Gleanings in Europe

G—— W—— has been here, and we have made a run together down to the coast. We parted in June last, you will recollect, in Amsterdam, he on his way to Moscow, and we on ours to Rome, where he is likely to arrive before us, as he is off already in that direction, and we still linger here on the banks of the Arno. The little excursion we made together is worthy of a passing word.

We left Florence in W——’s carriage, an excellent bachelor-like vehicle, on as cold a noon-tide as one often meets with in New York, even north of the highlands. These Apennines, which form a magnificent backbone for Italy, give the country a great diversity of climate, serving as a wall to heat it in summer, and as repositories of snow to cool it in winter. We were closely curtained and had the glasses up, and went ventre terre over the paved roads, and yet had great difficulty in keeping ourselves warm.

The first halt was at Pistoja, a town of some size, in which we amused ourselves for half an hour in looking at a church or two, as well as at some pictures. Taking a little refreshment, we proceeded at the old pace, and drove into the gate of Lucca, just as night had set in. Shivering with cold, for this little capital is in the heart of the mountains, we made our way into a room, and only began to recover the natural hue of our skins, when a dozen cones of the pine, well filled with resin, were in a bright blaze. These and a plentiful supply of faggots brought back the congealed vitality, whose current had almost frozen. A good supper and good beds reconciled us to life.

We were up betimes, and went forth to explore Lucca. The town stands on a plain, a mountain basin, and is walled in a semi-modern fashion. If good for nothing in the way of defence, the ramparts make an excellent promenade. We visited the churches and pictures as usual, and then took a fancy to examine the palace, a long, unornamented edifice in the heart of the place. The duke is travelling, and, pretty much as a matter of course, is out of his own dominions, which, though one of the most populous countries of Europe, possessing three hundred and thirty souls to the square mile, has not one hundred and fifty thousand people. When it is remembered that a large portion of even this small territory is mountain and nearly uninhabited gorges, you may form some notion of the manner in which the little plain itself is peopled. The town has only twenty-two thousand souls; but as we walked on the ramparts and overlooked the adjacent country, it seemed alive with peasants of both sexes, labouring in the fields. They resembled pigeons gleaning a stubble, literally forming lines of twenty or thirty, working with hoes. Indeed the agriculture was gardening.

Lucca was a republic, down to the period of the French revolution, about which time it was given to his sister Eliza by Napoleon, as a duchy. I believe the palace is owing to her taste, and to the expenditure of an imperial princess. We found it Parisian in style and arrangement, and in these particulars, I thought, superior even to Windsor. Nature has fitted the French to excel in mantua-making, upholstery, and philosophy.

After passing the morning in this manner, we took flight for Pisa. These republics must have had warm neighbourhoods formerly, for the distance between the two towns is only a single relay. The respective plains are separated by a noble pile of the Apennines, a mountain that is isolated, and which serves admirably as a party-wall between the capitals. The first glimpse we had of Pisa was of its tower and domes, the houses and walls lying so low as scarcely to come into the view. There was a line of respectable aqueduct, leading from the mountain, however, to give notice of the proximity of civilisation. The country, too, was fertile and well cultivated, but much less so than that of Lucca.

Pisa is a place to be seen, for it was once of note, and has curious remains of its former power. There is a palace, and the Tuscan court is here at this moment, passing a few weeks in it every winter, the town, nothwithstanding, is dull and half-depopulated, noble houses being to be had for prices almost nominal.

The chief interest of Pisa is concentrated in a single corner, where the cathedral, the baptistery, the Campo Santo, and the leaning tower are all to be found within a few feet of each other. They are all within the walls, as indeed is a good deal of vacant ground; both Florence and Pisa, like Rome, appearing to have shrunk from their ancient dimensions.

You probably know that it is a disputed point whether the tower, or campanile, was built at its present inclination, or whether it sunk on one side from a defect in the foundations. I shall take side with those who espouse the former opinion. By looking at an engraving you will perceive that this tower is composed of seven distinct compartments, externally, each being ornamented with its own columns. Internally it is merely a circular flight of steps, that lead to the gallery of the bells. Now the four lowest of these compartments lean materially, the two next less, and the last is almost, if not absolutely, perpendicular. I think these facts go to show that the tower was built in this form; for had it sunk when only half completed, it is scarcely probable that the artist would have persevered: he would have taken down the materials and laid the foundations anew. Then there is no crack, no dislocation of the columns, not the least derangement of the parts within or without, to denote a violent change of position. The principal reasons for supposing that it has sunk since erected, are the manner in which one side of the foundation appears to be buried, and the fact that there is an ancient painting which represents the tower as upright.

As for the first of these facts, it strikes me that an architect silly enough to erect such a monstrosity would be as likely to begin his folly at the bottom as any where else. The painting may be explained. It is a fresco picture of the town, in the cloisters of the Campo Santo, and no part of the tower is represented but the summit, which appears above the adjoining buildings. I have told you already that this summit is perpendicular, or so nearly so as to have that appearance when abstracted from the rest of the tower. Besides, the tower itself leans but one way, and taken in two positions, it of course presents nothing extraordinary. Now the view in the picture is precisely in one of these positions, or en profile. You will remember, moreover, that the bit of tower seen in the painting is but small, and that it is an accessory in which foreshortening would not be much attended to had the artist been equal to such an attempt: but, in fact, the whole work is of no great merit, and the entire perspective is indifferent.

I am of opinion that this tower was built as it now stands, until a point was reached where the architect thought it necessary to vary the line, which, it would seem, he did twice before reaching the summit. Caprices of this sort are not unknown; most men, indeed, fancying it a greater achievement of genius to make a thing that is extravagant than a thing whose merit consists in its exquisite fitness. A thousand will exclaim at the manner in which cloth, or a bit of lace, is represented in a picture or a statue, to one who will fully feel the beauty and repose of the expression of either.

The effect of the leaning tower, when standing in the upper gallery, is what one might imagine. It requires a slight effort of reason to look down without a sensation of fear; for it is like looking over a precipice. The view is fine, and for the first time in twenty years I got a sight of the blue waters of the Mediterranean. We saw the island of Gorgona, and overlooked a sea of plain. Had the day been finer, we should have enjoyed the prospect more.

The cathedral is a droll medley of beauty, and of a barbarous taste. The dome struck me as low and mean, and some of the details as good as others are bad. But these are subjects of which I say little, too many folios already existing on such matters. I liked the baptistery very much.

As for the Campo Santo, who has not heard of it? It is contained within cloisters, the monuments being under cover, and the space occupied by the bodies is not larger than a considerable court in a palace. In this place one might pass weeks in agreeable but melancholy contemplation. In the baptistery we saw a priest by the font, muttering something, and drawing near, found he was baptising a child. Religious rites, under establishments, get to be rather common-place.

There are few spots in Europe of superior interest to this corner of Pisa; and yet there is a little chapel on the quay, called Santa Maria della Spina, that is worthy to be here, the tradition running that it is the repository of a thorn from the crown of the Saviour. It is a miniature edifice of marble, and one of the most grotesque little things I have ever seen, in its way; quite equal to the celebrated town-house of Louvain. The style is termed here il Gotico Moresco, to distinguish it from il Tedesco, or what is here called the German Gothic. There is a good deal of Moorish architecture in Tuscany, or that which approaches it, if not quite pure, the court of the Medici palace at Florence being in this oriental style. I think it singularly beautiful in its place, especially for cloisters and courts. The chapel in question is of black and white marble,—a taste that suits its general quaintness, but which impairs the majesty of severer architecture.

After passing the night in Pisa, we galloped across the wide plain to Leghorn. The sea-air was grateful, even in winter, and I snuffed the odour of this delightful sea with a delight that was “redolent of joy and youth.” We got into a very good inn kept by a Scotchman, and soon exhausted the wonders of the place. It is not easy for one who has not been in Europe, to appreciate the difference that exists between its capitals and its commercial towns. Leghorn is rather an interesting town, and has even a few respectable points of poetic interest; but it had an atmosphere of trade, that struck us forcibly on entering it. It has canals within the walls, is fortified, and has some very good streets.

We ordered dinner, and hurried off to the port. Here we feasted our eyes on the different picturesque rigs and peculiar barks of this poetical sea. Long years had gone by since I had seen the felucca, the polacre, the xebec and the sparranara, and all the other quaint-looking craft of the Mediterranean: for, whatever may be said of the utilitarian qualities of our own vessels, poetry has had no more to do with them than it has had to do with any thing else in the land. I do not believe we are without poetic feeling as a people; but we are sadly deficient in the ordinary appliances of the art. As we strolled along the mole and quays, we met several men from the Levant; and an Algerine Rais was calmly smoking his chibouque on the deck of his polacre.

Observing the eagerness with which I surveyed these objects, our laquais de place declared, it was a pity we had not been in Leghorn ten days earlier, as we might then have found a ship worth seeing, the Delaware, American man-of-war. We sneered at this information, and asked him what a people like the Americans could produce that was worth examining? “I thought so too, gentlemen,” he answered; “but the Delaware was the finest ship that has ever been at Leghorn, as every one admits.” “Of course her crew were black?” “Not so, signore: I expected that too; but they were all as white as we are:” which perhaps was not so literally true.

The only people in Europe who have a respectful opinion of the Americans are those who see their ships: and these are getting to entertain notions that are a little extravagant the wrong way.

Leghorn was the first sea-port that I had entered since leaving Holland, and its delicious odours were inhaled with a delight that no language can describe. I had been living in an atmosphere of poetry for many months, and this was truly an atmosphere of life. The fragrance of the bales of merchandise, of the piles of oranges—of even the mud, saturated as it was with salt—to say nothing of the high seasoning of occasional breathings of tar and pitch, to me were pregnant “with odours of delight.” Still I found that residences in European capitals, and among the Alps and Apennines, is creating a strong distaste for all the more common appliances of commerce. Leghorn seemed vulgar and mean, after Florence, with its pretty little court, its museums and its refinements; and the only things that interested us were the sea, the port, the picturesque vessels, the fragrance, and a cemetery for the Protestant dead.

The Island of Gorgona was looming in the haze, a hummock of rock, and it is said there are days on which the mountains of Corsica are visible from the mole. There is also a noble dark pile at no great distance from the town, which is, appropriately enough, called Monte Nero. Its side is garnished with country-houses, and there is a church near its summit that is in great repute among mariners, as a shrine at which offerings are to be made for deliveries from the casualties of the sea: I believe its name is that of Our Lady of the Storms. These Catholics have certainly got all the poetry of the religion.

We went to the Protestant cemetery, which contains many American graves, and among others, that of Captain Gamble, who died here, in command of the Erie, about ten years ago. This gentleman, one of four brothers in the service, had been my messmate on Lake Ontario some twenty years before, and it was startling to find myself unexpectedly standing over his grave in the other hemisphere. On examining the monuments near, I was still more startled at reading the name of “Tobias Smollett” on one of them. He is known to have come to Italy to terminate his worldly career. The “Siste Viator” applies with force to those who speak English, and who find themselves unexpectedly standing over such a grave!

We soon exhausted the sights of Leghorn and returned to Pisa, where we slept. The weather was intensely cold, and we sat shivering over a bad fire until it was time to retire. I would advise no consumptive person to come to Italy, in the expectation of finding a more genial climate than can be got in America. The West Indies offer many more suitable spots for the malady; and a man of science at Paris has told me that the temperature of St. Augustine is known to be more mild and equal than that of any other place in the world, of which there are authentic journals of the changes of weather. Every one here tells me that the patients usually come to die; a fact to which the Leghorn cemetery bears ample testimony. It were a worthy object for the government to push St. Augustine, if for no other purpose than to render it comfortable to invalids.

The next day we returned to Florence, by the great route, reaching the gates of the town in time to dine. The weather had become more mild, and we were struck with the beauty of the peasant girls, many of whom were sitting in the sun, and a fair proportion of whom had pretentions to some of that pastoral prettiness of which the poets delight to speak. These were the first females of the class, however, that had the smallest claims to beauty, which it had been my good fortune to meet with in Europe, out of England. Hitherto I had seen occasional exceptions, but on this road we actually met with rural beauties in crowds. I attribute the circumstance to their employment; for most of them were plaiting straw for hats.