. 
 
 VILLAS. 
 
 VlLL.t BURGHESI^E PiNCIANS CUSTOS H,€C EDICO. QuiSQUIS ES, 
 SI LIBER, LEGUM COMPEDES NE HIC TIMEAS. ItO QUO VOLES, 
 PETITO QV/E CUPIS, ABITO QUANDO VOLES. ExTERIS MAGIS 
 HI£C PARANTUU QUAM HERO. In AUREO SECULO, UBI CUNCTA 
 ATJREA, TEMPORUM SECURITAS FECIT. BeNE MORATO HOSPITI 
 FERREAS LEGES PR^FIGERE HERUS VETAT. SiT HIC AMICO 
 PRO LEGE HONESTA VOLUNTAS. VeRUM SI QUIS DOLO MALO, 
 LUBENS SCIENS, AUREAS URBANITATIS LEGES FREGERIT, CAVEAT 
 NE SIBI TESSERAM AMICITia; SUBIRATUS VILLICUS ADVORSUM 
 
 FRANCAT, Inscription. 
 
 A FEW cardinals created all the great villas of 
 Rome. Their riches, their taste, their learning, 
 their leisure, their frugality, all conspired in this 
 single object. While the Eminent founder was 
 squandering thousands on a statue, he would allot 
 but one crown for his own dinner. He had no 
 children, no stud, no dogs, to keep. He built 
 indeed for his own pleasm'e, or for the admiration 
 of others ; but he embellished his country, he pro- 
 moted the resort of rich foreigners, and he afforded 
 them a high intellectual treat for a few pauls, 
 which never entered into his pocket. This taste 
 
VILLAS. 261 
 
 generally descends to his heirs, who mark their 
 little reigns by successive additions to the stock. 
 How seldom are great fortunes spent so elegantly 
 in England ! How many are absorbed in the 
 table, the field, or the turf; expenses which centre 
 and end in the rich egotist himself! What Eng- 
 lish villa is open, like the Borghese, as a common 
 drive to the whole metropolis? and how finely 
 is this liberality announced in the inscription which 
 I have copied above from the pedestal of an an- 
 cient statue in that park ! 
 
 The Villa Borghesi has a variety of surface 
 formed by two hills and a dell, and a variety 
 of embellishments — casinos, temples, grottos, avi- 
 aries, modern ruins, sculptured fountains, a crowd 
 of statues, a lake, an aqueduct, a circus ; but it 
 wants the more beautiful variety of an Enghsh 
 garden ; for here you must walk in right lines and 
 turn at right angles, fatigued with the monotony 
 of eternal ilex. 
 
 The principal casino is decorated to excess. Its 
 fronts serve as frames for the ancient relievos 
 which coat them. The very porch contains sta- 
 
262 ROME. 
 
 tues which would grace the interior of any palace. 
 What then is within ? Within are the Gladiator, 
 the Silenus, the Hermaphrodite, the Apollo and 
 Daphne, each supreme in its own saloon, and 
 encircled with subordinate statues and paintings 
 related to it. In the hall is Curtius starting from 
 the wall, and in the magnificent galleria an assem- 
 blage of busts which the world cannot match. 
 When dazzled with sculpture and scagUuola, the 
 eye has rare basalts, and oriental granites, and 
 porphyries to repose on ; porphyry red as blood,* 
 and green, and even grey. 
 
 The Gladiator is now the last of those great 
 preceptive statues which served at Rome as canons 
 of the art. But is the figure a Gladiator? On 
 the left arm are straps which indicate a shield, 
 and the head is bare. Now, all gladiators except 
 the Retiarius wore helmets, and the Retiarius had 
 no shield. The elastic bound of this admirable 
 figure was not more appropriate to the amphi- 
 theatre than to the field of battle. But as the 
 
 Porfido mi parea si fiammeggiante 
 
 Come sangue che fuor di vena spiccia. Dante. 
 
VILLAS. 263 
 
 face bears nothing of the heroic or ideal style, 
 perhaps the subject was only a Barbarian Chief, 
 like the Dying Gladiator ; for both had shields, 
 but no helmets. Some, I understand, have lately 
 called this figure a Hector : but should Hector 
 ever appear in art without that helmet which gives 
 him a kind of surname in Homer, and affords one 
 of the finest pictures in the Iliad ? Hector was 
 for ages a common portrait in Greece, and always 
 young: the person who resembled his portrait so 
 much, and was trodden to death by the curiosity 
 of a Spartan mob, was a youth ; but the figure in 
 question is a man near 40 years old. 
 
 The famous Seneca is another subject of dis- 
 pute. Some think the figure an African fisher; 
 and others a black slave. Indeed, a body of 
 touchstone, eyes of enamel, and a cincture of yellow 
 marble, are strange materials for a philosopher. 
 He was placed in a bath by the restorer, and re- 
 storers may make the hands denote what they 
 please; but the abject expression of the face, and 
 the stiff inclination of the body, are fitter for the 
 wash-tub than for the solemn act of hbation to 
 Jove. The head certainly resembles the busts 
 called Seneca ; but these busts are all anonymous, 
 
264 ROME. 
 
 authenticated by no medal, and as questionable 
 as the genius and virtue of Seneca himself.* 
 
 Here are two plaster-casts to represent the de- 
 parted legs of the Farnese Hercules, which Prince 
 Borghesi would never render up to the body, 
 while a hope remained of bringing the body home 
 to the legs. At last, M'hen the mighty statue was 
 removed to Naples, he sold his limbs for a star 
 and ribband. 
 
 A plainer casino has been lately built for the 
 ancient sculpture found at Gabii. This collection 
 includes a superb statue of Germanicus, and some 
 admirable busts of the Julian and Antoninian 
 reigns, such as M. Agrippa, Tiberius, Corbulo, 
 S. Severus, Geta. All these are entire; but most 
 of the whole-length figures are made up, and not 
 always consistently. In one statue the body is 
 clad in armoui', and the legs are bare; a pecu- 
 
 * I consider all busts as anonymous, on which the inscriptions 
 are modern. See Capitol. No regard is due to the contorniate 
 medallion bearing the name of Seneca; a medallion depending 
 only on the suspected authority of Orsini, and no where else to be 
 found. As for Seneca's virtue, set aside the charges which Suilius 
 or Dion bring against it ; and what discord remains between his 
 philosophy and his wealth; between his epistles and his villas ! 
 
VILLAS. 265 
 
 liarity remarked in Adrian's mode of marching ; 
 but the restorer, having a fine old head of Trajan 
 at hand, fixed it on these shoulders, and then, to 
 justify the union, found out some vague allusions 
 to Trajan's history in the carving of the lorica. 
 
 The ancient artists were certainly attentive to 
 emblems, and attributes, and whatever could mark 
 or identify their subject; but our antiquaries as- 
 cribe to them perhaps more learning or research 
 than is due. Sometimes they will decide on the 
 man from the mere shape of his helmet, from the 
 \\\\i o^his, para:::o7iiinn, or the adjustment of his 
 pall'mm. If the figure is naked, they fly to the 
 palm-trunk which supports it, to the attitude, the 
 cut of the hair, the place, or the company in which 
 it was found, and they are never satisfied until the 
 thing get a name. This is a curiosity that should 
 neither go too far, nor stop too soon ; for archaeo- 
 logy owes to it most of its errors, and all its know- 
 ledge. 
 
 Among these Gabine figures are several magis- 
 trates drest in the ioga ; but their toga is not dis- 
 posed in that solemn knot called the " cinctus 
 Gabinus ;" for the Gabines had that privilege only 
 
^66 ROME. 
 
 in war. Here it may be traced distinctly in its 
 replications across the left shoulder, and forms an 
 umbo and a balteus which are far more intelligible 
 than the learning published on these points. The 
 sharp corners in which it terminates would indicate 
 that the toga was neither square, nor round, nor 
 any form assigned it in the Re vestiaria ; but rather 
 something like a lozenge, or a small segment of 
 the circle. Its exaggerated form and unnatural 
 sinuosity, on these statues, tends to prove that 
 ancient drapery was full of composition. 
 
 A low marble cylinder, having the signs of the 
 Zodiac carved round its convex trunk, and the 
 Dii consentes round a hole in the top, is called an 
 altar of the Sun. The ancient altars, however, 
 rose to thrice the height of this : their cavity, too, 
 was shallow like a dish; but here is a narrow, 
 deep, circular hole, perfectly unfit for sacrifice, the 
 fire of which would have burnt and defaced the 
 relievos. To me it appeared rather the plinth or 
 base of a temple-candelabrum, and for these rea- 
 sons. The socket would fit exactly the stem of 
 such a candelabrum, and fit nothing else so well — 
 some of the Herculanean candelabra stand on 
 plinths of this very cylindrical form — the twelve 
 
VILLAS. 267 
 
 Gods are found in this villa on another candela- 
 brum of the tripod shape — and the twelve signs, 
 if really an emblem,* would be an emblem very 
 proper for the support of a luminary. 
 
 Villa Albani. Deep learning is generally the 
 grave of taste. But the learning which is engaged 
 in Greek and Roman antiquities, as it embraces 
 all that is beautiful in art, rather refines and regu- 
 lates our perceptions of beauty. Here is a villa 
 of exquisite design, planned by a profound anti- 
 quary. Here Cardinal Alexander Albani, having 
 spent his life in collecting ancient sculpture, 
 formed such porticos and such saloons to receive 
 it, as an old Roman would have done:t porticos 
 where the statues stood free on the pavement 
 
 • The Zodiac was not alwaj's an emblem. It entered into vases, 
 coins, pavements, furniture, as a mere ornament ; sometimes, indeed, 
 as a conceit. Petronius describes the Zodiac encircling a dining 
 tray, where an opposite dish was placed on each sign; a whim 
 similar to Gata's, who used to eat alphabetically. 
 
 ■f " Deinde porticus in D litteras similitudinem circumactaj — 
 ante porticum, xystus concisus in pluriraas species, distinctusque 
 
 buxo — Inter has, marmoreo labro aqua exundat Cavato lapide 
 
 SHscipitur, gracili marmore continetur, et ita occulta temperatur, ut 
 
 impleat nee redundet. concisura aquarum cubiculis interfluen- 
 
 tium.'' Such were the objects which this villa seems to have copied 
 from Pliny's. 
 
268 ROME. 
 
 between columns proportioned to their stature ; 
 saloons which were not stocked but embellished 
 with families of allied statues, and seemed full 
 without a crowd. Here Winkelmann grew into 
 an antiquary under the Cardinal's patronage and 
 instruction, and here he projected his history of 
 art, which brings this collection continually into 
 view. 
 
 The innocent creation of one cardinal fell a 
 sacrifice to atone for the politics of another. Pius 
 VI. had engaged to purchase peace of the French; 
 but the present Cardinal Albani persuaded him 
 to retract, and thus brought their vengeance on 
 all his family. The blow was indeed severe — 
 " at tu dictis, Albane, maneres !" 
 
 The spoils of this villa became a magnificent 
 supplement to those of the Vatican and Capitol. 
 Two hundred and ninety-four pieces of ancient 
 sculpture were sent hence to Paris, or lay in cases 
 at Ripagrande ready to be shipped. Some have 
 been fortunately ransomed ; and the Prince, though 
 reduced in means, is now courageously beginning 
 to re-combine the wrecks of this celebrated col- 
 lection. It was affecting to see the statues on 
 
VILLAS. 269 
 
 their return to the villa. Some lay on the ground 
 shattered by their passage to the river, others 
 remained in their tremendous coffins, and a few 
 were restored to their former pedestals. 
 
 In the vestibule stood several imperial statues — 
 in the rooms a Canopus in basalt, very different 
 in relief from the Egyptian style, and evidently a 
 Roman imitation of the Serapis worshipped in the 
 form of ajar — one of those unnatural figures of 
 Nature, called the Ephesian Diana; a figure too 
 hideous to be of Greek origin, and perhaps, like 
 the Canopus, an ancient imitation of more remote 
 antiquity, which would probably end in Egypt — 
 a curious relievo of Diogenes in an amphora — 
 Termini on shafts of oriental alabaster, where the 
 flower of the marble projects for the sexual dis- 
 tinction. 
 
 All the beauties of the galleria are gone, except 
 the ceiling. Why did IMengs choose for this 
 ceiling such a subject as Mount Parnassus? When 
 painters have the wide range of the Pantheon ; 
 have Auroras, Phaetons, Ganymedes, Daedalus ; 
 have ascensions, assumptions and Elijahs; have 
 glories, apotheoses, and the winged world of alle- 
 
270 ROME. 
 
 gory to set floating over our heads, and display 
 their skill in foreshortening, why do they force 
 into ceilings the subjects of a lower sphere ? why 
 build earth upon the clouds? This admirable 
 work, being foreshortened only for a wall, required 
 a vertical exposure. Besides, the purpose of 
 painting is to please; but who could peruse all 
 the learned details of this ceiling, without a fatigue 
 which must pain? 
 
 Villa Lodovisi. Here is a villa within the 
 walls, nearly two miles in circuit. Rome is, in- 
 deed, so depopulated now, that the void incom- 
 modes no one; but when the great patricians 
 encroached, in this manner, on the ancient city,* 
 every acre of their parks must have crammed 
 hundreds, like poor Codrus, into the garrets. 
 These grovmds include part of Sallust's gardens, 
 and must also include the spot where Romulus 
 was said to have ascended into heaven, in defiance 
 of his own laws against such fictions. 
 
 An infinite number of antiques are scattered 
 
 * " Jam qiiideni lioiUnuiii nomine in ipsa urbe delicias, agros, 
 viUasque possidcnt." Plin. Hist. 
 
VILLAS. 271 
 
 about the villa ; but the principal statues are placed 
 in one of the casinos. This contains two ancient 
 groups which the Scitisti extol the more extrava- 
 gantly, for a pretence to dispute the longer on 
 their subjects. It is pleasant to see them poring 
 into a marble head, and drawing character or his- 
 tory out of every lineament. 
 
 The Papirius and his mother, (for I prefer the 
 popular name although that is Roman, and the 
 Sculptor's, Greek,) the Papirius particularly affords 
 great play to the fancy of critics. In this expres- 
 sive figure they find all the ingenuousness of a 
 sprightly boy, blended with a cunning assumed 
 for the occasion : they see secresy concealed under 
 open manners, and a titter lui'king under affected 
 seriousness. But the ancient artists seldom aimed 
 at mixt passion.* They knew practically the 
 limited powers of art ; they were content to bring 
 
 * Euphraiior's statue of Paris is said by Pliny to have expressed 
 three characters at once — " Judex dearum, aniator Helenag, et tamen 
 Acliillis interfector." But Pliny is a bad authority even in the liis- 
 tory, and no authority at all in the criticism, of the fine arts. On 
 this point a late statuary flatly contradicts him, and declares the 
 thing to be impossible. The Athenian Demos was certainly a group, 
 like the Polygyncticon; for a single figure, like the Spartan Demos, 
 could not possibly express such a contrariety of passion. 
 
ST,'? ROME. 
 
 forth one sti'ong sentiment, and left to us the 
 amusement of analyzing that one into fifty. 
 
 The group called Psetus and Arria aims at a 
 higher degree of pathos. In fact, the subject 
 seems to be such that the sculptor must be either 
 pathetic in the extreme, or ridiculous. The fero- 
 city of the man, however, is at variance with the 
 character of Paetus. Winkelmann thinks him the 
 Guard who slew both Canace and himself; but 
 he looks still too fierce for so sentimental a cut- 
 throat. Benedict XIV., when collecting models 
 for his academy at Bologna, requested a copy 
 of this admirable antique. The Prince could not 
 refuse his sovereign, but no sooner was the cast 
 taken than he broke the m.oulds. How unfortunate 
 for the arts to fall under such jailors! 
 
 A sitting warrior is too beautiful to remain with- 
 out a name, and is therefore called Mars, although 
 he has no spear nor victory, like the sitting INIars 
 on Constantine's arch. Mars is a name too com- 
 monly given to the statues of stout, broad-chested 
 frowning young men, which more probably be- 
 longed to the athletic class. 
 
VILLAS. 273 
 
 In another Casino is Guercino's great work 
 of the Aurora, whicli covers the ceihng and is 
 detailed into compartments. If compared with 
 the Aurora of the Rospighosi pavihon, its com- 
 position will be found less obvious and its 
 story more learned. In allegorizing Nature, 
 Guercino imitates the deep shades of night, the 
 twilight grey, and the irradiations of morning with 
 all the magic of cJdaroscuro; but his figures are 
 too mortal for the region where they move. The 
 work of Guido is more poetic, and luminous, and 
 soft, and harmonious. Cupid, Aurora, Phoebus 
 form a climax of beauty, and the Hours seem as 
 light as the clouds on which they dance. At such 
 ceilings you gaze till your neck becomes stiff and 
 your head dizzy. They detain you, like the 
 glorious ceiling of the Caracci, the sole object left 
 to be admired at the Farnese palace, except the 
 palace itself. 
 
 This is the only place in Rome where a ticket 
 of admission is required at the gates: not that 
 Prince Piombino reserves the sacred retreat for 
 himself; but his porters and gardeners take ad- 
 vantage of his absence and his order, and are only 
 
 VOL. I. T 
 
274 ROME. 
 
 the more exacting from those strangers whom they 
 admit without his leave. 
 
 O janitores, villicique felices! 
 Dom'inis parantur ista^ serviunt voltis. 
 
 RELIEVOS. 
 
 Habent et minora sigilla, quee, cum sint vestusta, sic apparent re- 
 centia, ut sint modo facta. Vituuv. 
 
 Rome still contains a series of relievos, Egyptian, 
 Greek, Etruscan, Roman, Gothic, and modern ; 
 sufficient for tracing the rise, progress, and pas- 
 sage of the art through different nations, for three 
 thousand years. Though the Muses and the 
 Nereids are gone, the Amazons, the Endymion, 
 the Andromeda, remain at the Capitol : the Me- 
 leager, the Acteon, the Esculapius, at the Villa- 
 Borghese ; the Dedalus, the Bellerophon, the 
 Paris, the Archemorus, at the Spada-Palace. 
 
RELIEVOS. 275 
 
 Very few of the ancient relievos are placed here 
 to advantage. Some stand on their sarcophagi, 
 like cisterns, in the corners of palace-yards : others 
 have been sawn off to coat the casinos of villas. 
 If placed in museums, they lose their importance 
 among the statues. On the two historical columns 
 they stand too high for minute inspection. On 
 the frieze and tijmpanum of pediments they are 
 generally mutilated. On the triumphal arches 
 alone they preserve their original eiFect. 
 
 Titus s arch includes relievos of very different 
 styles. The largest stand within the arcade, re- 
 presenting the triumph with all the freedom and 
 grandeur of full relief. Another kind of alto 
 relievo, smaller in size, yet heavier in effect, is 
 placed very improperly in the frieze. The four 
 victories, so light and so elegant, being in lower 
 relief, are better preserved than the more promi- 
 nent sculptures. 
 
 The medallions taken from Trajan^s arch have 
 lately received new youth from the restoring chisel. 
 They finely illustrate some imperial functions, 
 and some religious rites. But Trajan's religion is 
 as foreign as his features to an arch which makes 
 t2 
 
276 ROME, 
 
 Constantine a Christian at the expense of inter- 
 polation and forgery. 
 
 Trajan s column, considered as an historical re- 
 cord to be read round and round a long convex 
 surface, made perspective impossible. Every per- 
 spective has one fixt point of view ; but here are 
 ten thousand. The eye, like the relievos of the 
 column, must describe a spiral round them, widen- 
 ing over the whole piazza. Hence, to be legible, 
 the figures must be lengthened as they rise. This 
 license is necessary here ; but in architecture it 
 may be contested against Vitruvius himself. 
 
 This column is an immense field of antiquities, 
 where the emperor appears in a hundred different 
 points, as sovereign, or general, or priest. His 
 dignity he derives from himself or his duties ; not 
 from the trappings of power, for he is drest like 
 any of his officers : not from the debasement of 
 others, for the Romans, all save one, kissing his 
 hand, stand bold and erect before him.* How 
 
 * The younger Pliny remarks this popular habit of Trajan ; he an- 
 ticipates the column, and probably sujzgested the very idea to the 
 
 artist. " Nihil a ceteris nisi robore et praestantia difterens non 
 
 tu civium amplexus ad pedes tuos dcprimis tu tamen major om- 
 nibus quidem eras, sed sine uUius diminutione major." 
 
RELIEVOS. 277 
 
 unlike the modern relievos, where dress appears in 
 all its distinctions, and prostration in all its angles ! 
 none kneel here but kings and captives : no Roman 
 appears in a fallen state : none are wounded or 
 slain but the foe. 
 
 No monument gives the complete and real cos- 
 tume of its kind so correctly as this column. 
 Ancient sculptors, ever attached to the naked 
 figure,* either suppressed parts of the existing 
 dresses, or gave dresses which never existed at all. 
 Sometimes they throw the paludamentum over the 
 back of their emperors, and leave the fore-figure 
 entirely naked. Sometimes the upper half of 
 their honorary figures is naked, and the lower is 
 wrapped, like Jupiter, in a liallium. Even where 
 the body is cased in the lorica, the thighs are half 
 bare. But on this column we can see parts of the 
 
 * Our great statues, being the work of Greek artists, are naked. 
 " Greeca res est nihil velare.'' Some, like the Laocoon, are naked 
 even against keeping. The Apollo's mantle is only a support to liis 
 left arm. As the art of sculpture declined, the load of drapery in- 
 creased. From Gallienus down to those crowned Goths at the 
 Mattei-Palace every figure was overlaid with ornament. Valens and 
 Valentinian, Theophilus and the Palaeologi are in jewels all over. 
 Jewels grew in number with the barbarisms, and, like Apelles's 
 pupil, they made that rich which they could not make beautiful. 
 
278 ROME. 
 
 subarmalia ; we can see real drawers falling down 
 to the officers' legs; and some figures have ybcrt/2a 
 round the neck. In relating the two wars, this 
 column sets each nation in contrast : here the 
 Moorish horse all naked and unharnessed ; there 
 the Sarmatians in complete mail down to the 
 fingers and the hoofs. It exhibits without embel- 
 lishment all the tactics of that age, and forms a 
 grand commentary on Vegetius and Frontinus. 
 
 M. Aurelius's column is more defaced than the 
 Trajan ; the figures more prominent, more con- 
 fused, and inferior in sculpture, in story, and in- 
 struction. The four relievos taken from M. Au- 
 relius's arch are much nobler compositions. 
 
 S. Severus's arch betrays a precipitate decline 
 in art; figures rising in rows, heads over heads, 
 and all equally protuberant. Indeed the marble 
 has been so burnt, washed, and scaled, that we 
 cannot judge of the original execution, nor catch 
 all the peculiarities of the Parthian cavalry. The 
 work raised to him in the Velabrum is little in its 
 design, rich only with chiselling, overcrowded 
 with objects of sacrifice : the offering of trades- 
 men, made to a tradesman's taste. 
 
RELIEVOS. 279 
 
 None of the relievos on Constantine's arch be- 
 long to his age except those in the narrow bands, 
 and over the lateral arches, carved in the style of 
 a village tombstone. 
 
 In those relievos every figure is historical ; no- 
 thing is fabulous. The Aurora and the Hesperus 
 on Trajan's column are but the times of action: 
 the divinities of rivers and of roads on his medal- 
 lions are but the objects of his improvement. All 
 other relievos, and indeed all the ancient works of 
 design, are taken from fable. Heroic fable is the 
 subject of all the great pictures of Herculaneum, 
 of those painted on the Greek vases, of those de- 
 scribed or imagined by the Philostrati, and of 
 those which Pausanias and Pliny enumerate. 
 Every artist wrought on the elegant fictions of 
 Greece ; fictions which overspread poetry and re- 
 ligion, nay, encroached on the sacred page of 
 history, and pretended to embellish that which 
 knows no beauty but truth.* 
 
 * Hence arose the multitude of monsters wliicli we find in ancient 
 sculpture, such as centaurs, satyrs, licnnaphroditps, spliiuxes, nereids, 
 tritons, and marine horses, &c. The only monster admitted into modern 
 art is the angel ; and, when historically proper, as in the Annuncia- 
 tion or the Nativity, this winged being is a subject of beauty. But 
 
280 ROME. 
 
 Most of the sepulchral relievos are works of a 
 bad age. Very few are elegant in their design, or 
 bear any relation to their office. Their sculptors, 
 or rather lapidarii, being confined to a narrow 
 rectangle, crowd their figures in files, and, anxious 
 to tell all their story, they generally multiply its 
 hero. All the ancient sarcophagi scattered about 
 Rome are but the copies of works still more 
 ancient and more excellent, copies which those 
 lapidarii kept in large assortments for sale.* The 
 subjects most frequent here are the Calydonian 
 Hunt, the Battle of the Amazons, the Rape of 
 Proserpine, the Triumph of Bacchus, the Death 
 of Protesilaus, the Feast of the Indian Bacchus, 
 
 here angels intrude so constantly into sacred pictures, that, instead 
 of elevating, they flatten the imagination. Prescription, indeed, 
 may be pleaded in defence of those glories; but prescription is the 
 common refuge of absurdity. If you urge the excessive height of 
 church-pictures, and the vast vacancy to be filled over the human 
 figures; fill up that vacancy with natural objects, with sky, land- 
 scape, or architecture, not with beings which make the main action 
 improbable, divert our attention from it, and divide one picture into 
 two. 
 
 * Sometimes, as a lure, they left two heads rough hewn on the 
 front, ready to receive the features of the man and his wife who should 
 buy and inhabit thera. In this state is one of the Disomatons pre- 
 served at the Vatican. You see a great number of striated Sarco- 
 phagi about Rome, where the two heads are enclosed within a scallop 
 shell. These are works of the lower empire, and many were found in 
 the catacombs. 
 
RELIEVOS. 281 
 
 usually miscalled Trimalcion's Supper. More than 
 half of the ancient sculpture existing is copy. 
 Nothing bears the genuine name of any cele- 
 brated master. Even the originality of the Belve- 
 dere Apollo, the Laocoon, the Borghese Gladiator, 
 the Fai'nese Hercules, is now called in question ; 
 and to this practice of perpetually reproducing 
 the same great models we may partly ascribe the 
 general excellence of Greek sculpture. 
 
 The arclntechiral relievos differ much from the 
 monumental in character and design. Instead of 
 starting into the roundness of a statue, or confu- 
 sion of groups, they serve only as accessories to 
 the edifice which they announce or adorn. Their 
 relief is flattened to harmonize with the naked 
 wall, and leave to the mouldings their due effect : 
 their size is well adjusted to the mass of building, 
 and their forms are lengthened in proportion to 
 their height above the eye. The figures stand 
 generally in pairs, returning in measured spaces 
 and balanced attitudes ; yet linked by a latent un- 
 dulating connexion. Such is the style of the Par- 
 thenon friezes ; a style equally conspicuous in the 
 ruins of Rome. This alternation discovers itself 
 not only in human figures, as at the Temple of 
 
282 ROME. 
 
 Pallas, but even in the griffins and candelabra on 
 that of Antoninus and Faustina, in the sacrificial 
 implements on that of Jupiter Tonans, in the sym- 
 bolical pompa of four gods on a broken frieze at 
 the Capitol. 
 
 An ancient relievo may be considered as an 
 assemblage of little statues connected by a com- 
 mon story ; as a repository of costume in dress, 
 armour, and what players call property ; as a mo- 
 nument which records events, explains mythology, 
 or delineates manners ; but never as a picture. 
 It groups men, but it seldom combines groups : 
 it errs in all the relations of space, makes the 
 houses as low as their inhabitants, and the boats 
 as small as the sailors, without making them ap- 
 pear more remote. 
 
 Modern sculptors aspire to something beyond 
 this. They have given to relievo the system of a 
 picture ; but have they also given it the allusion 
 of painting ? they proportion mathematically the 
 prominence of each figure, the size, the different 
 degrees of rough and polished, to the plan in 
 which it stands. But what is degradation of size 
 without that of colour ? What is linear perspec- 
 
RELIEVOS. 283 
 
 tive without the aerial ? And what are their best 
 pictures in marble but stage-work, where the 
 figures stand, like actors, more or less forward on 
 the proscenium of a theatre, with a flat scene be- 
 hind, on which houses and trees are not painted, 
 but scratched ? 
 
 The ancient relievos open an amusing field for 
 erudition, and are admirably contrived to torment 
 Italian scholars. These love such puzzles and 
 petty difficulties as require no liberal philosophy 
 to resolve them. They are excellent bibliogra- 
 phers. If not learned themselves, they know 
 where learning lies. They can bring, like our 
 Warburton, quotations from every nook of litera- 
 ture on the most trivial points ; and, like him, 
 they prefer the more ingenious solution to the 
 more natural one. What pompous volumes have 
 been spent on obscure or disputed relievos ! Li- 
 ceti usually gave fifty folio pages of the closest 
 print to a lamp ; and Martorelli wrote two large 
 quartos in explanation of an old ink-stand. How 
 solemnly do these men sit down with their appa- 
 ratus of classical tools, to crack a few nut-shells 
 which either resist their skill, or, when opened, 
 yield nothing to repay them ! When at last the 
 
284 ROME. 
 
 CEdipus does enucleate one of those crusty enig- 
 mas, the man of taste must come after him, to sweep 
 away the rubbish of his learning, cleanse his dis- 
 covery of all foreign matter, and class it among 
 things already known and allied to it. 
 
 LETTERS AND ARTS. 
 
 Rome has always adopted men of genius : but she 
 has given birth to few. None of our remaining 
 classics were born in the city except Lucretius, 
 Julius Caesar and Tibullus. The artists who em- 
 bellished it were anciently Greeks. Such is still 
 the fortune of Rome. She is the nurse of great 
 talents produced elsewhere. They flock to her as 
 the mistress of art and antiquity : she gives them 
 education, and makes them her own. 
 
 Science has never flourished under its old per- 
 secutor the Church. Rome was, indeed, the first 
 city in Europe that instituted an Academy for the 
 improvement of natural science and for the sub- 
 
LETTERS AND ARTS. 285 
 
 version of the old philosophy: but the mistake was 
 corrected. Galilei atoned for the license granted 
 to Duke Cesi : the penetrating Lincei fell into dis- 
 grace, while the innocent Arcadians were allowed 
 to warble on. Even now, men of science are 
 rather tolerated than encouraged. The govern- 
 ment suffers them to do good ; but the reward and 
 protection come only from individuals. P. Gan- 
 dolfi of the Sapienza, although not a Roman, has 
 laboured much to improve the economics, agricul- 
 ture and manufactures of this state ; simplifying 
 whatever was complex in the method or the ma- 
 chinery, and banishing the little quackeries of the 
 old school. 
 
 The business of the nation seems to be poetry. 
 Their common discourse is full of it : their com- 
 mon tone or recitative makes whatever they say 
 appear music. Considered even as a cantilena it 
 is too melodious, too soft ; all vowel sounds, all 
 pulp and flesh, without nerve, articulation, or 
 bone. " I Romani non battono le consonanti" is 
 a common remark. Instead of striking the con- 
 sonants, they strike them out. For prendete they 
 say prenete; fov propj'io, projjio ; iov panta7io,pa- 
 nano, &c. their dialect is, in fact, the Ionic of 
 
286 ROME. 
 
 Italy. In every circle you meet versifiers or hn- 
 2Jroi'vh'atori, who have a satire or a sonnet ready 
 for every occasion, such as births, marriages, pro- 
 motions, arrivals, lent-preaching, monachization, 
 death. But fecundity does not always imply ge- 
 nius ; for the genius of this art seems to have 
 flown for the present from the multitudes of Rome 
 to a select few in Lombardy. 
 
 The Roman bar maintains its superiority in 
 learning, eloquence and urbanity. All pleadings 
 are written, many are printed, and thus become 
 models to others injudicial composition. In such 
 a variety of courts there is necessarily a mixture 
 of talents and pretensions, of honest practitioners 
 and of mozzori'ecchi.* No study opens a wider 
 range than the law. It leads up to the purple, 
 and it descends to criminal courts where the 
 judge's salary is but ten crowns a month. How 
 wretchedly poor must that rogue be who suffers 
 himself to be convicted at such a tribunal ! 
 
 * The Austrian ambassador, having lately occasion to litigate a 
 trifle, desired his people to call in some pettifogger. A cut-ear pre- 
 sents himself, "Chi siete voi?" — " Curiale per ubbidirla." 
 
 " Curiale non mi conviene : cercava un mozzorrecchio." " Non 
 
 iraporta, Eccellenza ; son mozzorrecchio anche io per servirla." 
 
LETTERS AND ARTS. 287 
 
 The ancients have left us ten thousand monu- 
 ments of their genius, but not much criticism on 
 the arts in which they excelled. Modern Rome, 
 on the contrary, swarms with conoscenti, and con- 
 tains materials enough, above ground or below, 
 to keep them for ages at work. Her great Vis- 
 conti is gone, and has left none here equal to him 
 in antiquarian depth and sagacity. The Abate 
 Fea, a lawyer from Nice, figures at present as 
 connoisseur to the Pope, and writes upon every 
 subject ; but his chief merit is activity. Monsieur 
 D'Azincourt has been for a long time collecting 
 here materials to elucidate the dark period of art, 
 from its decline to its revival. Zoega, a Swede 
 profound in Coptical learning, is now engaged in 
 explaining the Egyptian monuments and hiero- 
 glyphical obelisks of Rome. Marini, prefect of 
 the Vatican library and Archives, is distinguished 
 by a felicity in ascertaining local antiquities, and 
 drawing sense and service from the most obstinate 
 inscriptions. The Cavaliere Giov. Gherardo de' 
 Rossi might, for depth and acumen, be classed 
 among these professional antiquaries, were he not 
 claimed by Thalia and other Muses. Rome knows 
 his value, and, in her late adversities, confided 
 her treasury to Gherardo. 
 
288 ROME. 
 
 All the artists of Rome yield the palm to Ca- 
 nova ; yet here he is admired only as the sculptor 
 of the Graces. Such a world of ideal and un- 
 created beauty has he evoked, so tenderly fasci- 
 nating are his Cupid and Psyche, his Hebe so 
 elegant and aerial, and such his addiction to 
 subjects like these, that some critics would limit 
 his powers to the beautiful alone. But will the 
 Hercules and Lichas admit this limitation? What- 
 ever critics may say of the anatomy, the expression 
 of this group is sublime : and the contrast of 
 passion and suffering is terrific. Hercules, per- 
 haps too gigantic for his victim, holds the youth 
 by one foot finely reverted behind his back, and 
 looks furiously down the precipice ; while the 
 fatal tunic, glued to the skin,* shews every muscle 
 under it swollen and starting with agony. 
 
 * The adhesion of the tunic is here true to nature and to the story : 
 it corresponds Hterally with Sophocles who, in sketching the statue, 
 debases this gluing part of it by a low, unpoetical iruage. 
 
 rrpOITTrTlJO-O-ETO 
 
 XirSiv uTrav xut' dpQpov — 
 
 So fond were the ancient sculptors of this effect, that they soaked 
 their female draperies, which moulded themselves more impudently 
 on the naked form than any real dress could do. The Multitia, tlie 
 Tarentinidian, the Coan offended rather from a transparency of tcx- 
 
LETTERS AND ARTS. 289 
 
 Here is an inferior class of artists who work 
 chiefly for the traveller. Of the thousands who 
 visit Rome few can purchase statues or pictures, 
 yet all wish to take home some evidence of their 
 visit, some portable remembrance of Roman art ; 
 as a mosaic snuff-box, an assortment of marbles, 
 impressions of gems, or even a few antiques. The 
 gems, which are sold for antique in a city so full 
 of engravers, must be more doubtful than those 
 which come from the Levant. Many are notorious 
 forgeries : indeed the very multitude of those on 
 sale excites a suspicion of their antiquity. Yet 
 when we reflect on the passion which Italians 
 have ever betrayed for rings,* we must allow that 
 a iarge proportion of those gems may be genuine. 
 
 lure. So, at least, I should conclude from the Herculanean figures 
 called dancing girls, and even from Horace; 
 
 Cois tibi videre est 
 
 Ut nudam : ne crure malo sit, ne sit pede turpi. 
 
 Torlonia is raising a temple for this Hercules, which should stand 
 poetically on a perpendicular cliff. 
 
 * " In omni articulo gemma disponitur.'' — Senec. Rings were 
 anciently an object of state-regulation. At this day you seldom see 
 an Italian postilion, or vignerone without his cameo. A beggar once 
 in the very act of begging displayed to me a large paste-head on his 
 finger. To single rings add all the collections and dactyliothecx kept 
 or consecrated since the first offering of Scaurus; add the stones 
 which studded the fingers of the gods, the dresses of the great, and 
 
 VOL. I. U 
 
290 ROME. 
 
 Canova, KaufFman, Benvenuti, Denys, Thors- 
 valdeir, all the principal artists of Rome are foreign 
 to it. They came hither to form or to perfect 
 their style. Here they meet congenial society, 
 they catch inspirations from the sight of great 
 works, they contract a dependance on such helps, 
 and at last they can do nothing well out of Rome. 
 Poussin ascribed it to the air : I have heard An- 
 gelica say that the water of Rome revived her 
 powers, and gave her ideas. This amiable woman 
 is the idol of her invidious profession, the only 
 artist beloved by all the rest. 
 
 Ars utinam mores animumque effingere posset; 
 Pulchrior in terris nulla tabella foret. 
 
 the necks and arms of their little naked pages; add the innumerable 
 emblemata which were set in cups, statues, candlesticks, sword-hilts, 
 belts ; then consider how great a proportion of the ancient gems were 
 engraven, as the Romans sealed not only schedules and letters, but 
 also caskets, doors, chests and casks: consider how indestructible 
 such objects were, how easily preserved from barbarians, how greedi'v 
 treasured by the church ; and your doubts on the multitude of antique 
 gems will considerably abate. 
 
 THE END OF VOL. I. 
 
 London : Printed by C. Rowortli, 
 Bell-yard , Temple-bar. 
 
Yo-2^5 w>(