Part 21

PARSONS.

This pious foundation of retired Benedictines, situated in the Appenines, about eighteen miles from Florence, owes its original to Giovanni Gualberto, a Tuscan nobleman, whose brother Hugo having been killed by a relation in the year 1015, he resolved to avenge his death; but happening to meet the assassin alone and in a solitary place, whither he appeared to have been driven by a sense of guilt, and seeing him suddenly drop down at his feet, and without uttering a word produce from his bosom a crucifix, holding it up in a supplicating gesture, with look submissively imploring, he felt the force of this silent rhetoric, and generously gave his enemy free pardon.

On further reflection upon the striking scene, Gualberto felt still more affected; and from seeing the dangers and temptations which surround a bustling life, resolved to quit the too much mixed society of mankind, and settle in a state of perpetual retirement. For this purpose he chose Vallombrosa, and there founded the famous convent so justly admired by all who visit it.

Such stories lead one forward to the tombs of Michael Angelo and the great Galileo, which last I looked on to-day with reverence, pity, and wonder; to think that a change so surprising should be made in worldly affairs since his time; that the man who no longer ago than the year 1636, was by the torments and terrors of the Inquisition obliged formally to renounce, as heretical, accursed, and contrary to religion, the revived doctrines of Copernicus, should now have a monument erected to his memory, in the very city where he was born, whence he was cruelly torn away to answer at Rome for the supposed offence; to which he returned; and strange to tell, in which he lived on, by his own desire, with the wife who, by her discovery of his sentiments, and information given to the priests accordingly, had caused his ruin; and who, after his death, in a fit of mad mistaken zeal, flung into the fire, in company with her confessor, all the papers she could find in his study.

How wonderful are these events! and how sweet must the science of astronomy have been to that poor man, who suffered all but actual martyrdom in its cause! How odd too, that ever Galileo's son, by such a mother as we have just described, should apply himself to the same studies, and be the inventor of the simple pendulum so necessary to every kind of clock-work!

Religious prejudices however, and their effects--and thanks be to God their almost final conclusion too--may be found nearer home than Galileo's tomb; while Milton has a monument in the same cathedral with Dr. South, who perhaps would have given credit to no human information, which should have told him that event would take place.

We are now going soon to leave Florence, seat of the arts and residence of literature! I shall be sincerely sorry to quit a city where not a step can be taken without a new or a revived idea being added to our store;--where such statues as would in England have colleges founded, or palaces built for their reception, stand in the open street; the Centaur, the Sabine woman, and the Justice: Where the Madonna della Seggiola reigns triumphant over all pictures for brilliancy of colouring and vigour of pencil.

It was the portrait of Raphaelle's favourite mistress, and his own child by her sate for the Bambino:--is it then wonderful that it should want that heavenly expression of dignity divine, and grace unutterable, which breathes through the school of Caracci? Connoisseurs will have all excellence united in one picture, and quarrel unkindly if merit of any kind be wanting: Surely the Madonna della Seggiola has nature to recommend it, and much more need not be desired. If the young and tender and playful innocence of early infancy is what chiefly delights and detains one's attention, it may be found to its utmost possible perfection in a painter far inferior to Raphael, Carlo Marratt.

If softness in the female character, and meek humility of countenance, be all that are wanted for the head of a Madonna, we must go to Elisabetta Sirani and Sassoferrata I think; but it is ever so. The Cordelia of Mrs. Cibber was beyond all comparison softer and sweeter than that of her powerful successor Siddons; yet who will say that the actresses were equal?

But I must bid adieu to beautiful Florence, where the streets are kept so clean one is afraid to dirty them, and not one's self, by walking in them: where the public walks are all nicely weeded, as in England, and the gardens have a homeish and Bath-like look, that is excessively cheering to an English eye:--where, when I dined at Prince Corsini's table, I heard the Cardinal say grace, and thought of the ceremonies at Queen's College, Oxford; where I had the honour of entertaining, at my own dinner on the 25th of July, many of the Tuscan, and many of the English nobility; and Nardini kindly played a solo in the evening at a concert we gave in Meghitt's great room:--where we have compiled the little book amongst us, known by the name of the Florence Miscellany; as a memorial of that friendship which does me so much honour, and which I earnestly hope may long subsist among us:--where in short we have lived exceeding comfortably, but where dear Mrs. Greatheed and myself have encouraged each other, in saying it would be particularly sad to die, not of the gnats, or more properly musquitoes, for they do not sting one quite to death, though their venom has swelled my arm so as to oblige me to carry it for this last week in a sling; but of the mal di petto, which is endemial in this country, and much resembling our pleurisy in its effects.

Blindness too seems no uncommon misfortune at Florence, from the strong reverberation of the sun's rays on houses of the cleanest and most brilliant whiteness; kept so elegantly nice too, that I should despair of seeing more delicacy at Amsterdam.

Apoplexies are likewise frequent enough: I saw a man carried out stone dead from St. Pancrazio's church one morning about noon-day; but nobody seemed disturbed at the event I think, except myself. Though this is no good town to take one's last leave of life in neither; as the body one has been so long taking care of, would in twenty-four hours be hoisted up upon a common cart, with those of all the people who died the same day, and being fairly carried out of Porto San Gallo towards the dusk of evening, would be shot into a hole dug away from the city, properly enough, to protect Florence, and keep it clear of putrid disorders and disagreeable smells. All this with little ceremony to be sure, and less distinction; for the Grand Duke suffers the pride of birth to last no longer than life however, and demolishes every hope of the woman of quality lying in a separate grave from the distressed object who begged at her carriage door when she was last on an airing.

Let me add, that his liberality of sentiment extends to virtue on the one hand, if hardness of heart may be complained of on the other. He suffers no difference of opinions to operate on his philosophy, and I believe we heretics here should sleep among the best of his Tuscan nobles. But there is no comfort in the possibility of being buried alive by the excessive haste with which people are catched up and hurried away, before it can be known almost whether all sparks of life are extinct or no. Such management, and the lamentations one hears made by the great, that they should thus be forced to keep bad company after death, remind me for ever of an old French epigram, the sentiment of which I perfectly recollect, but have forgotten the verses, of which however these lines are no unfaithful translation;

I dreamt that in my house of clay, A beggar buried by me lay; Rascal! go stink apart, I cry'd, Nor thus disgrace my noble side. Heyday! cries he, what's here to do? I'm on my dunghill sure, as well as you.

Of elegant Florence then, so ornamented and so lovely, so neat that it is said she should be seen only on holidays; dedicated of old to Flora, and still the residence of sweetness, grace, and the fine arts particularly; of these kind friends too, so amiable, so hospitable, where I had the choice of four boxes every night at the theatre, and a certainty of charming society in each, we must at last unwillingly take leave; and on to-morrow, the twelfth day of September 1785, once more commit ourselves to our coach, which has hitherto met with no accident that could affect us, and in which, with God's protection, I fear not my journey through what is left of Italy; though such tremendous tales are told in many of our travelling books, of terrible roads and wicked postillions, and ladies labouring through the mire on foot, to arrive at bad inns where nothing eatable could be found. All which however is less despicable than Tournefort, the great French botanist; who, while his works swell with learning, and sparkle with general knowledge; while he enlarges your stock of ideas, and displays his own; laments pathetically that he could not get down the partridges caught for him in one of the Archipelagon islands, because they were not larded--à la mode de Paris.

LUCCA.

From the head-quarters of painting, sculpture, and architecture then, where art is at her acme, and from a people polished into brilliancy, perhaps a little into weakness, we drove through the celebrated vale of Arno; thick hedges on each side us, which in spring must have been covered with blossoms and fragrant with perfume; now loaded with uncultivated fruits; the wild grape, raspberry, and azaroli, inviting to every sense, and promising every joy. This beautiful and fertile, this highly-adorned and truly delicious country carried us forward to Lucca, where the panther sits at the gate, and liberty is written up on every wall and door. It is so long since I have seen the word, that even the letters of it rejoice my heart; but how the panther came to be its emblem, who can tell? Unless the philosophy we learn from old Lilly in our childhood were true, nec vult panthera domari[Footnote: That the panther will never be tamed.].

That this fairy commonwealth should so long have maintained its independency is strange; but Howel attributes her freedom to the active and industrious spirit of the inhabitants, who, he says, resemble a hive of bees, for order and for diligence. I never did see a place so populous for the size of it: one is actually thronged running up and down the streets of Lucca, though it is a little town enough for a capital city to be sure; larger than Salisbury though, and prettier than Nottingham, the beauties of both which places it unites with all the charms peculiar to itself.

The territory they claim, and of which no power dares attempt to dispossess them, is much about the size of Rutlandshire I fancy; surrounded and apparently fenced in on every side, by the Appenines as by a wall, that wall a hot one, on the southern side, and wholly planted over with vines, while the soft shadows which fall upon the declivity of the mountains make it inexpressibly pretty; and form, by the particular disposition of their light and shadow, a variety which no other prospect so confined can possibly enjoy.

This is the Ilam gardens of Europe; and whoever has seen that singular spot in Derbyshire belonging to Mr. Port, has seen little Lucca in a convex mirror. Some writer calls it a ring upon the finger of the Emperor, under whose protection it has been hitherto preserved safe from the Grand Duke of Tuscany till these days, in which the interests of those two sovereigns, united by intimacy as by blood and resemblance of character, are become almost exactly the same.

A Doge, whom they call the Principe, is elected every two months; and is assisted by ten senators in the administration of justice.

Their armoury is the prettiest plaything I ever yet saw, neatly kept, and capable of furnishing twenty-five thousand men with arms. Their revenues are about equal to the Duke of Bedford's I believe, eighty or eighty-five thousand pounds sterling a year; every spot of ground belonging to these people being cultivated to the highest pitch of perfection that agriculture, or rather gardening (for one cannot call these enclosures fields), will admit: and though it is holiday time just now, I see no neglect of necessary duty. They were watering away this morning at seven o'clock, just as we do in a nursery-ground about London, a hundred men at once, or more, before they came home to make themselves smart, and go to hear music in their best church, in honour of some saint, I have forgotten who; but he is the patron of Lucca, and cannot be accused of neglecting his charge, that is certain.

This city seems really under admirable regulations; here are fewer beggars than even at Florence, where however one for fifty in the states of Genoa or Venice do not meet your eyes: And either the word liberty has bewitched me, or I see an air of plenty without insolence, and business without noise, that greatly delight me. Here is much cheerfulness too, and gay good-humour; but this is the season of devotion at Lucca, and in these countries the ideas of devotion and diversion are so blended, that all religious worship seems connected with, and to me now regularly implies, a festive show.

Well, as the Italians say, "Il mondo è bello perche è variabile[Footnote: The world is pleasant because it is various.]." We English dress our clergymen in black, and go ourselves to the theatre in colours. Here matters are reversed, the church at noon looked like a flower-garden, so gaily adorned were the priests, confrairies, &c. while the Opera-house at night had more the air of a funeral, as every body was dressed in black: a circumstance I had forgotten the meaning of, till reminded that such was once the emulation of finery among the persons of fashion in this city, that it was found convenient to restrain the spirit of expence, by obliging them to wear constant mourning: a very rational and well-devised rule in a town so small, where every body is known to every body; and where, when this silly excitement to envy is wisely removed, I know not what should hinder the inhabitants from living like those one reads of in the Golden Age; which, above all others, this climate most resembles, where pleasure contributes to sooth life, commerce to quicken it, and faith extends its prospects to eternity. Such is, or such at least appears to me this lovely territory of Lucca: where cheap living, free government, and genteel society, may be enjoyed with a tranquillity unknown to larger states: where there are delicious and salutary baths a few miles out of town, for the nobility to make villeggiatura at; and where, if those nobility were at all disposed to cultivate and communicate learning, every opportunity for study is afforded.

Some drawbacks will however always be found from human felicity. I once mentioned this place with warm expectations of delight, to a Milanese lady of extensive knowledge, and every elegant accomplishment worthy her high birth, the Contessa Melzi Resla. "Why yes," said she, "if you would find out the place where common sense stagnates, and every topic of conversation dwindles and perishes away by too frequent or too unskilful touching and handling, you must go to Lucca. My ill-health sent me to their beautiful baths one summer; where all the faculties of my body were restored, thank God, but those of my soul were stupified to such a degree, that at last I was fit to keep no other company but Dame Lucchesi I think; and our talk was soon ended, heaven knows, for when they had once asked me of an evening, what I had for dinner? and told me how many pair of stockings their neighbours sent to the wash, we had done."

This was a young, a charming, a lively lady of quality; full of curiosity to know the world, and of spirits to bustle through it; but had she been battered through the various societies of London and Paris for eighteen or twenty years together, she would have loved Lucca better, and despised it less. "We must not look for whales in the Euxine Sea," says an old writer; and we must not look for great men or great things in little nations to be sure, but let us respect the innocence of childhood, and regard with tenderness the territory of Lucca: where no man has been murdered during the life or memory of any of its peaceful inhabitants; where one robbery alone has been committed for sixteen years; and the thief hanged by a Florentine executioner borrowed for the purpose, no Lucchese being able or willing to undertake so horrible an office, with terrifying circumstances of penitence and public reprehension: where the governed are so few in proportion to the governors; all power being circulated among four hundred and fifty nobles, and the whole country producing scarcely ninety thousand souls. A great boarding-school in England is really an infinitely more licentious place; and grosser immoralities are every day connived at in it, than are known to pollute this delicate and curious commonwealth; which keeps a council always subsisting, called the Discoli, to examine the lives and conduct, professions, and even health of their subjects: and once o'year they sweep the town of vagabonds, which till then are caught up and detained in a house of correction, and made to work, if not disabled by lameness, till the hour of their release and dismission. I wondered there were so few beggars about, but the reason is now apparent: these we see are neighbours, come hither only for the three days gala.

I was wonderfully solicitous to obtain some of their coin, which carries on it the image of no earthly prince; but his head only who came to redeem us from general slavery on the one side, Jesus Christ; on the other, the word Libertas.

Our peasant-girls here are in a new dress to me; no more jewels to be seen, no more pearls; the finery of which so dazzled me in Tuscany: these wenches are prohibited such ornaments it seems. A muslin handkerchief, folded in a most becoming manner, and starched exactly enough to make it wear clean four days, is the head-dress of Lucchese lasses; it is put on turban-wise, and they button their gowns close, with long sleeves à la Savoyarde; but it is made often of a stiff brocaded silk, and green lapels, with cuffs of the same colour; nor do they wear any hats at all, to defend them from a sun which does undoubtedly mature the fig and ripen the vine, but which, by the same excess of power, exalts the venom of the viper, and gives the scorpion means to keep me in perpetual torture for fear of his poison, of which, though they assure us death is seldom the consequence among them, I know his sting would finish me at once, because the gnats at Florence were sufficient to lame me for a considerable time.