Gleanings in Europe

As it was our intention to pass the winter here, old Caspar was discharged, and we took lodgings. Florence is full of noble hotels, which are termed palaces in the language of the country, and, few families still retaining a sufficient portion of the ancient wealth to occupy the whole of such huge edifices, apartments are let in them, furnished, or not, as it may happen, on the French plan. Hunting for lodgings gives one a good idea of the domestic economy of a place, for we entered some twenty or thirty of these palaces with this object. Rooms are unusually cheap, notwithstanding the number of strangers who resort to the place, for the town has shrunk to less than half its ancient population, and probably to a tithe of its ancient magnificence.

We become fully impressed with the changes that time produces, not only in things, but in the moral aspect of the world, by seeing a town like Florence. In our age, the man who should dream of making an inland place, in the heart of the Apennines, the focus of trade, would be set down as a simpleton; nor could any powers of combination or of wealth now overcome the efforts of those who would naturally resort to more favourable positions.

These old merchants, however, men who truly ennobled commerce, and not commerce them, have left behind them more durable remains of their ascendency than can be seen in almost any other place. As they were not particularly pacific, the constant struggles of factions in the streets induced a style of architecture that is almost peculiar to Florence, for every palace is a sort of fortress. We took an apartment in one that belongs to an ancient family who still inhabit a portion of the building, and as our rooms are on the street, we may be said to occupy the fortress. The great gate is of iron, and the great stairs, of course, massive and solid. The lower floor is occupied only for the offices and stables. Then comes what is called a mezzinino, or a low story, with small windows, but which has some very good rooms. Above this is our apartment, with ceilings nearly twenty feet high, large rooms all en suite, and windows to look out of which we ascend two steps. The walls would bear considerable battering, though the position of the house protected it from any danger of such a nature. Forty or fifty stout-hearted retainers, and the number would not be great for the old Florentines, must have been able to stand a respectable siege in such an abode.

You will ask me what are my impressions, on finding myself entrenched behind such works, with a thousand recollections of the Medici and the Strozzi, and the Capponi, to awaken the love of the romantic and interesting? Alas! I am filled with the consciousness of the impotency of man, who, after rearing these piles, and guarding against the violence and ungovernable passions of his fellows, is obliged to allow that all his resources cannot keep out the musquitoes.

We have two noble bed-rooms, besides several smaller; a large drawing-room, and a larger dining-room; a good cabinet for myself; an ante-chamber, and baths, offices, &c., &c., all furnished, for the moderate sum of sixty dollars a month. We have ten good rooms in all, besides the offices.

Our hotel has a small court, and, I believe, a garden; though I have not had access to the latter. By the side of the great gate is a small hole in the wall, closed in general by a shutter. At eleven o’clock every day, people come to this shutter and rap, and it is opened by a steward of the family. The applicant puts in an empty flask and a paul (ten cents), receiving in return a flask filled with wine. In this manner, I understand, most of the great families of Florence now dispose of the products of their vines! It would be curious to learn if the Medici carried on this trade. The wine of our palace is among the best of Tuscany, and I drink it with great satisfaction; the more so because its cost is about four cents the bottle. It is positively much better wine than half the claret that is drunk in Paris. Twice a week, a donkey appears in the court, dragging a little cart filled with flasks from the estate, and carrying away the “dead soldiers.” We are, however, a little above the market, as our wine commands fully a cent a flask, or about four mills a bottle, more than most of the Tuscan liquor.

We burn in our lamps oil that you would be happy to get on your lobsters and salads. In other respects the market is good, and cloths are both fine and cheap, finer and cheaper than I remember to have seen them any where else, and yet they are imported! The shop-keepers are moderate in their wishes, preferring the dolce far niente to the more terrible energies of trade.

There is a sleepy indolence in these Italians, that singularly suits my humour. They seem too gentlemanlike to work, or to be fussy, but appear disposed to make a siesta of life, and to enjoy the passing moment. The Tuscans seem full of sentiment, and though the poor, as is the case all over the continent of Europe, are very poor, the class immediately above them have as much satisfaction, I fancy, as they who dream dollars and talk dollars from “the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same.” If you ask me if I would exchange populations and habits, I shall answer, we cannot afford it. It would check our career short of perfect civilisation. We have arts to acquire, and tastes to form, before we could enter at all into the enjoyments of these people; one half of their pleasures depending on recollections that possibly may have had their origin in the energies of the first of the Medici; and there are things that must be created, but which give more satisfaction in after ages than during the period of their formation. For myself, I begin to feel I could be well content to vegetate here for one half my life, to say nothing of the remainder. All who travel know that the greatest pleasure is in the recollections; and I fancy that nations in their decline enjoy more true happiness than nations in their advance.

Of course, I have visited the Venus, and the Pitti, and all the other marvels of art that Florence contains. These things have been so often described, that my remarks shall be limited to such gleanings as others appear to have left, or as are suggested by my own passing feelings. The tribune of the gallery contains the most precious collection of ancient art, perhaps, in the world. Every thing in it is a chef-d’œuvre in its way; though I am far from seeing the necessity of believing that every old statue that is exhumed is an original. When I was introduced into this place, I felt as if approaching the presence of illustrious personages, and stood, hat in hand, involuntarily bowing to the circle of marble figures that surrounded me, as if they were endowed with sensibilities to appreciate my homage. You are not, however, to suppose that a love of art was so much at the bottom of this reverence, as association. There was a set of engravings in my father’s house that represented most of the antique statues, and for these I had imbibed the respect of a child. The forms had become familiar by years of observation, and the Venus, the wrestlers, the dancing faun, and the knife grinder, four of my oldest acquaintances on paper, now stood before my eyes, looking like living beings.

Florence is walled, but it is in the style of three or four centuries ago, and the defences may be set down as of no account in the warfare of our own times. There is a citadel, however, of a more warlike character, reserved, I suspect, for state purposes. The walls are picturesque, but, failing of the great military object, they are next to useless, as they are not provided with promenades. Au reste, they are a little Jerichoish, or as I have already described those of Morat to be.

Economy, the galleries, the facility with which one obtains lodgings, caprice and the court, unite to make Florence a favourite residence with strangers. The court has a little more of air and pretension than it might otherwise possess, from the circumstance of the sovereign being an archduke. Tuscany, however, is a respectable state, having nearly a million and a half of subjects, with Lucca in reversion.

Among the strangers the English and Russians predominate; especially the former, who are found in swarms, on the continent, in all the most agreeable places of residence. The policy of the Tuscan government encourages diplomatic appointments, and I belive all the great courts of Europe have ministers here, the French, Russians, English, Austrians, and Prussians have ministers plenipotentiaries, and many other chargés d’affaires. All these things contribute to render the place gay; nor is it without brilliancy at times, the little court appearing at the festivals and other ceremonies with sufficient pomp. I shall not philosophise on these things, but I fancy they do more good and less harm than is commonly thought by us democrats. I have often compared the agrémens of this little town with those of one of our own larger cities. New York, which is four times as large as Florence, and ten times as rich, does not possess a tithe—nay, not a hundredth part of its attractions. To say nothing of taste, or of the stores of ancient art, or of the noble palaces and churches, and the other historical monuments the circle of living creatures here affords greater sources of amusement and instruction than are to be found in all the five great American towns put together. Every one appears to be at leisure, and the demon money seems to be forgotten, unless, indeed, he occasionally shows his talons at the gaming-table. An evening party offers the oddest collection of human beings imaginable; for the natives of half the civilised countries of the world appear to have met on neutral ground in this little capital, the government having the liberality to tolerate even men of political opinions that are elsewhere proscribed. I met at a soirée, lately, besides a proper sprinkling of Tuscans, and Italians from the other parts of Italy, French, Swiss, Germans from half a dozen states, English, Russians, Greeks, Americans from several different countries, Dutch, an Algerine, an Egyptian, and a Turk. There were, in addition, sundry adventurers from the islands of the Mediterranean.

This is the age of cosmopolitism, real or pretended; and Florence, just at this moment, is an epitome, both of its spirit and of its representatives. So many people travel, that one is apt to ask who can be left at home; and some aim at distinction in this era of migration by making it a point to see every thing. Of this number is a certain Count di V——, whom I met in America just before leaving home. This gentleman went through the United States, tablets in hand, seeming to be dissatisfied with himself if he quitted one of our common-place towns with a hospital unexamined, a mineral unregistered, or a church unentered. It struck me at the time that he was making a toil of a pleasure, especially in a country that has so little worth examining. But a short time since, I dined with my banker here. At table, I was seated between the Marchese G——, a Sardinian, and the Baron P——, a Neapolitan. Alluding to the locomotive propensities of our times, I mentioned the ardour for travelling, and the industry I had witnessed in the aforesaid Count di V——. Signor G—— told me that he knew him intimately, having himself visited all the North of Europe in his company, previously to which his friend had explored Greece, Egypt, Northern Africa, and the West of Asia, by himself. “When he left the United States,” continued Signor G——, “it was to go—where?” “To the West Indies and Mexico.” “True; and from the latter he came through Columbia to Brazil, where I was at the time. He left me there to cross the Andes, and I cannot tell you what has become of him.” “Why do you not come to the East Indies?” said an English woman to me the same evening, and to whom I had been introduced as to a lady who lived in that part of the world, but who had taken run from Calcutta to pass the summer in Switzerland, and the winter in Italy. “I fancy few mere travellers get as far as Hindostan?” “Oh, we have them occasionally. Now, the winter before I left home, we had one for several weeks in our own house; he only left us to go to the Himalayah mountains and return a few months before I sailed.”—“An Englishman, of course?”—“No, indeed; an Italian.”—“Pray, ma’am, was it Count Carlo di V——!”—“Yes it was.”—“And may I ask what has become of him?”—“He left Calcutta to go to Ceylon and Manilla, on his way to China.” So much for our own times![1]

The strangers are at the head of the gaiety of this place, few of the Florentines receiving much. In this number may be included Prince Borghese, the brother-in-law of Napoleon, an amiable, well-intentioned, and modest man, who has abandoned Rome, his proper country, to reside here, where he maintains a good stile, opening his palace periodically for the reception of all who choose to come. Then we have, besides the regular exhibitions of the town, rival houses in two English theatres, with amateur-performers; at the head of one of which is Lord B——, and at the head of the other Lord N——. At the latter only, however, can one be said to see the legitimate drama; the other running rather into music,——an experiment not to be idly attempted in Italy.

We have seen Shakspeare in the hands of these noble actors once or twice, and found the representation neither quite good enough to please, nor yet bad enough to laugh at. Occasionally, a character was pretty well represented; but the natural facility of the other sex in acting was sufficiently apparent, the women making out much better than the men. It was like all private theatricals, well enough for a country house, but hardly in its place in the capital of Tuscany. We had a specimen of the feeling of the English towards America, as well as of national manners, the other evening, that is worth a passing notice. One of the players sang, with a good deal of humour, a comic song, that attempted to delineate national traits. There was a verse or two appropriated to the English, the French, the Germans, &c. &c. and the finale was an American. The delineations of all the first were common-place enough; the humour consisting chiefly in the mimicry, the ideas themselves having no particular merit. But the verse for the American seemed to be prepared with singular care, and was given with great unction. It represented a quasi Western man, who is made to boast that he is the lad to eat his father, whip his mother, and to achieve other similar notable exploits. I do not know that I am absolutely destitute of an appreciation of wit or humour, but certainly, it struck me this attempt was utterly without either. It was purely an exaggerated and coarse caricature, positively suited only to the tastes of a gallery in a sea-port town. The other verses had been laughed at, as silly drollery, perhaps; but this was received with—how shall I express it?—a yell of delight would not be a term too strong!

No one is more ready to give proper credit to the just-mindedness and liberality of a portion of the English than myself: but the truth would not be told, were I to leave you under the impression that their tone prevails even among the better classes of their society, in relation to ourselves. You will remember that this song was not given to the pit or galleries of an ordinary theatre, but to a society in which there were none beneath the station of gentlemen, and that I should deem this caricature altogether beneath the intelligence and breeding of the company, were it not for the singular rapture with which it was greeted. It is a much more laughable commentary on this extraordinary scene, that, just as it was finished, the Count di —— leaned over and whispered to me that the dislike and “jealousy” (I use his own words) of the English for the Americans seemed inappeasable! I observed that the side of the room that was chiefly occupied by the people of rank was mute, the nobles maintaining a cold and polished indifference; but in the other end of the sala, which was filled with half-pay officers and the hoi polloi of the travellers, the yell was quite suited to the theme. One might have fancied it the murdered father shrieking under the knife of the parricidal son.

At the receptions of Don Camillo Borghese, as the Romans style him, one sees most of the strangers. These entertainments are dansantes, and, as the rooms are large and the music noble, they are imposing; though the company is far from being of the purest water. As a proof of this, a noisy party preceded us, the other evening, the young men calling out to each other, “Where is the fat man?”—“Now for the fat man,” &c. the prince being almost unwieldy from his size. Waltzes are the favourite dances; though no people know how to waltz but the Germans—or, indeed, to play the necessary airs, but their musicians. It has struck me that I have seen no people who had the organ of time, but the Germans and the negroes of America: and a waltz without the utmost accuracy in the movement is a ridiculous dance. I have observed that the young women of condition in France and Italy were not often permitted to join in this dance, by their mothers, with men as partners, unless the latter were near connexions; and as the latter arrangement cannot well be made in a public ball, none joined in the waltzes here.

As a specimen of the sort of omnium gatherum that Florence has become, I will give you a list of some of the notables that were seen, recently, in the first row of the Pergola, the principal opera-house, here. First, there was the Count St. Leu, as he is styled, or the ex-king of Holland. Near him was the Prince de Monfort, his brother, or the ex-king of Westphalia. In the same row was Mrs. Patterson, once the wife of the last-named personage. At no great distance was Prince Henry of Prussia, a brother of the reigning king. In the same line, and at no great distance, sat Madame Christophe, ex-empress of Hayti, with a daughter or two. In addition to these, there was a pretty sprinkling of chiefs of revolutions, littérateurs of all nations, ex-ambassadors, and politicians en retraite, to say nothing of mere people of fashion.

The winter has come upon us sharply, ice forming freely in the ditches around the town, and skates being brought into requisition. I have seen snow impending over us, in falling clouds even, but it vanishes before it reaches the ground: though the Apennines are occasionally powdered. Once, and once only, a little has lain in the streets, but not long enough, or in sufficient quantities to enable one to say it has covered the stones. Still it is snapping cold, and we find our good wood fires as comfortable as in New York.