Firenze la bella! Who can look at her from any of the terraced hills that enclose her from the rude world, and deny her that title? That fertile plain which stretches from her very walls to the edge of the horizon – those picturesque hills, dotted with lovely villas – those orchards and vineyards, in their glory of gold and purple – that river, stealing noiselessly to the sea – and far away the hoary peaks of the Apennines, changing their hue with every hour of sunlight, and displaying their most gorgeous robes, in honour of the departing day, – I pity the man who can look upon them without a momentary feeling of inspiration. The view from Fiesole is consolation enough for a life of disappointment, and ought to make all future earthly trials seem as nothing to him who is permitted to enjoy it.
And then, those domes and towers, so eloquent of the genius of Giotto and Brunelleschi and of the public spirit and earnest devotion of ages which modern ignorance stigmatizes as "dark," – who can behold them without a thrill? The battlemented tower of the Palazzo Vecchio – which seems as if it had been hewn out of solid rock, rather than built up by the patient labour of the mason – looks down upon the peaceful city with a composure that seems almost intelligent, and makes you wonder whether it appeared the same when the signiory of Florence held their councils under its massive walls, and in those dark days when the tyrannous factions of Guelph and Ghibelline celebrated their bloody carnival. The graceful Campanile of the cathedral, with its coloured marbles, seems too much like a mantel ornament to be exposed to the changes of the weather. Amid the other domes and towers of the city rises the vast dome of the cathedral, the forerunner of that of St. Peter's, and almost its equal. It appears to be conscious of its superiority to the neighbouring architectural monuments, and merits Hallam's description – "an emblem of the Catholic hierarchy under its supreme head; like Rome itself, imposing, unbroken, unchangeable, radiating in equal expansion to every part of the earth, and directing its convergent curves to heaven."
There is no city in the world so full of memories of the middle ages as Florence. Its very palaces, with their heavily barred basement windows, look as if they were built to stand a siege. Their sombre walls are in strong contrast with the bloom and sunshine which we naturally associate with the valley of the Arno. Their magnificent proportions and the massiveness of their construction oppress you with recollections of the warlike days in which they were erected. You wonder, as you stand in their courtyards, or perambulate the streets darkened by their overhanging cornices, what has become of all the cavaliers; and if a gentleman in "complete steel" should lift his visor to accost you, it would not startle you so much as to hear two English tourists with the inevitable red guide-books under their arms, conversing about the "Grand Juke." Wherever one may turn his steps in Florence, he meets with some object of beauty or historical interest; yet among all these charms and wonders there is one building upon which my eyes and mind are never tired of feeding. The Palazzo Riccardi, the cradle of the great Medici family, is not less impressive in its architecture than in its historic associations. Its black walls have a greater charm for me than the variegated marbles of the Duomo. It was built by the great Cosmo de' Medici, and was the home of that family of merchant princes in the most glorious period of its history, when a grateful people delighted to render to its members that homage which is equally honourable to "him that gives and him that takes." The genius of Michel Angelo and Donatello is impressed upon it. It was within those lofty halls that Cosmo and his grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent, welcomed pontiffs and princes, and the illustrious but untitled nobility of literature and art, which was the boast of their age. The ancient glories of the majestic pile are kept in mind by an inscription which greets him who enters it with an exhortation to "reverence with gratitude the ancient mansion of the Medici, in which not merely so many illustrious men, but Wisdom herself abode – a house which was the nurse of revived learning."
I wonder whether any one ever was tired of strolling about these old streets and squares. At my time of life, walking is not particularly agreeable, even if it be not interfered with by either of those foes to active exercise and grace of movement – rheumatism or gout; but I must acknowledge that I have found such pleasure in rambling through the familiar streets of this delightful city, that I have taken no note of bodily fatigue, and have forgotten the crutch or cane which is my inseparable companion. It is all the same to me whether I walk about the streets, or loiter in the Boboli Gardens, or listen to the delicious music of the full military band that plays daily for an hour before sunset under the shade of the Cascine. They all afford me a kind of vague pleasure – very much that sort of satisfaction which springs from hearing a cat purr, or from watching the fitful blaze of a wood fire. I have no fondness for jewelry, and the great Kohinoor diamond and all the crown jewels of Russia could not invest respectable uselessness or aristocratic vice with any beauty for me, nor add any charm to a bright, intelligent face, such as lights up many a home in this selfish world; yet I have spent hours in looking at the stalls on the Jeweller's Bridge, and enjoying the covetous looks bestowed by so many passers-by upon their glittering contents.
There are some excellent bookstalls here, and I have renewed the joys of past years and the memory of Paternoster Row, Fleet Street, Holborn, the Strand, and of the quays of Paris, in the inspection of their stock. I have a strong affection for bookstalls, and had much rather buy a book at one than in a shop. In the first place it would be cheaper; in the second place it would be a little worn, and I should become the possessor, not only of the volume, but of its associations with other lovers of books who turned over its leaves, reading here and there, envying the future purchaser. For books, so long as they are well used, increase in value as they grow in age. Sir William Jones's assertion, that "the best monument that can be erected to a man of literary talents is a good edition of his works," is not to be denied; but who would think of reading, for the enjoyment of the thing, a modern edition of Sir Thomas Browne, or Izaak Walton? Who would wish to read Hamlet in a volume redolent of printers' ink and binders' glue? Who would read a clean new copy of Robinson Crusoe when he might have one that had seen service in a circulating library, or had been well thumbed by several generations of adventure-loving boys? A book is to me like a hat or coat – a very uncomfortable thing until the newness has been worn off.
It is in the churches of Florence that my enthusiasm reaches its meridian. This solemn cathedral, with its richly dight windows, – whose warm hues must have been stolen from the palette of Titian or Tintoretto, – makes me forget all earthly hopes and sorrows; and the majestic Santa Maria Novella and San Lorenzo, with their peaceful cloisters and treasures of literature and art, appeal strongly to my religious sensibilities, while they completely satisfy my taste. And then Santa Croce, solemn, not merely as a place of worship, but as the repository of the dust of many of those illustrious men whose genius illumined the world during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries! I have enjoyed Santa Croce particularly, because I have seen more of the religious life of the Florentine people there. For more than a week I have been there every evening, just after sunset, when the only light that illuminated those ancient arches came from the high altar, which appeared like a vision of heaven in the midst of the thickest darkness of earth. The nave and aisles of that vast edifice were thronged: men, women, and children were kneeling upon that pavement which contains the records of so much goodness and greatness. I have heard great choirs; I have been thrilled by the wondrous power of voices that seemed too much like those of angels for poor humanity to listen to; but I have never before been so overwhelmed as by the hearty music of that vast multitude.
The galleries of art need another volume and an abler pen than mine. Free to the people as the sunlight and the shade of the public gardens, they make an American blush to think of the niggardly spirit that prevails in the country which he would fain persuade himself is the most favoured of all earthly abodes. The Academy, the Pitti, the Uffizi, make you think that life is too short, and that art is indeed long. You wish that you had more months to devote to them than you have days. Great as is the pleasure that I have found in them, I have found myself lingering more fondly in the cloisters and corridors of San Marco than amid the wonderful works that deck the walls of the palaces. The pencil of Beato Angelico has consecrated that dead plastering, and given to it a divine life. The rapt devotion and holy tranquillity of those faces reflect the glory of the eternal world. I ask no more convincing proof of the immortality of the soul, than the fact that those forms of beauty and holiness were conceived and executed by a mortal.
It is enough to excite the indignation of any reflective Englishman or American to visit Florence, and compare – or perhaps I ought rather to say contrast – the facts which force themselves upon his attention, with the prejudices implanted in his mind by early education. Surely, he has a right to be astonished, and may be excused if he indulges in a little honest anger, when he looks for the first time at the masterpieces of art which had their origin in those ages which he has been taught to consider a period of ignorance and barbarism. He certainly obtains a new idea of the "barbarism" of the middle ages, when he visits the benevolent institutions which they have bequeathed to our times, and when he sees the admirable working of the Compagnia della Misericordia, which unites all classes of society, from the grand duke to his humblest subject, in the bonds of religion and philanthropy. He may be pardoned, too, if he comes to the conclusion that the liberal arts were not entirely neglected in the age that produced a Dante and a Petrarch, a Cimabue and a Giotto, – not to mention a host of other names, which may not shine so brightly as these, but are alike superior to temporal accidents, – and he cannot be considered unreasonable if he refuses to believe that the ages which witnessed the establishment of universities like those of Paris, Oxford, Cambridge, Prague, Bologna, Salamanca, Vienna, Ferrara, Ingolstadt, Louvain, Leipsic, &c., were quite so deeply sunk in darkness, or were held in an intellectual bondage so utterly hopeless, as the eulogists of the nineteenth century would persuade him. The monuments of learning, art, and benevolence, with which Florence is filled, will convince any thinking man that those who speak of the times I have alluded to as the "dark ages," mean thereby the ages concerning which they are in the dark; and admirably exemplify in their own shallow self-sufficiency the ignorance they would impute to the ages when learning and all good arts were the handmaids of religion.
ANCIENT ROME
The moment in which one takes his first look at Rome is an epoch in his life. Even if his education should have been a most illiberal one, and he himself should be as strenuous an opponent of pontifical prerogatives as John of Leyden or Dr. Dowling, he is sure to be, for the time, imbued in some measure with the feelings of a pilgrim. The sight of that city which has exercised such a mighty influence on the world, almost from its very foundation, fills his mind with "troublings of strange joy." His vague notions of ancient history assume a more distinct form. The twelve Cæsars pass before his mind's eye like the spectral kings before the Scotch usurper. The classics which he used to neglect so shamefully at school, the historical lessons which he thought so dull, have been endowed with life and interest by that one glance of his astonished eye. But if he loved the classics in his youth, – if the wanderings of Æneas and the woes of Dido charmed instead of tiring him, – if "Livy's pictured page," the polished periods of Sallust and Tacitus, and the mighty eloquence of Cicero, were to him a mine of delight rather than a task, – how does his eye glisten with renewed youth, and his heart swell as his old boyish enthusiasm is once more kindled within it! He feels that he has reached the goal to which his heart and mind were turned during his purest and most unselfish years; and if he were as unswayed by human respect as he was then, he would kneel down with the travel-worn pilgrims by the wayside to give utterance to his gratitude, and to greet the queen city of the world: Salve, magna parens!
I shall not easily forget the cloudless afternoon when I first took that long, wearisome ride from Civita Vecchia to Rome. There was no railway in those days, as there is now, and the diligence was of so rude and uncomfortable a make that I half suspected it to be the one upon the top of which Hannibal is said to have crossed the Alps, (summâ diligentiâ.) I shared the coupé with two other sufferers, and was, like them, so fatigued that it seemed as if a celestial vision would be powerless to make me forgetful of my aching joints, when (after a laborious pull up a hill which might be included among the "everlasting hills" spoken of in holy writ) our long-booted postilion turned his expressive face towards us, and banished all our weariness by exclaiming, as he pointed into the blue distance with his short whip-handle, "Ecco! Roma! San Pietro!"
A single glance of the eye served to overcome all our fatigue. There lay the world's capital, crowned by the mighty dome of the Vatican basilica, and we were every moment drawing nearer to it. It was evening before we found ourselves staring at those dark walls which have withstood so many sieges, and heard the welcome demand for passports, which informed us that we had reached the gate of the city.
I was really in Rome, – I was in that city hallowed by so many classical, historical, and sacred associations, – and it all seemed to me like a confused dream. Twice, before the diligence had gone a hundred yards inside the gate, I had pinched myself to ascertain whether I was really awake; and even after I passed through the lofty colonnade of St. Peter's, and had gazed at the front of the church and the vast square which art has made familiar to every one, and had seen the fountains with the moonbeams flashing in their silvery spray, I feared lest something should interrupt my dream, and I should wake to find myself in my snug bedroom at home, wondering at the weakness which allowed me to be seduced into the eating of a bit of cheese the evening before. It was not so, however; no disorganizing cheese had interfered with my digestion; it was no dream; and I was really in Rome. I slept soundly when I reached my hotel, for I felt sure that no hostile Brennus lay in wait to disturb the city's peace, and the grateful hardness of my bed convinced me that all the geese of the capital had not been killed, if the enemy should effect an entrance.
There are few people who love Rome at first sight. The ruins, that bear witness to her grandeur in the days of her worldly supremacy, oppress you at first with an inexpressible sadness. The absence of any thing like the business enterprise and energy of this commercial age makes English and American people long at first for a little of the bustle and roar of Broadway and the Strand. The small paving stones, which make the feet of those who are unaccustomed to them ache severely, the brick and stone floors of the houses, and the lack of the little comforts of modern civilization, render Rome a wearisome place, until one has caught its spirit. Little does he think who for the first time gazes on those gray, mouldering walls, on which "dull time feeds like slow fire upon a hoary brand," or walks those streets in which the past and present are so strangely commingled, – little does he realize how dear those scenes will one day be to him. He cannot foresee the regret with which he will leave those things that seem too common and familiar to deserve attention, nor the glowing enthusiasm which their mention will inspire in after years; and he would smile incredulously if any one were to predict to him that his heart, in after times, will swell with homesick longings as he recalls the memory of that ancient city, and that he will one day salute it from afar as his second home.
I make no claims to antiquarian knowledge; for I do not love antiquity for itself alone. It is only by force of association that antiquity has any charms for me. The pyramids of Egypt would awaken my respect, not so much by their age or size, as by the remembrance of the momentous scenes which have been enacted in their useless and ungraceful presence. Show me a scroll so ancient that human science can obtain no key to the mysteries locked up in the strange figures inscribed upon it, and you would move me but little. But place before me one of those manuscripts (filled with scholastic lore, instinct with classic eloquence, or luminous with the word of eternal life) which have come down to us from those nurseries of learning and piety, the monasteries of the middle ages, and you fill me with the intensest enthusiasm. There is food for the imagination hidden under those worm-eaten covers and brazen clasps. I see in those fair pages something more than the results of the patient toil which perpetuated those precious truths. From those carefully penned lines, and brilliant initial letters, the pale, thoughtful face of the transcriber looks upon me – his contempt of worldly ambition and sacrifice of human consolations are reflected there – and from the quiet of his austere cell, he seems to dart from his serene eyes a glance of patient reproach at the worldlier and more modern age which reaps the fruit of his labour, and repays him by slandering his character. Show me a building whose stupendous masonry seems the work of Titan hands, but whose history is lost in the twilight of the ages, so that no record remains of a time when it was any thing but an antique enigma, and its massive columns and Cyclopean proportions will not touch me so nearly as the stone in Florence where Dante used to stand and gaze upon that dome which Michel Angelo said he would not imitate, and could not excel.
Feeling thus about antiquities, I need not say that those of Rome, so crowned with the most thrilling historical and personal associations, are not wanting in charms for me. Yet I do not claim to be an antiquarian. It is all one to me whether the column of Phocas be forty feet high or sixty, – whether a ruin on the Palatine that fascinates me by its richness and grandeur, was once a Temple of Minerva or of Jupiter Stator; or whether its foundations are of travertine or tufa. I abhor details. My enjoyment of a landscape would be at an end if I were called upon to count the mild-eyed cattle that contribute so much to its picturesqueness; and I have no wish to disturb my appreciation of the spirit of a place consecrated by ages of heroic history, by entertaining any of the learned conjectures of professional antiquarians. It is enough for me to know that I am standing on the spot where Romulus built his straw-thatched palace, and his irreverent brother leaped over the walls of the future mistress of the nations. Standing in the midst of the relics of the grandeur of imperial Rome, the whole of her wonderful history is constantly acting over again in my mind. The stern simplicity of those who laid the foundations of her greatness, the patriotic daring of those who extended her power, the wisdom of those who terminated civil strife by compelling the divided citizens to unite against a foreign foe, are all present to me. In that august place where Cicero pleaded, gazing upon that mount where captive kings did homage to the masters of the world, your mere antiquarian, with his pestilent theories and measurements, seems to me little better than a profaner. When I see such a one scratching about the base of some majestic column in the Forum (although I cannot but be grateful to those whose researches have developed the greatness of the imperial city,) I do long to interrupt him, and remind him that his "tread is on an empire's dust." I wish to recall him from the petty details in which he delights, and have him enjoy with me the grandeur and dignity of the whole scene.
The triumphal arches, – the monuments of the cultivation of those remote ages, no less than of the power of the state which erected them, – the memorials of the luxury that paved the way to the decline of that power – all these things impress me with the thought of the long years that intervened between that splendour and the times when the seat of universal empire was inhabited only by shepherds and their flocks. It wearies me to think of the long centuries of human effort that were required to bring Rome to its culminating point of glory; and it affords me a melancholy kind of amusement to contrast the spirit of those who laid the deep and strong foundations of that prosperity and power, with that of some modern sages, to whom a hundred years are a respectable antiquity, and who seem to think that commercial enterprise and the will of a fickle populace form as secure a basis for a state as private virtue, and the principle of obedience to law. I know a country, yet in the first century of its national existence, full of hope and ambition, and possessing advantages such as never before fell to the lot of a young empire, but lacking in those powers which made Rome what she was. If that country, "the newest born of nations, the latest hope of mankind," which has so rapidly risen to a power surpassing in extent that of ancient Rome, and bears within itself the elements of the decay that ruined the old empire, – wealth, vice, corruption, – if she could overcome the vain notion that hers is an exceptional case, and that she is not subject to that great law of nature which makes personal virtue the corner-stone of national stability and the lack of that its bane, and could look calmly upon the remains of old Rome's grandeur, she might learn a great lesson. Contemplating the patient formation of that far-reaching dominion until it found its perfect consummation in the age of Augustus, (Tantæ molis erat Romanam condere gentem,) she would see that true national greatness is not "the hasty product of a day"; that demagogues and adventurers, who have made politics their trade, are not the architects of that greatness; and that the parchment on which the constitution and laws of a country are written, might as well be used for drum-heads when reverence and obedience have departed from the hearts of its people.
A gifted representative of a name which is classical in the history of the drama, some years ago gave to the world a journal of her residence in Rome. She called her volume "A Year of Consolation" – a title as true as it is poetical. Indeed I know of nothing more soothing to the spirit than a walk through these ancient streets, or an hour of meditation amid these remains of fallen majesty. To stand in the arena of the Coliseum in the noonday glare, or when those ponderous arches cast their lengthened shadows on the spot where the first Roman Christians were sacrificed to make a holiday for a brutalized populace, – to muse in the Pantheon, that changeless temple of a living, and monument of a dead, worship, and reflect on the many generations that have passed beneath its majestic portico from the days of Agrippa to our own, – to listen to the birds that sing amid the shrubbery which decks the stupendous arches of the Baths of Caracalla, – to be overwhelmed by the stillness of the Campagna while the eye is filled with that rolling verdure which seems in the hazy distance like the waves of the unquiet sea – what are all these things but consolations in the truest sense of the word? What is the bitterest grief that ever pierced a human heart through a long life of sorrows, compared to the dumb woe of that mighty desolation? What are our brief sufferings, when they are brought into the august presence of a mourner who has seen her hopes one by one taken from her, through centuries of war and rapine, neglect and silent decay?
Among all of Rome's monuments of antiquity, there are few that impress me so strangely as those old Egyptian obelisks, the trophies of the victorious emperors, which the pontiffs have made to contribute so greatly to the adornment of their capital. It is almost impossible to turn a corner of one of the principal streets of the city without seeing one of these peculiar shafts that give a fine finish to the perspective. If their cold granite forms could speak, what a strange history they would reveal! They were witnesses of the achievements of a power which reached its noonday splendour centuries before the shepherd Faustulus took the foundling brothers into his cottage on the banks of the Tiber. The civilization of which they are the relics had declined before the Roman kings inaugurated that which afterwards reclaimed all Europe from the barbarians. Yet there they stand as grim and silent as if they had but yesterday been rescued from the captivity of the native quarry, and had never seen a nobler form than those of the dusty artisans who wrought them – as dull and unimpressible as some of the stupid tourists whom I see daily gazing upon these glorious monuments, and seeing only so much brick and stone.