Read Ebook: Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France Italy and Germany Vol. 2 (of 2) by Piozzi Hester Lynch

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AEmilius Mamercus was a very pious consul, and when he served before with Genutius his colleague, made himself famous for driving the nail into Minerva's temple to stop the progress of the plague; he was therefore likely enough to encourage this superstitious worship of the beardless Jupiter.

Some books of geography, very old ones, had given me reason to make enquiry after a poisonous fountain in the rocks near Terracina. My enquiries were not vain. The fountain still exists, and whoever drinks it dies; though Martial says,

Sive salutiferis candidus Anxur acquis.

POPE'S ODYSSEY.

Where Circe dwelt, the daughter of the day.

That such enchantresses should inhabit such regions could have been scarce a wonder in Homer's time I trow; the same country still retains the same power of producing singers, to whom our English may with propriety enough cry out;

MILTON.

We have left these scenes of fabulous wonder and real pleasure however; left the warm vestiges of classic story, and places which have produced the noblest efforts of the human mind; places which have served as no ignoble themes for truly immortal song; all quitted now! all left for recollection to muse on, and for fancy to combine: but these eyes I fear will never more survey them. Well! no matter--

When like the baseless fabric of a vision, The cloud-capt tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea all which it inherit, shall dissolve; And like some unsubstantial pageant faded Leave not a wreck behind.

ROME.

The unstudied hilarity of Italians is very rejoicing to the heart, from one's consciousness that it is the result of cheerfulness really felt, not a mere incentive to happiness hoped for. The death of Carnovale, who was carried to his grave with so many candles suddenly extinguished at twelve o'clock last night, has restored us to a tranquil possession of ourselves, and to an opportunity of examining the beauties of nature and art that surround one.

St. Peter's church is incontestably the first object in this city, so crowded with single figures: That this church should be built in the form of a Latin cross instead of a Greek one may be wrong for ought I know; that columns would have done better than piers inside, I do not think; but that whatever has been done by man might have been done better, if that is all the critics want, I readily allow. This church is, after all their objections, nearer to perfect than any other building in the world; and when Michael Angelo, looking at the Pantheon, said, "Is this the best our vaunted ancestors could do? If so, I will shew the advancement of the art, in suspending a dome of equal size to this up in the air." he made a glorious boast, and was perhaps the only person ever existing who could have performed his promise.

The ceremony of washing the pilgrims feet is a pleasing one: it is seen in high perfection here at Rome; where all that the pope personally performs is done with infinite grace, and with an air of mingled majesty and sweetness, difficult to hit, but singularly becoming in him, who is both priest of God, and sovereign of his people.

Redde aquilam Caesari, Francorum lilia regi, Sydera redde polo, caetera Brasche tibi.

He shewed us the curiosities of his church, the finest in Rome next to St. Peter's, and had silver gates; but the plating is worn off and only the brass remains. There is an old Egyptian candlestick above five feet high preserved here, and many other singularities adorn the church. The Pillars are 136 in number, all marble, and each consisting of one unjoined and undivided piece; 40 of these are fluted, and two which did belong to a temple of Mars are seven feet and a half each in diameter. Here is likewise the place where Nero ran for refuge to the house of his freed-man, and in the cloister a stone, with this inscription on it,

Vendit Alexander claves, altaria, Christum, Vendere jure potest, emerat ille prius.

This Castle St. Angelo went once, I believe, under the name of the AElian Bridge, when the emperor Adrian first fixed his mind on making a monument for himself there. The soldiers of Belisarius are said to have destroyed numberless statues which then adorned it, by their odd manner of defending the place from the Gothic assaulters. It is now a sort of tower for the confinement of state prisoners; and decorated with many well-painted, but ill-kept pictures of Polydore and Julio Romano.

The fireworks exhibited here on Easter-day are the completest things of their kind in the world; three thousand rockets, all sent up into the air at once, make a wonderful burst indeed, and serve as a pretty imitation of Vesuvius: the lighting up of the building too on a sudden with fire-pots, had a new and beautiful effect; we all liked the entertainment vastly.

Habet sua fulmina Juno.

No such thing, however, could be found or heard of. Indeed a search after truth requires such patience, such penetration, and such learning, that it is no wonder she is so seldom got a glimpse of; whoever is diligently desirous to find her, is so perplexed by ignorance, so retarded by caution, so confounded by different explications of the same thing recurring at every turn, so sickened with silly credulity on the one hand, and so offended with pertness and pyrrhonism on the other, that it is fairly rendered impossible for one to keep clear of prejudices, while the steady resolution to do so becomes itself a prejudice.--But with regard to little follies, it is better to laugh at than lament them.

Villa Pamphili is a lovely place, or might be made so; but laying out pleasure grounds is not the forte of Italian taste. I never saw one of them, except Lomellino of Genoa, who had higher notions of a garden than what an opera scene affords; and that is merely a range of trees in great pots with gilded handles, and rows of tall cypresses planted one between every two pots, all straight over against each other in long lines; with an octangular marble bason to hold water in the middle, covered for the most part with a thick green scum.

At Villa Pamphili is a picture of Sanctorius, who made the weighing balance spoken of by Addison in the Spectator; it was originally contrived for the Pamphili Pope. And here is an old statue of Clodius profaning the mysteries of the Bona Dea, as we read in the Roman history. And here are camels working in the park like horses: we found them playing about at their leisure when we were at Pisa, and at Milan they were shewed for a show; so little does one state of Italy connect with another. These three cities cannot possibly be much further from each other than London, York, and Exeter; yet the manners differ entirely, and what is done in one place is not known at all in the other. It must be remembered that they are all separate states.

We were carried this morning to a cabinet of natural history belonging to another cardinal, but it did not answer the account given of it by our conductors.

Among the many tours that have been written, a musical tour, an astronomical tour, &c. I wonder we have never had a sepulchral tour, making the tombs of famous men its object of attention. That Raphael, Caracci, with many more people of eminence, sleep at the Pantheon, is however but a secondary consideration; few can think of the monuments in this church, till they have often contemplated its architecture, which is so finely proportioned that on first entering you think it smaller than it really is: the pillars are enormous, the shafts all of one piece, the composition Egyptian granite; these are the sixteen which support the portico built by Agrippa; whose car, adorned with trophies and drawn by brazen horses, once decorated the pediment, where the holes formed by the cramps which fastened it are still visible. Genseric changed the gate, and connoisseurs know not where he placed that which Agrippa made: the present gate is magnificent, but does not fit the place; much of the brass plating was removed by Urban the Eighth, and carried to St. Peter's: he was the Barberini pope; and of him the people said--

Barbarini faciunt barbara, &c.

But the Pantheon must not be quitted till we have mentioned its pavement, where the precious stones are not disposed, as in many churches, without taste or care, apparently by chance; here all is inlaid, so as to enchant the eye with its elegance, while it dazzles one with its riches: the black porphyry, in small squares, disposed in compartments, and inscribed as one may call it in pavonazzino perhaps; the red, bounded by serpentine; the granites, in giall antique, have an undescribable effect; no Florence table was ever so beautiful: nor can we here regret the caryatid pillars said by Pliny to have graced this temple in his time; while the four prodigious columns, two of Egyptian granite, two of porphyry, still remain, and replace them so very well. Montiosius, who sought for the pillars said by Pliny to have been placed by Diogenes, an Athenian architect, as supporters of this temple, relates however, that in the year 1580 he saw four of them buried in the ground as high as their shoulders: but it does not seem a tale much attended to; though I confess my own desire of digging, as he points out the place so exactly, on the right hand side of the portico. The best modern caryatids are in the old Louvre at Paris, done by Goujon; but those of Villa Albani are true antiques, perfect in beauty, inestimable in value.

After looking often at the pictures of St. Sebastian, I have now seen his church founded by Constantine: he lies here in white marble, done by Bernini; and here are more marvellous columns.--I am tired of looking out words to express their various merits.

As man perhaps the moment of his breath Receives the lurking principle of death; The young disease, which must subdue at length, Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength.

Every warehouse opened in every part of Europe, every settlement obtained abroad, facilitated their undoing, by loosening the band which tied them close together. Extremes can never keep their distance from each other, while human affairs trot but in a circle; and surely no stronger proof of that position can be found, than the sight of Quakers in Pensylvania, and Jesuits in Paraguay, who lived with their converted Indian neighbours, alike in harmony, and peace, and love.

Velati limo, et verben? tempora vincti;

which Servius explains at length, but gives no reason for the serpentine form, by some people exalted, particularly Mr. Hogarth, as nearly allied to the perfection of all possible grace. This looks hypothetical, but when the map of both hemispheres displayed before one, shews that the Sun's path forms the same line, called by pre-eminence Ecliptic, we will pardon their predilection in its favour.

Evil communication corrupts good manners.

And now with regard to the present state of morals at Rome, one must not judge from staring stories told one; it is like Heliogabalus's method of computing the number of his citizens from the weight of their cobwebs. It is wonderful to me the people are no worse, where no methods are taken to keep them from being bad.

Enlighten'd Europe with disdain Beholds the reverenc'd heathen train, Nor names them more in this her clearer day, Unless with fabled force to aid the poet's lay.

R. MERRY.

FROM ROME TO ANCONA.

The next day's drive carried us forward to Terni, where a severe concussion of the earth suffered only three nights since, kept all the little town in terrible alarm; the houses were deserted, the churches crowded, supplications and processions in every street, and people singing all night to the Virgin under our window.

Well! the next morning we hired horses for our gentlemen; a little cart, not inconvenient at all, for my maid and me; and scrambled over many rocks to view the far-famed waterfall, through a sweet country, pleasingly intersected with hedges and planted with vines; the ground finely undulated, and rising by gradations of hill till the eye loses itself among the lofty Appenines; surly as they seem, and one would think impervious; but against human art and human ambition, the boundary of rocks and roaring seas lift their proud heads in vain. Man renders them subservient to his imperial will, and forces them to facilitate, not impede his dominion; while ocean's self supports his ships, and the mountain yields marble to decorate his palace.

This is however no moment and no place to begin a panegyric upon the power of man, and of his skill to subjugate the works of nature, where the people are trembling at its past, and dreading its future effects.

The cascade we came to see is formed by the fall of a whole river, which here abruptly drops into the Nar, from a height so prodigious, and by a course so unbroken, that it is difficult to communicate, so as to receive the idea: for no eye can measure the depth of the precipice, such is the tossing up of foam from its bottom; and the terrible noise heard long before one arrives so stunned and confounded all my wits at once, that many minutes passed before I observed the horror in our conductors, who coming with us, then first perceived how the late earthquake had twisted the torrent out of its proper channel, and thrown it down another neighbouring rock, leaving the original bed black and deserted, as a dismal proof of the concussion's force.

One of our English friends who had visited Schaffhausen, made no difficulty to prefer this wonderful cascade to the fall of the Rhine at that place; and what with the fissures made in the ground by recent earthquakes, the sight of propt-up cottages which fright the fancy more than those already fallen, and the roar of dashing waters driven from their destined currents by what the people here emphatically term palpitations of the earth; one feels a thousand sensations of sublimity unexcited by less accidents, and soon obliterated by real danger.

Sulfure? Nar, albus acqua fontesque Velini,

says no more.

It was curious to see the devotees drag themselves round the holy house upon their knees; but the Santa Scala at Rome had shewn me the same operation performed with more difficulty; and a written injunction at bottom, less agreeable for Italians to comply with, than any possible prostration; viz. That no one should spit as he went up or down, except in his pocket-handkerchief. The lamps which burn night and day before the black image here at Loretto are of solid gold, and there is such a crowd of them I scarcely could see the figure for my own part; and that one may see still less, the attendant canons throw a veil over one's face going in.

But we must visit the apothecary's pots, painted by Raphael, and leave Loretto, to proceed along the side of this lovely sea, hearing the pilgrims sing most sweetly as they go along in troops towards the town, with now and then a female voice peculiarly distinguished from the rest: by this means a new image is presented to one's mind; the sight of such figures too half alarm the fancy, and give an air of distance from England, which nothing has hitherto inspired half so strongly. This charming Adriatic gulph beside, though more than delicious to drive by, does not, like the Mediterranean, convey homeish or familiar ideas; one feels that it belongs exclusively to Venice; one knows that ancient Greece is on the opposite shore, and that with a quick sail one should soon see Macedonia; and descending but a little to the southward, visit Athens, Corinth, Sparta, Thebes--seats of philosophy, freedom, virtue; whence models of excellence and patterns of perfection have been drawn for twenty succeeding centuries!

Here are plenty of nightingales, but they do not sing as well as in Hertfordshire: birds gain in colour as you approach the tropic, but they lose in song; under the torrid zone I have heard they never sing at all; with us in England the latest leave off by midsummer, when the work of incubation goes forward, and the parental duties begin: the nightingale too chuses the coolest hour; and though I have yet heard her in Italy only early in the mornings, Virgil knew she sung in the night:

Flet noctem, &c.

Ancona is a town perfectly agreeable to strangers, from the good humour with which every nation is received, and every religion patiently endured: something of all this the scholars say may be found in the derivation of its name, which being Greek I have nothing to do with. Pliny tells us its original, and says;

A Siculis condita est colonia Ancona.

That Dalmatia should be opposite, yet to us at present inaccessible, we all regret; I drank sea water however, so did not leave untasted the waves which Lucan speaks of:

Illic Dalmaticis obnoxia fluctibus Ancon.

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