eloquent answer which the Italian language and physiognomy_must have rendered most energetic. Though after all his campaigns he had probably forgotten part of his medical studies, Giovanni's brother had settled as an apothecary at Cairo, whence he had sent Giovanni a handsome pipe with an amber mouthpiece, which, in our long conversations by the road, introduced the military and characteristic anecdote above related. CHAPTER XII. Loretto. Palace - Statue of Sixtus V.- Doors.Santa Casa.-Statue of the Madonna.-Palace.Pots.-Treasury.-Tasso at Loretto. Loretto and its church, which devotion, policy, and vanity have rivalised each other in decorating and enriching, presents a strange contrast: a population of half-naked beggars, and altars loaded with gold and diamonds; a great commercial street, full of shops, with nothing to sell but chaplets, Agni-Dei, crosses, and rosaries. The majestic palace of the governor is built from Bramante's designs. Another Woman taken in Adultery, by Titian, coquettish, unlike the feeble and repentant woman of Brescia,' proves his variety and fecundity. The Nativity of the Virgin, by Annibale Carraccio, is fine in the colouring; the colours are laid on in such abundance, as usual in the works of these masters, that the projection of the hands and feet is perceptible to the touch: some angels dancing in the upper part of the picture are perfectly aerial. The celebrated apothecary's pots, three hundred in number, ordered by Guidobaldo, duke of Urbino, a patron of the arts, representing subjects from the Old and New Testaments, Roman history, Ovid's Metamorphoses, etc., are not by Raphael, as commonly supposed; they are by a Raphael Ciarla, who was clever in copying the works of the great masters on earthenware. When Christina passed through this town, she was so charmed with them that she offered an equal number of silver vases in exchange. In the square stands a fine bronze statue of Sixtus V., which, as well as the 1 See ante, book v. ch. vi. basso-relievos on the pedestal, is by Calcagni, a gentleman of Recanati, a clever pupil of Geronimo Lombardo. The detestable front of the church erected by Sixtus, in 1587, shows that the decline of taste was at hand. The three superb bronze doors, divided into compartments, representing subjects from the Old Testament, are by the sons of Geronimo Lombardo, Bernardini, and Tiburzio Verzelli: over the bronze statue of the Virgin by Lombardo's sons, is a good imitation of the rude wooden statue preserved in the sanctuary and greatly venerated. The bronze statue of Cardinal Nicolao Gaetani, kneeling, on his tomb, is by Calcagni. The different chapels are ornamented with mosaics of paintings by the great masters. One of them has on its ceiling some frescos and works in stucco, by Minzocchi, which are true, humorous, and grotesque, in the Flemish taste, and rather ill-placed in a church. The cupola was admirably strengthened at its base and almost rebuilt by Antonio San Gallo; the frescos, not devoid of grandeur, are reckoned the chef-d'œuvre of Roncalii, who was preferred to Caravaggio and Guido in the works at Loretto through the favour of Cardinal Crescenzi. These two rivals revenged themselves on Roncalli in a very different manner: the former barbarously employed a Sicilian bravo to disfigure his face; and the latter opposed him with better paintings than his own. But the wonder of this temple is the marble casing that envelopes the Santa Casa, a work of the best times of sculpture, at which the following artists were successively employed: Andrea Contucci da Sansovino, his pupil Geronimo Lombardo, Bandinelli, Guglielmo della Porta, Raphael da Montelupo, Tribolo, Giovanni Bologna, and Francesco San Gallo. The Annunciation, by Sansovino, in which the angel Gabriel is accompanied by angels standing in the air, and a cloud full of other small angels, appeared divine to Vasari. The Jeremiah, of the prophets, by Lombardo, who really triumphs at Loretto, expresses a grief commensurate with its cause. The David was admired by Charles V. The figure of a peasant stopping his loaded horse by whistling, in the basso-relievo of one of the journies of the Santa Casa, by Tribolo, is perfect. The same artist has executed, in a Sposalizio, another excellent figure of a man passionately breaking off a withered branch. I did not participate in the philosophical indignation of some travellers on seeing this marble pavement worn by the knees of pilgrims: prayer, whatever be its form or expression, always touches and attracts me, and the furrow it has traced around the Santa Casa inspired me with profound respect. Among the many lamps that burn every day before the Madonna, is one given in 1824 by the countess Felicity Plater of Wilna, a name associated with the glorious efforts of Polish independence, a proof that heroism and devotion may be closely combined. Julius II., when he passed through Loretto, consecrated a cannon-ball from which he was preserved at the siege of Mirandola through the Virgin's intercession: afterwards he sent from Rome a large cross of silver gilt with the inscription, In hoc signo vinces, which, from that warlike pontiff, was equally applicable to the ball and the cross. It was a woman, Francesca Trivulzio, a bastard of the marshal, who intrepidly defended Mirandola, when besieged in the depth of winter by this old man of nearly seventy, a captain and soldier, this eager conqueror, who mounted the breach by a ladder sword in hand. The two sentinels, placed within the church at the door of the Santa Casa, to enforce the rule for depositing canes, umbrellas, and parcels, have a modern air unsuited to such a place; and this travelling house, carried by angels through the air, seems a singular charge for two soldiers of the line. The statue of the Madonna, besides its miraculous voyages, was brought prisoner to Paris in 1797, and was placed in the medal cabinet of our great library over a mummy; and yet, in the very centre of this scientific and profane sanctuary, more than once poor women were seen stealthily touching it with linen and garments. Bonaparte returned it to the pope in 1801; but the pontifical commissioner singularly refused to have it envoiced, that there might not appear any derogation from the mystic and aerial mode of travelling peculiar to this statue. The great sacristy has some paintings: A Pious woman teaching girls to sew and spin, by Guido; a Christ at the column, by Tiarini; a Madonna imitated from Raphael, by Sassoferrato; a Holy Family, by Schidone. The ceiling of the great hall of the treasury, representing divers subjects from the Virgin's history, by Roncalli, is not, though greatly praised, irreproachable in its perspective. The donations and ex-voto offerings composing this treasury are rich and fantastically diversified. The vases and church ornaments were presented by the princes and princesses of the old and new dynasties. A large native pearl, on which the canon who guards the treasury pretends to discover and show the Virgin sitting in the clouds with her son in her arms, is said to have been sent by an Asiatic fisherman. I regretted not finding the pen of Justus Lipsius, which he consecrated to Nostra Signora di Loretto; the pen with which he wrote to Montaigne and surnamed him the French Thales, a remarkable and perhaps unique appreciation of the French philosopher by a scholar of the sixteenth century and a writer turned catholic and devout. The great Condé presented a silver model of the castle of Vincennes where he had been imprisoned by Mazarin,' and little did he then imagine that another Italian, glorious, powerful, and also master of France, would there destroy the last scion of his house. A chalice used by Pius VII. in celebrating mass on his return from France in 1814, is an affecting earnest of his gratitude for recovered liberty. The coat, waistcoat, and flesh-coloured breeches left by the king of Saxony in July, 1828, are more like a theatrical costume than a pious homage. The depositing of these embroidered clothes is only a grotesque tradition of the ancient custom of suspending one's garments after shipwreck. Tasso, amid all his sorrows, came to pay his vow at Loretto; this illustrious pilgrim could give nothing, as he had not money enough for his travelling expenses; but the admirable canzone which he composed in honour of the Madonna, Ecco fra le tempeste, e i fieri venti, doubtless the finest hymn she ever inspired, is far, far superior to all the donations of the great, the rich, and the powerful in the world. Mabillon, Iter Italicum, p. 42. ABRUZZI.-SULMONE.-ISERNIA. CHAPTER XIII. Fermo-Oliverotto.-Abruzzi.-Banditti.- Inbabi- At Fermo are still shown the ruins of the house of its tyrant Oliverotto, one of the model tyrants proposed by Machiavel in his Prince at the chapter headed, Of those who attain sovereignty by wickedness. Oliverotto, an able captain, declared himself prince of Fermo after having massacred his uncle, who had brought him up, and the principal inbabitants of the town, at a banquet; his reign did not exceed a year, as he was waylaid and strangled at Senigallia, with Vitellozzo, his tutor in crime and in war, a victim worthy of his more dexterous rival Cesare Borgia. The entrance into the kingdom of Naples by the village of Giulia Nova, along the Adriatic, has not the enchanting aspect of the coast of Terracina and Gaeta. The beach is arid and intersected by torrents; here and there are clusters of pines, but they are dwarfish and seem a very feeble imitation of the superb Pineta of Ravenna. The vines are supported by small poles as in Burgundy, an arrangement less elegant and poetic than the ulmisque adjungere vites, although it makes the wine better. The inns and their beds on this road are execrable, and too little cannot be said of them. As in the public houses of Montaigne's time, the windows are "quite open, except a great wooden shutter, which keeps out the light if you wish to keep out the sun or wind." The road is tolerably good and well guarded. The inhabitants of the villages one passes through, if compelled to relinquish their old habits, have still the same robberlike appearance. Some of them seem inclined to take up with thieving, as may be perceived by their scrutinizing looks at the trunks and parcels, and their eagerness to unload them at the various inns; but having been previously accustomed to robberies by main force, nocturnal expeditions, and wholesale plundering, che fecero alle strade tanta guerra, they are not adepts at petty theft; and not being duly initiated in the art, they are Dante, Inf. can, XII. 138. 435 easily disconcerted by a wary person' especially such a man as Giovanni. The wandering, adventurous, and martial life of the Italian banditti has been called a bastard chivalry; resulting from a disordered social system, most frequently strangers, it is not considered disrepuexcited by the ostentation and vanity of table by the common people; it is a recommendation in the eyes of a young girl, who is by no means displeased because her future husband has passed some time in the mountains; their name even, banditti (banished), has nothing disgraceful, as it seems connected with the proscriptions practised in the civil wars; in fine, this mode of life preserves among qualities, and a kind of dignity, mixed the men devoted to it certain natural The banditti of the Campagna of Rome with the principles of the catholic faith. mortal sin; the author of Fieramosca spare a man who asserts himself in knew a person who saved his life by this subterfuge. Were the history of Italian therein some singular acts of generosity, robbers to be written, we should find forget the conduct of two of these heroes, as well as brilliant feats; we cannot Pacchione and Sciarra, towards Ariosto and Tasso, on whom they conferred had received, in return for their flatteries, greater honour than these great poets from the princes of their day. the inhabitants of the Abruzzi, such as At the sight of the frightful misery of I had an opportunity of observing it for several days,-of that people of shepherds and husbandmen, living on a kind of polenta made of bad corn,-of those robust women, with such easy figures and beautiful eyes, carrying wood or comprehend how all that was for their stones on their heads, I could hardly good, as it has been pretended; the poor people must at last get tired of such beatitude; and it seems that there would be no great harm in applying to them a little of that evil called instruction, with social comforts and improvements. The fortress of Pescara, at the mouth of the river so called, on the shore of the Adriatic, has a fine aspect; its garrison in the river of Pescara, the ancient consisted of three hundred men. It was Aternum, that the celebrated condottiere of the fifteenth century, Sforza da Coti 2 See E. Fieramosca, cap. ix. gnola, a captain of the scandalous Cossa, called John XXIII.,' was drowned in attempting to save his page who had fallen into the water. The town, very ill-built, contains rather more than two thousand inhabitants. Its vulnerary preparation, composed of simples that grow on the neighbouring mountain of Majella, is held in high estimation. An October sunset in the Abruzzi, then covered by a recent fall of dazzling snow, was very fine; the airy summits of these mountains were admirably defined on the flaming sky. Popoli, a damp and dirty place between two high mountains, with a river running through it, seems by its poverty, and the good-natured civilities of the inn, like a town of Savoy. On the ridge of the mountain was the manor of a duke of Popoli, the companion of Charles of Anjou: the castle, though degraded, still retains its air of conquest. The recollections of antiquity are more attractive in Italy than the ruins of the middle ages, which are not however without their grandeur; the study of that period, so much cultivated in our days in France, England, and Germany, would also be deeply interesting in this country. Sulmone, Ovid's native place, is allied with very different reminiscences. Situated in a bottom between barren mountains covered with snow as early as the middle of October, one might fancy that the poet's native place was to prepare him for the sad scenes of his exile. But it was not so, and in his bitter moanings he found Sulmone far away from the Scythian shores: Me miserum, Scythico quam procul illa solo eɛt.* Ovid possessed fertile estates and rich domains in the country of the Peligni: Gens mea Peligni, regioque domestica Sulmo.3 The most graceful, worldly, and witty of the poets of antiquity had experienced the life of a countryman and mountaineer. This first kind of life, frequent among these poets, and widely different from the way of attaining eminence adopted by modern men of letters, must have contributed to the superiority, to the closeness to nature and true feeling which distinguished the former. The memory See ante, book x. ch. ix. Fast. lib. IV. of Ovid was not less advantageous to Sulmone than that of Catullus and Virgil to Sermione and Mantua,4 as it was thereby saved from fire and sword by the army of Alfonso of Aragon, the conqueror of the kingdom of Naples, against whom it had revolted, a prince more generous than Alexander, says Panormita, his historian, for the latter destroyed all Thebes except the house of Pindar. The only monument erected to Ovid is an old statue over the door of a building which was formerly the prison, but is now a barracks for the gendarmerie; with his square cap, gown, and book, he has more the air of Fra Remigio Fiorentino, the translator of his epistles, than of him who sung the Art of Love and the poet of the Metamorphoses. The town revenue has not yet permitted this Gothic monument to be exchanged for one more suitable; there are, however, nearly eight thousand inhabitants at Sulmone: the town has some manufactures; its comfits, sausages, and strings for musical instruments have some reputation, and it is the chief town of the second district of the farther Abruzzi. Not a vestige is left of the ancient city which suffered so much in the civil wars of Marius and Sylla, and of Cæsar and Pompey, and became a Roman colony. Sulmone, subjected in turn to the princes of the houses of Anjou, Duras, and Aragon, was utterly overthrown by the two earthquakes of 1703 and 1706. The churches have some splendour. At the parish church of Saint Peter, the Saint is by Pietro da Cortona. La Badia contains the tomb of Jacopo Caldora, a famous Neapolitan condottiere of the fifteenth century. At a short distance from the town is the superb monastery of San Spirito del Morrone, formerly a convent of Celestines, monks famous for their immense riches. Some stones, the only remains of a temple of Jupiter, may be seen, it is said, at San Quirini, two miles from Sulmone. A mythological devotion seems faithfully perpetuated in this part of the Abruzzi: the ancient Peligni adored the goddess Palina; the mountaineer of the present day venerates Saint Pelino. Near Valloscuro, between Sulmone 3 Pont. lib. IV. ep. IV. 4 See ante, book v. cb. viii.; and book 1x. ch. xix. and Castel di Sangro, the road traverses a profound ravine, a vast wilderness of imposing aspect interspersed with wood, mountains, and rocks. The villages, halfway up the hills, with high roofs, few of them having either windows or chimneys, seem rather little forts than rustic dwellings. It is impossible to imagine a finer situation for brigands. Castel di Sangro, where they manufacture playing cards and carpets, was formerly frequented by the princes of Aragon, especially Ferrandino, duke of Calabria, who went there for bearhunting. Isernia has many antiquities. An aqueduct, of about a mile, dug through the rock, is a fine bold construction. After passing Isernia, the stern aspect of the mountain becomes softer; one begins to feel the genial clime and light of Naples diffused around; this light appears at the horizon like a vast and brilliant illumination which increases in brightness as we advance. At Venafro, which produces oil still held in as high repute as in the days of Horace : Viridique certat Bacca Venafro, and which presents the ruins of an amphitheatre, we are in Campania. BOOK THE THIRTEENTH. NAPLES. CHAPTER I. Road from Leghorn to Naples.-Steamboat.-The Mediterranean.-Naples.-Customhouse.- Lazza roni. Steamboats are certainly very useful and convenient; but this kind of navigation is dull and unpoetical: smoke, noise, dirt, a restaurant, a reading-room, like a fragment of Paris floating through the seas. The wind rarely agitates the sail of this vessel, which burries on as if dragged along by an irresistible and fatal power; we hear neither the songs nor shouting of sailors, nor the cadenced splash of oars, but the dead monotonous beating of the engine; and instead of the fragrant odour of tar, we inhale only the tepid exhalations of boiling water. The aspect of the vessel also contrasts with the mythological traditions of the Tyrrhenian sea, and the black coal smoke must make the fair Nereids conceal themselves at the bottom of the waters. Night seems rather more favourable to this boat: the spark that twinkles at the chimney top and the long white streak of foam we leave behind, are distinct in the darkness, and of fine effect. Tassoni has poetically painted the route from Leghorn to Naples, which he makes Venus pass in a small vessel (Cegnetto), despite the tempest indispensable to heroic and epic poems. His description is at once accurate, imaginative, and harmonious: .... Venere fra tanto in altro lato Capraja addietro e la Gorgona lassa, Vede l'Umbrone, ove sboccando ei pere. Quindi s'allarga In su la destra mano, |
