Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Volume 2.

N >> Nathaniel Hawthorne >> Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Volume 2.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19

The street by which I entered led me to the Carraja Bridge; crossing
which, I kept straight onward till I came to the Church of Santa Maria
Novella. Doubtless, it looks just the same as when Boccaccio's party
stood in a cluster on its broad steps arranging their excursion to the
villa. Thence I went to the Church of St. Lorenzo, which I entered by
the side door, and found the organ sounding and a religious ceremony
going forward. It is a church of sombre aspect, with its gray walls and
pillars, but was decked out for some festivity with hangings of scarlet
damask and gold. I sat awhile to rest myself, and then pursued my way to
the Duomo. I entered, and looked at Sir John Hawkwood's painted effigy,
and at several busts and statues, and at the windows of the chapel
surrounding the dome, through which the sunshine glowed, white in the
outer air, but a hundred-hued splendor within. I tried to bring up the
scene of Lorenzo de' Medici's attempted assassination, but with no great
success; and after listening a little while to the chanting of the
priests and acolytes, I went to the Bank. It is in a palace of which
Raphael was the architect, in the Piazza Gran Duca.

I next went, as a matter of course, to the Uffizi gallery, and, in the
first place, to the Tribune, where the Venus de' Medici deigned to reveal
herself rather more satisfactorily than at my last visit. . . . I
looked into all the rooms, bronzes, drawings, and gem-room; a volume
might easily be written upon either subject. The contents of the
gem-room especially require to be looked at separately in order to
convince one's self of their minute magnificences; for, among so many,
the eye slips from one to another with only a vague outward sense that
here are whole shelves full of little miracles, both of nature's material
and man's workmanship. Greater [larger] things can be reasonably well
appreciated with a less scrupulous though broader attention; but in order
to estimate the brilliancy of the diamond eyes of a little agate bust,
for instance, you have to screw your mind down to them and nothing else.
You must sharpen your faculties of observation to a point, and touch the
object exactly on the right spot, or you do not appreciate it at all. It
is a troublesome process when there are a thousand such objects to be
seen.

I stood at an open window in the transverse corridor, and looked down
upon the Arno, and across at the range of edifices that impend over it on
the opposite side. The river, I should judge, may be a hundred or a
hundred and fifty yards wide in its course between the Ponte alle Grazie
and the Ponte Vecchio; that is, the width between strand and strand is at
least so much. The river, however, leaves a broad margin of mud and
gravel on its right bank, on which water-weeds grow pretty abundantly,
and creep even into the stream. On my first arrival in Florence I
thought the goose-pond green of the water rather agreeable than
otherwise; but its hue is now that of unadulterated mud, as yellow as the
Tiber itself, yet not impressing me as being enriched with city sewerage
like that other famous river. From the Ponte alle Grazie downward,
half-way towards the Ponte Vecchio, there is an island of gravel, and the
channel on each side is so shallow as to allow the passage of men and
horses wading not overleg. I have seen fishermen wading the main channel
from side to side, their feet sinking into the dark mud, and thus
discoloring the yellow water with a black track visible, step by step,
through its shallowness. But still the Arno is a mountain stream, and
liable to be tetchy and turbulent like all its kindred, and no doubt it
often finds its borders of hewn stone not too far apart for its
convenience.

Along the right shore, beneath the Uffizi and the adjacent buildings,
there is a broad paved way, with a parapet; on the opposite shore the
edifices are built directly upon the river's edge, and impend over the
water, supported upon arches and machicolations, as I think that peculiar
arrangement of buttressing arcades is called. The houses are
picturesquely various in height, from two or three stories to seven;
picturesque in hue likewise,--pea-green, yellow, white, and of aged
discoloration,--but all with green blinds; picturesque also in the courts
and galleries that look upon the river, and in the wide arches that open
beneath, intended perhaps to afford a haven for the household boat. Nets
were suspended before one or two of the houses, as if the inhabitants
were in the habit of fishing out of window. As a general effect, the
houses, though often palatial in size and height, have a shabby,
neglected aspect, and are jumbled too closely together. Behind their
range the city swells upward in a hillside, which rises to a great height
above, forming, I believe, a part of the Boboli Gardens.

I returned homewards over the Ponte Vecchio, which is a continuous street
of ancient houses, except over the central arch, so that a stranger might
easily cross the river without knowing it. In these small, old houses
there is a community of goldsmiths, who set out their glass cases, and
hang their windows with rings, bracelets, necklaces, strings of pearl,
ornaments of malachite and coral, and especially with Florentine mosaics;
watches, too, and snuff-boxes of old fashion or new; offerings for
shrines also, such as silver hearts pierced with swords; an infinity of
pretty things, the manufacture of which is continually going on in the
little back-room of each little shop. This gewgaw business has been
established on the Ponte Vecchio for centuries, although, long since, it
was an art of far higher pretensions than now. Benvenuto Cellini had his
workshop here, probably in one of these selfsame little nooks. It would
have been a ticklish affair to be Benvenuto's fellow-workman within such
narrow limits.

Going out of the Porta Romana, I walked for some distance along the city
wall, and then, turning to the left, toiled up the hill of Bellosguardo,
through narrow zigzag lanes between high walls of stone or plastered
brick, where the sun had the fairest chance to frizzle me. There were
scattered villas and houses, here and there concentrating into a little
bit of a street, paved with flag-stones from side to side, as in the
city, and shadowed quite across its narrowness by the height of the
houses. Mostly, however, the way was inhospitably sunny, and shut out by
the high wall from every glimpse of a view, except in one spot, where
Florence spread itself before my eyes, with every tower, dome, and spire
which it contains. A little way farther on my own gray tower rose before
me, the most welcome object that I had seen in the course of the day.

September 10th.--I went into town again yesterday, by way of the Porta
San Frediano, and observed that this gate (like the other gates of
Florence, as far as I have observed) is a tall, square structure of stone
or brick, or both, rising high above the adjacent wall, and having a
range of open loggie in the upper story. The arch externally is about
half the height of the structure. Inside, towards the town, it rises
nearly to the roof. On each side of the arch there is much room for
offices, apartments, storehouses, or whatever else. On the outside of
the gate, along the base, are those iron rings and sockets for torches,
which are said to be the distinguishing symbol of illustrious houses. As
contrasted with the vista of the narrow, swarming street through the arch
from without, the view from the inside might be presented with a glimpse
of the free blue sky.

I strolled a little about Florence, and went into two or three churches;
into that of the Annunziata for one. I have already described this
church, with its general magnificence, and it was more magnificent than
ever to-day, being hung with scarlet silk and gold-embroidery. A great
many people were at their devotions, thronging principally around the
Virgin's shrine. I was struck now with the many bas-reliefs and busts in
the costume of their respective ages, and seemingly with great accuracy
of portraiture, in the passage leading from the front of the church
into the cloisters. The marble was not at all abashed nor degraded by
being made to assume the guise of the mediaeval furred robe, or the
close-fitting tunic with elaborate ruff, or the breastplate and gorget,
or the flowing wig, or whatever the actual costume might be; and one is
sensible of a rectitude and reality in the affair, and respects the dead
people for not putting themselves into an eternal masquerade. The dress
of the present day will look equally respectable in one or two hundred
years.

The Fair is still going on, and one of its principal centres is before
this church, in the Piazza of the Annunziata. Cloth is the chief
commodity offered for sale, and none of the finest; coarse, unbleached
linen and cotton prints for country-people's wear, together with yarn,
stockings, and here and there an assortment of bright-colored ribbons.
Playthings, of a very rude fashion, were also displayed; likewise books
in Italian and French; and a great deal of iron-work. Both here and in
Rome they have this odd custom of offering rusty iron implements for
sale, spread out on the pavements. There was a good deal of tinware,
too, glittering in the sunshine, especially around the pedestal of the
bronze statue of Duke Ferdinand, who curbs his horse and looks down upon
the bustling piazza in a very stately way. . . . The people attending
the fair had mostly a rustic appearance; sunburnt faces, thin frames; no
beauty, no bloom, no joyousness of young or old; an anxious aspect, as if
life were no easy or holiday matter with them; but I should take them to
be of a kindly nature, and reasonably honest. Except the broad-brimmed
Tuscan hats of the women, there was no peculiarity of costume. At a
careless glance I could very well have mistaken most of the men for
Yankees; as for the women, there is very little resemblance between them
and ours,--the old being absolutely hideous, and the young ones very
seldom pretty. It was a very dull crowd. They do not generate any
warmth among themselves by contiguity; they have no pervading sentiment,
such as is continually breaking out in rough merriment from an American
crowd; they have nothing to do with one another; they are not a crowd,
considered as one mass, but a collection of individuals. A despotic
government has perhaps destroyed their principle of cohesion, and
crumbled them to atoms. Italian crowds are noted for their civility;
possibly they deserve credit for native courtesy and gentleness;
possibly, on the other hand, the crowd has not spirit and
self-consciousness enough to be rampant. I wonder whether they will ever
hold another parliament in the Piazza of Santa Croce!

I paid a visit to the gallery of the Pitti Palace. There is too large an
intermixture of Andrea del Sarto's pictures in this gallery; everywhere
you see them, cold, proper, and uncriticisable, looking so much like
first-rate excellence, that you inevitably quarrel with your own taste
for not admiring them. . . .

It was one of the days when my mind misgives me whether the pictorial art
be not a humbug, and when the minute accuracy of a fly in a Dutch picture
of fruit and flowers seems to me something more reliable than the
master-touches of Raphael. The gallery was considerably thronged, and
many of the visitors appeared to be from the country, and of a class
intermediate between gentility and labor. Is there such a rural class in
Italy? I saw a respectable-looking man feeling awkward and uncomfortable
in a new and glossy pair of pantaloons not yet bent and creased to his
natural movement.

Nothing pleased me better to-day than some amber cups, in one of the
cabinets of curiosities. They are richly wrought, and the material is as
if the artist had compressed a great deal of sunshine together, and when
sufficiently solidified had moulded these cups out of it and let them
harden. This simile was suggested by ------.

Leaving the palace, I entered the Boboli Gardens, and wandered up and
down a good deal of its uneven surface, through broad, well-kept edges of
box, sprouting loftily, trimmed smoothly, and strewn between with cleanly
gravel; skirting along plantations of aged trees, throwing a deep shadow
within their precincts; passing many statues, not of the finest art, yet
approaching so near it, as to serve just as good a purpose for garden
ornament; coming now and then to the borders of a fishpool, or a pond,
where stately swans circumnavigated an island of flowers;--all very fine
and very wearisome. I have never enjoyed this garden; perhaps because it
suggests dress-coats, and such elegant formalities.

September 11th.--We have heard a good deal of spirit matters of late,
especially of wonderful incidents that attended Mr. Home's visit to
Florence, two or three years ago. Mrs. Powers told a very marvellous
thing; how that when Mr. Home was holding a seance in her house, and
several persons present, a great scratching was heard in a neighboring
closet. She addressed the spirit, and requested it not to disturb the
company then, as they were busy with other affairs, promising to converse
with it on a future occasion. On a subsequent night, accordingly, the
scratching was renewed, with the utmost violence; and in reply to Mrs.
Powers's questions, the spirit assured her that it was not one, but
legion, being the ghosts of twenty-seven monks, who were miserable and
without hope! The house now occupied by Powers was formerly a convent,
and I suppose these were the spirits of all the wicked monks that had
ever inhabited it; at least, I hope that there were not such a number of
damnable sinners extant at any one time. These ghostly fathers must have
been very improper persons in their lifetime, judging by the
indecorousness of their behavior even after death, and in such dreadful
circumstances; for they pulled Mrs. Powers's skirts so hard as to break
the gathers. . . . It was not ascertained that they desired to have
anything done for their eternal welfare, or that their situation was
capable of amendment anyhow; but, being exhorted to refrain from further
disturbance, they took their departure, after making the sign of the
cross on the breast of each person present. This was very singular in
such reprobates, who, by their own confession, had forfeited all claim to
be benefited by that holy symbol: it curiously suggests that the forms of
religion may still be kept up in purgatory and hell itself. The sign was
made in a way that conveyed the sense of something devilish and spiteful;
the perpendicular line of the cross being drawn gently enough, but the
transverse one sharply and violently, so as to leave a painful
impression. Perhaps the monks meant this to express their contempt and
hatred for heretics; and how queer, that this antipathy should survive
their own damnation! But I cannot help hoping that the case of these
poor devils may not be so desperate as they think. They cannot be wholly
lost, because their desire for communication with mortals shows that they
need sympathy, therefore are not altogether hardened, therefore, with
loving treatment, may be restored.

A great many other wonders took place within the knowledge and experience
of Mrs. P------. She saw, not one pair of hands only, but many. The
head of one of her dead children, a little boy, was laid in her lap, not
in ghastly fashion, as a head out of the coffin and the grave, but just
as the living child might have laid it on his mother's knees. It was
invisible, by the by, and she recognized it by the features and the
character of the hair, through the sense of touch. Little hands grasped
hers. In short, these soberly attested incredibilities are so numerous
that I forget nine tenths of them, and judge the others too cheap to be
written down. Christ spoke the truth surely, in saying that men would
not believe, "though one rose from the dead." In my own case, the fact
makes absolutely no impression. I regret such confirmation of truth as
this.

Within a mile of our villa stands the Villa Columbaria, a large house,
built round a square court. Like Mr. Powers's residence, it was formerly
a convent. It is inhabited by Major Gregorie, an old soldier of Waterloo
and various other fights, and his family consists of Mrs. ------, the
widow of one of the Major's friends, and her two daughters. We have
become acquainted with the family, and Mrs. ------, the married daughter,
has lent us a written statement of her experiences with a ghost, who has
haunted the Villa Columbaria for many years back.

He had made Mrs. ------ aware of his presence in her room by a sensation
of extreme cold, as if a wintry breeze were blowing over her; also by a
rustling of the bed-curtains; and, at such times, she had a certain
consciousness, as she says, that she was not ALONE. Through Mr.
Home's agency, the ghost was enabled to explain himself, and declared
that he was a monk, named Giannane, who died a very long time ago in
Mrs. ------'s present bedchamber. He was a murderer, and had been in a
restless and miserable state ever since his death, wandering up and down
the house, but especially haunting his own death-chamber and a staircase
that communicated with the chapel of the villa. All the interviews with
this lost spirit were attended with a sensation of severe cold, which was
felt by every one present. He made his communications by means of
table-rapping, and by the movements of chairs and other articles, which
often assumed an angry character. The poor old fellow does not seem to
have known exactly what he wanted with Mrs. ------, but promised to
refrain from disturbing her any more, on condition that she would pray
that he might find some repose. He had previously declined having any
masses said for his soul. Rest, rest, rest, appears to be the continual
craving of unhappy spirits; they do not venture to ask for positive
bliss: perhaps, in their utter weariness, would rather forego the trouble
of active enjoyment, but pray only for rest. The cold atmosphere around
this monk suggests new ideas as to the climate of Hades. If all the
afore-mentioned twenty-seven monks had a similar one, the combined
temperature must have been that of a polar winter.

Mrs. ------ saw, at one time, the fingers of her monk, long, yellow, and
skinny; these fingers grasped the hands of individuals of the party, with
a cold, clammy, and horrible touch.

After the departure of this ghost other seances were held in her
bedchamber, at which good and holy spirits manifested themselves, and
behaved in a very comfortable and encouraging way. It was their
benevolent purpose, apparently, to purify her apartments from all traces
of the evil spirit, and to reconcile her to what had been so long the
haunt of this miserable monk, by filling it with happy and sacred
associations, in which, as Mrs. ------ intimates, they entirely
succeeded.

These stories remind me of an incident that took place at the old manse,
in the first summer of our marriage. . . .

September 17th.--We walked yesterday to Florence, and visited the church
of St. Lorenzo, where we saw, for the second time, the famous Medici
statues of Michael Angelo. I found myself not in a very appreciative
state, and, being a stone myself, the statue of Lorenzo was at first
little more to me than another stone; but it was beginning to assume
life, and would have impressed me as it did before if I had gazed long
enough. There was a better light upon the face, under the helmet, than
at my former visit, although still the features were enough overshadowed
to produce that mystery on which, according to Mr. Powers, the effect of
the statue depends. I observe that the costume of the figure, instead of
being mediaeval, as I believe I have stated, is Roman; but, be it what it
may, the grand and simple character of the figure imbues the robes with
its individual propriety. I still think it the greatest miracle ever
wrought in marble.

We crossed the church and entered a cloister on the opposite side, in
quest of the Laurentian Library. Ascending a staircase we found an old
man blowing the bellows of the organ, which was in full blast in the
church; nevertheless he found time to direct us to the library door. We
entered a lofty vestibule, of ancient aspect and stately architecture,
and thence were admitted into the library itself; a long and wide gallery
or hall, lighted by a row of windows on which were painted the arms of
the Medici. The ceiling was inlaid with dark wood, in an elaborate
pattern, which was exactly repeated in terra-cotta on the pavement
beneath our feet. Long desks, much like the old-fashioned ones in
schools, were ranged on each side of the mid aisle, in a series from end
to end, with seats for the convenience of students; and on these desks
were rare manuscripts, carefully preserved under glass; and books,
fastened to the desks by iron chains, as the custom of studious antiquity
used to be. Along the centre of the hall, between the two ranges of
desks, were tables and chairs, at which two or three scholarly persons
were seated, diligently consulting volumes in manuscript or old type. It
was a very quiet place, imbued with a cloistered sanctity, and remote
from all street-cries and rumble of the city,--odorous of old
literature,--a spot where the commonest ideas ought not to be expressed
in less than Latin.

The librarian--or custode he ought rather to be termed, for he was a man
not above the fee of a paul--now presented himself, and showed us some of
the literary curiosities; a vellum manuscript of the Bible, with a
splendid illumination by Ghirlandaio, covering two folio pages, and just
as brilliant in its color as if finished yesterday. Other illuminated
manuscripts--or at least separate pages of them, for the volumes were
kept under glass, and not to be turned over--were shown us, very
magnificent, but not to be compared with this of Ghirlandaio. Looking at
such treasures I could almost say that we have left behind us more
splendor than we have kept alive to our own age. We publish beautiful
editions of books, to be sure, and thousands of people enjoy them; but in
ancient times the expense that we spread thinly over a thousand volumes
was all compressed into one, and it became a great jewel of a book, a
heavy folio, worth its weight in gold. Then, what a spiritual charm it
gives to a book to feel that every letter has been individually wrought,
and the pictures glow for that individual page alone! Certainly the
ancient reader had a luxury which the modern one lacks. I was surprised,
moreover, to see the clearness and accuracy of the chirography. Print
does not surpass it in these respects.

The custode showed us an ancient manuscript of the Decameron; likewise, a
volume containing the portraits of Petrarch and of Laura, each covering
the whole of a vellum page, and very finely done. They are authentic
portraits, no doubt, and Laura is depicted as a fair-haired beauty, with
a very satisfactory amount of loveliness. We saw some choice old
editions of books in a small separate room; but as these were all ranged
in shut bookcases, and as each volume, moreover, was in a separate cover
or modern binding, this exhibition did us very little good. By the by,
there is a conceit struggling blindly in my mind about Petrarch and
Laura, suggested by those two lifelike portraits, which have been
sleeping cheek to cheek through all these centuries. But I cannot lay
hold of it.

September 21st.--Yesterday morning the Val d' Arno was entirely filled
with a thick fog, which extended even up to our windows, and concealed
objects within a very short distance. It began to dissipate itself
betimes, however, and was the forerunner of an unusually bright and warm
day. We set out after breakfast and walked into town, where we looked at
mosaic brooches. These are very pretty little bits of manufacture; but
there seems to have been no infusion of fresh fancy into the work, and
the specimens present little variety. It is the characteristic commodity
of the place; the central mart and manufacturing locality being on the
Ponte Vecchio, from end to end of which they are displayed in cases; but
there are other mosaic shops scattered about the town. The principal
devices are roses,--pink, yellow, or white,--jasmines, lilies of the
valley, forget-me-nots, orange blossoms, and others, single or in sprigs,
or twined into wreaths; parrots, too, and other birds of gay plumage,--
often exquisitely done, and sometimes with precious materials, such as
lapis lazuli, malachite, and still rarer gems. Bracelets, with several
different, yet relative designs, are often very beautiful. We find, at
different shops, a great inequality of prices for mosaics that seemed to
be of much the same quality.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19