Wanderings in Italy
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VICENZA, A PALLADIAN CORNER
Wanderings
in
Italy
BY
GABRIEL FAURE
Tb'.a. 3
BOSTON & NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
1919
Printed in Great Britain.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE
Among the innumerable volumes devoted to Italy
none has had more appreciative recognition in France
than M. Gabriel Faure's Heures d'ltalie. No writer has
more delicately suggested the enchantment of the Latin
land and the spell it casts over the traveller, and none
takes us more persuasively off the beaten track to lead
us to sanctuaries of art and beauty so little known to
the ordinary tourist as Castelfranco, Pieve di Cadore
and Saronno. M. Faure is an ideal guide for the
educated pilgrim. He has a genuine love of Nature
and a painter's eye for scenery. But he does not
merely evoke the picturesque. His wide reading and
artistic culture are evident on every page, and the
happy allusion, the apt quotation and the romantic
incident perpetually stimulate the reader. Now when
we may hope once more to visit the delightful land an
English version of this distinguished book, completed
by notes on the terra redentUy should be welcome.
ILLUSTRATIONS
To
Lake Orta with Isla,nd of San Giulio
ace page
14
San Petronio, Bologna . .
100
Arch of Augustus, Rimini
. 118
Amphitheatre, Verona ....
. 160
Teatro Olimpico, Vicenza . . . .
174
Piazza del Duomo, Trent
282
CONTENTS
Part I.— PIEDMONT-LOMBARDY
CHAP.
PAGB
I.
Orta
11
n.
Saronno
17
m.
NOVARA .
.... 23
IV.
Varallo
26
V.
Varjese .
32
VI.
COMO
. 35
vn.
ISEO
. 40
vin.
Brescia .
. 48
IX.
Bergamo
. 68
X.
Bet<tagio
. 66
Part II.-
-EMILIA
I.
PlAOENZA
. 75
n.
BoRGo San Donninc
) . .79
III.
Parma .
. 84
IV.
MODENA .
.91
V.
Bologna .
. 96
VI.
FAENZA and CESENi
. 105
VII.
RlMENI
. Ill
Part in.— UMBRIA
I. Perugia 123
II. Umbrian Art 130
III. Assisi .139
IV, Montefalco 147
Vlll
CONTENTS
Part IV.— VENETIA
CHAP.
I.
Verona
II.
ViCENZA
III.
CONEGTJ.iNO .
IV.
Bassano
V.
Maser .
VI.
Fanzolo
VII.
FUSINA .
VIII.
Malcontenta
IX.
Mtoa .
X.
StrI .
XI.
MONSELICE .
XII.
ESTE .
XIII.
Arqua .
XIV.
Treviso
XV.
Castelfranco
PA.6E
156
161
177
182
188
193
196
201
205
210
214
218
222
231
234
Part V.— TYROL, FRIULI AND
NEW ITALY
I. The Dolomites .
II. From Cortina to Pieve
III. Pieve di Cadore
IV. Belluno
V. PORDENONE .
V. Udinb .
VII. Aqutleia
VIII. Trent and Trieste
243
251
255
264
270
272
280
283
PART I
PIEDMONT-LOMBARDY
WANDERINGS IN ITALY
CHAPTER I
ORTA
Often when entering Italy by the Simplon, I had
thought of making a slight dUour and stopping at Orta.
But my eagerness to reach Milan and Venice had always
prevented this. As, however, this year I have not
the leisure necessary for the delights of early autumn
on the lagoon, I will turn the few days of liberty at my
disposal to good account by visiting certain nooks and
corners around the lakes which are unknown to me
Surely in this region, as throughout Latin territory,
there must be exquisite scenery and interesting sanc-
tuaries of art.
Accordingly, at Domodossola I left the express train
which brings the traveller so swiftly to the Italian
descent, that for a moment he is dazzled by the
splendour of the sudden light, and I boarded a little
train, the carriages of which seemed antediluvian
after the luxurious sleeping car. It follows the old
line of Novara, which one used to take in former days
11
12 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
on arriving by the Simplon diligence. The direct line
to Lake Maggiore was not laid till after the opening
of the tunnel. For some fifteen miles, the two railways
run side by side, and some of the stations are indeed
common to both. They part company at Cuzzago,
and after crossing the Tosa and skirting the western
base of Mottarone, we came out on Lake Orta, the
ancient Cusio of the Romans.
A spot of infinite sweetness and charm ! I am not
sure, indeed, whether it is not the most perfect of all
the Lombard lakes — ^for it may be included in the
Lombard group, although, like the greater and more
beautiful part of Maggiore, it is in Piedmontese territory.
Less wild than Lugano, less voluptuous then Lario,
less grandiose than Maggiore, it has more general
harmony than any one of them. All the proportions
are absolutely right ; there is not a discordant note.
The wooded hills surrounding it follow the curves
best adapted to the windings of the shores ; we cannot
believe that the same hand drew these supple lines
and the harsh profile of the mountains which seem to
be thrusting back rude Germany into another world.
Its island of San Giulio summarises all the various
beauties of the Borromean isles. The point of Orta
is hardly less graceful than the promontory of Bellagio.
And the Lake has preserved a quality which is gradually
passing away from its more illustrious rivals as they
are invaded, transformed and disfigured by civilisation,
namely : the calm of Nature. For hours one may
listen to the lapping of the waters without hearing the
vibrations of motor engines ; a single small steamer
suffices for the service of the ports. The automobiles
that venture so far from the highway as the quay
of Orta are very few in number. It is one of the last
corners in Italy left unspoilt by modernism and progress.
SITUATION OF ORTA 13
But, alas ! this will not be true for long ! The dwellers
on its shores wish to attract tourists ; they form
Committees of enterprise ; they are annoyed to hear
their lake called Generentola (Cinderella), because it
lies forgotten among its elder sisters. Before they
have realised their ambitions let us enjoy the peace
of a region where very soon the quiet languor of autumn
days will be a memory of the past.
At present Orta is the ideal refuge of dreamers and
real lovers. A haunt of peace, everything here invites
to tenderness, without that perpetual beckoning of
pleasure which makes Como so attractive to those who
seek the illusion of love. Here, far from the crowd,
one does not feel, as on the shores of Bellagio and
Cadenabbia, that kind of external fascination and
diffusion of individuality which makes one half un-
conscious and induces a certain intoxication. Here
one spends days that seem empty days when nothing
happens, but which will seem beautiful later because
they were made up of happiness. We get used to
happiness as to health so rapidly that we cease to
notice it. The more saturated with it is the air we
breathe, the more we assume that we have never
breathed any other. Rather should we take note of
our joys each evening, and mark with a white stone
the hours when life was sweet and good !
Orta is delightfully situated at the foot of a sort
of mountainous promontory, which leaves but scanty
space for houses at its base on the shores of the lake.
The little town is indeed but one long street parallel
with the bank, interrupted in the middle by a shady
piazza with a tiny town-hall. The slopes of the hills
are studded with rich villas embowered in the luxuriant
vegetation to be found in all the sheltered corners of
the Italian lakes. Rhododendrons and azaleas of
14 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
unusual vigour must show as magnificent bouquets
of bloom in the spring. Ivory-petaUed blossoms still
linger among the polished leaves of the magnolias.
In spite of a three months' drought, the trees are green ;
the oleander especially, that lover of sultry summers,
displays its sumptuous blossoms. The oleafragrans begins
to perfume the gardens. By the roadside, fig-trees
send forth their pungent odour ; between their broad
leaves we catch sight of the glistening waters and of
the little island of San Giulio, smiling and quivering
in the brilliant light.
A boat will take us across to it in a few minutes.
The glamour increases as we approach. Terraces and
gardens seem to be hanging in space over the lake,
in which the belfry and the high walls of the seminary
are reflected to a great depth. The verdure of the
foliage that enframes the houses gives an air of gaiety
to the little island, the centre of a commune comprising
several villages on the western and southern shores
of the lake. As it contains the town-hall, the church
and the burial ground, wedding and funeral processions
come hither by boat as at Venice. The space is so
restricted that buildings rise one above the other,
and not an inch of ground is wasted. A single narrow
street, or rather path between walls runs round the
island. The general effect is highly picturesque. If
Orta be doomed to disfigurement some day, here,
I hope, is a comer which will perforce remain unchanged
for a long time.
The basilica of San Giulio is an interesting church,
founded, according to local tradition, in the fourth
century. Some parts of it indeed — columns, capitals,
bas-reliefs and frescoes — are very old. The most
remarkable feature is a Romanesque pulpit of black
marble, on which are carved the attributes of the
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GAUDENZIO FERRARI 15
Four Evangelists and two curious panels representing
Christianity and Paganism, under the respective symbols
of a griffin and a crocodile, alternately triumphing
the one over the other. If this interpretation given
me by the custodian be correct, the sculptor was an
artist with a prudent eye to the future. There are
numerous frescoes on pillars and vaults. The best,
by Gaudenzio Ferrari, entirely cover one of the chapels.
On the end wall : The Virgin surrounded hy Saints
and The Martyrdom of Saint Stephen ; on the ceiling,
the Four Evangelists ; in the vault, four Prophets ;
on the pillars of one side, Saint Michael and Saint
Apollonia, and on the other, Saint Julius and one of his
Companions. The figures, as Burckhardt has already
said, are finely executed. But it is to be regretted that
they were superposed on earlier works, traces of which
are still to be seen. Indeed in certain places we see
remnants of primitive decorations over which two
subsequent paintings have been laid. It is very desirable
that an attempt should be made to bring these old
Gothic and Romanesque decorations once more to light,
and to transfer Ferrari's works, which have suffered
greatly from the ravages of time, and the folly of
visitors who have scribbled their names upon them.
We may console ourselves with the thought that this
is not a vandalism peculiar to our own times ; the
custodian showed me with pride inscriptions of 1536
and 1541, that is to say, almost contemporary with
the work itself. He then wished to take me into the
crypt where the body of Saint Julius rests, and into
the sacristy to see the bone of a monstrous • serpent :
for there is a legend that the island was long uninhabit-
able owing to the reptiles which swarmed in it. How-
ever, I took advantage of a moment when he went
forward to meet some fresh visitors to steal away
16 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
from him. Outside there was a radiant blaze of
sunshine. Not often do we see a day so pure and so
luminous. Hills and villages were reflected with the
utmost precision on the unruffled surface of the lake.
The water is a smooth green suggesting molten emeralds,
and recalling Dante's beautiful simile : fresco smeraldo
allorache si fiacca} The garden scents were wafted
in warm gusts of sudden sweetness, sometimes so
intense that the boat seemed to be passing through a
perfumed cloud.
But day was beginning to fade, and I hoped before
evening to climb the wooded hillside which forms a
headland on the lake, and culminates in a Sacro Monte,
of which there are so many in this region. Its twenty
chapels, in which painted terra-cotta groups set forth
the life of Saint Francis of Assisi are not very remarkable ;
but their surroundings are exquisite. They stand in
a sort of park which crowns the summit ; at each turn
in the walks there are views of different parts of the
lake. The traveller instinctively recalls the paths
of the Villa Serbelloni which overhang the three arms
of Lake Lario in turn ; but here the effect is more
austere, because there are so many religious symbols
and so few flowers. The very trees seem to take on^
a certain solemnity. Huge pines with trunks straight
and smooth as columns rise in the soft twilight air,
a fraternal race, vibrating to the same breezes and
quivering with the same tremors. The little white
chapels seem to be leaning against the sturdy pillars
of their cathedral. A noble quietude reigns on this
summit whence the eye surveys the whole panorama.
The villages that nestle at the foot of the slopes are
already blurred by the blue dust of twilight. The
lake sinks into the bottom of the dark cup of mountains
^ Green as an emerald freshly broken.
LUINI AT SARONNO 17
which encircle it with their harmonious lines. On
the further shore, above Pella, which slumbers in its
woods of chestnut and walnut, rises the utmost peak
of Mount Rosa.
Together with the falling darkness, I descend towards
Orta, to the albergo whose embowered terrace dominates
the town. Gradually silky veils are drawn across the
sky. A fine mist rises from the overheated earth,
softens all contours, and wraps things in a supple
mantle of velvet. The hills seem at once to advance and to
recede. The twinkle of stars animates the glistening
waters, and a moon in its first quarter throws a thin
track of fire across them. Here and there a light quivers
on the quay of Orta. The dim trees slumber motionless
in the languid air.
CHAPTER II
SAHONNO
I HAD also long wished to visit Saronno, for here
one really learns to know Luini, the good Luini, whose
gentle, rhythmic name so aptly evokes the poetry of
the lakes on whose shores he was born and lived and
died. Nowhere else has he left so many frescoes ;
and he is above all a frescante. He who judges Luini
only by his easel pictures knows not the true genius
of the artist, who was unable to pour out his tender,
ardent, spontaneous soul within their narrow limits.
It is true that at Milan one can get an idea of his
art from the works in San Maurizio, in the Brera, where
C
18 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
there are numerous fragments, notably the admirable
Entombment of Saint Catherine, and in S. Maria della
Passione, the church, whose rococo faQade bears the
half obliterated inscription immortalised by Maurice
Barres : Amori et dolori sacrum} We gain a deeper
insight into it at Lugano, in the modest church of S.
Maria degli Angeli, where he painted his largest com-
position on the wall of the rood-screen. The many
episodes of the Passion are represented in full, and more
than five hundred persons figure in the various scenes.
The general effect is a Uttle cold, and we are conscious
of the difficulty the artist must have had in co-ordinating
a composition so complex and dramatic ; but there
are exquisite details, and Luini rarely conceived more
touching figures than the pathetic Saint John making
his promise to the dying Saviour, or the Magdalen
kneeling at the foot of the Cross and smiling in ecstasy
through her golden hair.
The space to be covered at Saronno was even greater ;
but it was divided up into a series of panels and the
painter was able to distribute his work as he pleased.
Untrammelled by a time limit, or, it would seem, by
any pre-determined programme, Luini was governed
by no rule but that of his own imagination. He put
his whole self into the work, with all his quaUties and
all his defects.
To get to Saronno, one has to cross a corner of the
Lombard plain, on those dusty roads which soon become
monotonous, because they run for the most part through
two green hedges. This fertile country would be a
beautiful sight ... if one could see it, as said Abbe
Coyer, who sighed for the highways of France, where the
trees which adorn and shade them do not obscure the
prospect. Still, there are delightful comers, and idyllic
^ A shrine for love and pain.
FRESCOES AT SARONNO 19
landscapes, notably where the thick ribbon of vine-
branches winds on either side of the road, hanging
from tree to tree. These vines clinging to elms have
inspired poets throughout the ages ; Ovid invoked
them in one of the pieces in his Amores to express his
fondness and his regrets in the absence of Corinna :
Ulmus amat vitem, vitis non deserit ulmum
Separor a domina cur ego saepe mea ? ^
On this September morning when summer is in its
death-throes, a delicate light plays in the atmosphere
and floats in gentle waves over the autumnal landscape.
The magnificent plane-trees, a double avenue of which
leads from the town of Saronno to the church, are
bathed in a golden light. The traveller treads on a
thick carpet of dead leaves ; there is something melan-
choly and bitter in their slightly acrid scent.
And here we have one of those delectable sanctuaries
of art, in which we discover the soul of an artist under
an insignificant or mediocre exterior. There have been
hardly any changes here for four centuries ; cosmo-
politan snobbery has not yet found its way here ;
and the student may spend long hours undisturbed
by tourists or guides.
The whole of the end of the church was decorated
by Luini. First, there are two figures of saints :
S. Eoch and S. Sebastian ; in the passage leading to
the choir : The Marriage of the Virgin and Jesus among
the Doctors ; in the choir itself : The Adoration of the
Magi and The Presentation in the Temple ; on the
pendentives and the upper walls : The Sibyls, The
Evangelists and The Fathers of the Church ; in a little
sacristy behind the choir : S. Catherine and S. Apollonia
and on pieces of canted wall, two angels bearing a cup
1 The elm loves the vine and the viae will not leave the elm.
Why should I be so often parted from my mistress ?
C 2
20 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
and a chalice ; finally, in a passage in the cloisters :
The Nativity.
Contemplating Luini's works, I am nearly always
conscious of three successive impressions. First, a
sense of delight which the general harmony of tints
and colours gives to the eye. As I entered the choir,
the word delicious sprang to my lips. "Rien, as I looked
more carefully, disillusionment began : I thought
the groups confused, the faces often inexpressive,
the perspective mostly false. The landscapes which
had charmed me at the first glance are badly con-
structed, and sometimes a little ridiculous : in the
Presentation in the Temple the mound on which stands
the church of Saronno shaded by a sickly palm-tree,
is really childish in composition ; in the Adoration
of the Magi, the string of animals loaded with
odd little valises attests a puerility bordering on
the grotesque. The heads are often commonplace
and the attitudes rigid ; even the figure of Mary in the
Adoration of the Magi and the Marriage of the Virgin
is insignificant and wholly without character. But
when, after examining the works in detail, I stand
back and try to sum up a general impression, Luini
triumphs once more. There are so many charming
tones so cunningly graduated, so much sweetness and
suavity everywhere, that I can no longer criticise.
I am conquered, as I am by a certain kind of music
the defects and mediocrity of which I recognise, but
which captivates me by the very first bar when I hear
it. I no longer notice the faults which shocked
me ; my eye ; lingers only on the exquisite things
which Luini has lavished here as elsewhere. In the
Adoration of the Magi, for instance, I forget the poor
arrangement of the groups in my admiration for a beau-
tiful page with a Leonardesque head, and for the little
LEONARDO'S INFLUENCE 21
angels of the vault. It was in isolated figures such as
these that Luini always excelled. And I would will-
ingly give the great frescoes of the choir for the
S. Catherine or the Angels of the sacristy.
Nowhere are the soul of the painter, his sweet and
tender philosophy, his smiling faith, more clearly
manifested than here. It seems as if in this sanctuary
somewhat remote from the world he had escaped more
than was his wont from the yoke of Leonardo, and
had allowed his own heart to speak. We divine what
Luini might have become if he had been left to himself ;
and think that had Leonardo never come to Milan,
its school might have risen to the same heights as the
other ItaUan schools, and might have found in Luini
a master equal to Titian, Correggio or Raphael. But
the great Florentine had only to appear and he tri-
umphed. All original inspiration was checked. The
qualities of health, grace and vigour characteristic of
the old Lombard masters vanished as by magic before
a glory which at once became a tyranny. Artists
thought only of imitating the inimitable ; thenceforth
they never painted a face without giving it the smile
and the enigmatic eyes of La Oioconda. This influence
is so strong in Luini 's pictures, that several of them
were long attributed to Da Vinci.
In his frescoes, on the other hand, Luini contrived
to preserve his independence to a much greater degree.
Nothing, indeed, differs more essentially from the slowly
conceived and minutely retouched work of the subtle
Leonardo than the swift, spontaneous art of fresco,
where the painter has to work on the fresh plaster
which allows neither of hesitation nor corrections.
The one master strove to suggest on his canvas the
most mysterious sentiments of the soul, and to express
all the complicated learning of his brain ; the other
22 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
covered the walls of churches after the manner of a
simple and faithful craftsman who loved his art and
lived for it alone. Luini was no intellectual ; he
produced his works as the beautiful trees of his country
yield their luscious fruits. This is more especially
evident in his youthful works, when he had as yet
experienced no foreign influence, as, for instance, in
that Bath of the Nymphs, the free and very modern
handling of which sometimes recalls Puvis de Chavannes
and Renoir. There is an innocent charm about these
maidens emerging from the bath or disrobing to enter
it. Their muscular limbs, their supple, velvety skin,
everything about them proclaim the joy of life under
happy skies. At a time when war and pestilence
were ravaging the province, he contrived to live at
Milan in a kind of dream, so obscurely that we
know little of his biographj'- beyond what may be
gleaned from the dates on his canvases and frescoes.
Either from necessity, as tradition has it, or perhaps
simply from a love of quietude, he preferred
a life in the calm retreat of monasteries, • where, no
doubt for sums paltry but sufficient to free him from
material cares, he could give himself up entirely to
his beloved calling, la mirahile e clarissima arte di
pittura?- He loved more especially the sanctuary of
Saronno, where he seems to have made two long
sojourns. Nowhere, at any rate, even before the vast
fresco of the rood-screen at Lugano, have I felt so
near to him as here. As long ago as October 4, 1816,
Stendhal came to see these " touching " frescoes, which
he declares he " admired so greatly.'* How could he
have said on another occasion, in reference to Lombard
beauty, that " no great painter has immortalised it
by his pictures, as Correggio immortalised the beauty
^ " The admirable and lucid art of painting."
THE LOMBARD TYPE 23
of Romagna and Andrea del Sarto that of Florence " ?
I think, on the contrary, that Luini has perfectly ex-
pressed the beauty described by Manzoni : molle a
un tratto e maestosa che brilla nel sangue lombardo}
and especially in those women with opulent forms,
languorous eyes, quivering nostrils and fresh cheeks
like ripe fruits.
When he spoke thus Stendhal seems to have for-
gotten Leonardo da Vinci, who, coming from the suave
but somewhat austere Tuscany, felt the seduction of
Lombardy intensely, and fixed the sensual grace of
her youths on his canvases. True, he added to this
the subtle idealism and the love of eloquence which are
the essence of Florentine art. Each artist interprets
reality through his personal vision. A truism often
repeated and expressed by Goethe in a form which
loses in translation : " Reality is the fertilising soil
in which flourishes the marvellous plant of art, whose
roots must strike down into the real, but whose stem
must blossom in the ideal." The stem flowers at a
greater or a lesser height, according to temperament.
Luini 's blossoms are within reach of our hands ; we
can easily gather them and inhale their perfumes.
CHAPTER III
NOVARA
Why had I hitherto felt distrustful of Novara 1
There are towns, just as there are persons, whom we
^ ** At once soft and majestic, which shines in the Lombard
race."
24 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
instinctively avoid for years, and finally regret having
left unknown so long, when chance brings us acquainted
with them. I imagined No vara as a dreary, common-
place town of the Piedmontese plain, far from mountains
and rivers, crowned by a hideous cathedral, and in-
teresting chiefly as possessing an excellent buffet with
famous cellars in a great railway station always crowded
with trains, at the junction of numerous lines.
This year, being forced by my itinerary to spend
several hours there, I determined to explore it hastily.
And now I have spent two most agreeable days there,
lodged in an old hotel into one room of which one
might easily put a whole Parisian flat, and where the
cooking and the wines were first-rate. The town is
cheerful and well built ; and as the walks are delightful,
I was consoled for the scarcity of works of art.
There are, it is true, an ancient Baptistery and a
Romanesque church ; unfortunately, there is scarcely
anything left of the primitive basihca, which has
gradually been transformed into a rich modern building,
with an atrium of Corinthian columns in Simplon
granite. There is also the church of San Gaudenzio
with the famous belfry by AntoneUi of which the
Novarese are so proud — a structure almost as ugly
as the building by the same architect at Turin. I
might further have found in the churches and public
galleries some pictures by Ferrari ; but it would have
been futile to seek out second-rate examples of the
master when on my way to Varallo. I preferred to
loiter in the little streets and above all, to take a walk
round the town.
Among the numerous Italian cities which have trans-
formed their ancient fortifications into shady avenues,
not one has solved the problem more successfully
Here we have not merely a circular boulevard planted
EVENING AT NOVARA 25
with chestnut trees which are burnt up by the summer
heat, and present a lamentable appearance in September,
but a superb girdle of gardens and lawns with splendid
trees. About the ivy-covered red walls of the mined
castle one may wander as in the alleys of an ancient
park. North and west, the view extends as far as tha
line of the great Alps that spread out fan-wise around
the Lombard plain ; the panorama is almost the same
as that we see from the roof of Milan Cathedral. Here,
indeed, the majestic mass of Mount Rosa is even more
sharply defined ; when the atmosphere has been cleared
by a storm, its peaks stand out against the azure with
the precision of a piece of goldsmith's work. Some-
times in the warm hours of the day when the foremost
mountains are bathed in mist, it emerges alone, Uke some
dream summit set in a mysterious ocean ; and in the
evening, when the blue shadow is creeping over the
plain, it flames fantastically, a fiery flower in the twilight.
The fall of day, seen from these ramparts of Novara,
is full of serenity. And the evenings are dehcious
in these nocturnal gardens propitious to intertwined
shadows, at moments when the desire latent in every
soul for the help of another soul to stiU the anguish
of solitude before the mystery of things awakens.
Round the old trees half stript of their leaves and
the withered grasses hovers the odour of autumn, the
very melancholy of which attunes the soul to love.
26 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
CHAPTER IV
VARALLO
Nothing could be more delightful than the journey
from No vara to Varallo. The traveller passes first
through the deep undulations of the rice fields, the close,
heavy ears of which are lying in swathes, like a stormy
sea suddenly congealed. A gentle light silvers the
morning landscape and plays through the fine mist so
characteristic both of Lower Piedmont and the Lom-
bard plain, where, as Michelet says : " fever and dream
seem to hover." The mountains on the horizon are
dimly seen ; the snowy outline of the Alps is barely
distinguishable.
Towards Romagnano the hills begin suddenly, and
very soon increase in height. The route rejoins the
Sesia, and follows its course as far as Varallo. This
valley, one of the loveliest of those which descend
from the chain of Monte Rosa, is both fertile and
industrial. Fruit trees, lusty vines heavily garlanded,
and forests of chestnut trees cover the country with
verdure. There are few isolated farms, but many
big market-towns, prosperous and inviting of aspect
after the Italian fashion. Tacitus in his Germania
noted that the inhabitants of the further slopes of the
Alps space out their houses, whereas the Latins group
them together as much as possible to form villages,
always with an eye to regularity and general effect.
The Latin ideal has ever been urban life, the city.
All the amiable and social instinct of the race is mani-
fested in this grouping, which affords greater facility
of existence and more opportunity for gaiety. The
inhabitants we encounter on the road or in the villages
ASPECT OF VARALLO 27
are healthy, well-to-do, and full of the joy of life. The
peasant women wear curious costumes of brilliant
colours ; they smile as they pass or salute us with a
gracious gesture. One feels that all these folks love
the sun and that a few drops of rain or a little fog would
suffice to drive them indoors. The Italians might
adopt the device I have read on certain sun-dials :
Sine sole silio?-
After leaving Borgosesia the mountains close in ;
the valley becomes more picturesque. And soon
Varallo appears, superbly placed. Its cheerful roofs are
clustered together at the bottom of the gorge, dominated
by verdant hills set against lofty mountains. The
appearance of the town is very individual. Although
it is quite close to Monte Rosa, it is unUke the usual
small Alpine town. It boasts large, well-built houses,
important shops, open-air markets well stocked with
flowers and fruit. There are also comfortable modem
hotels, but none of these can rival the ancient hostelry
which had been recommended to me, a house which
still deserves its centenarian fame. Here the traveller
takes his meals on a terrace with old world decorations
shaded by Virginian creeper, and overhanging the
Sesia, just at its point of junction with the Mastallone
torrent, whose famous trout figure on every bill of fare.
But, indeed, everything here is delicious : fish, part-
ridges, peaches, grapes as fragrant as those of my
native place, that valley of the Drome dear to the
epicure, where Dauphiny and Provence meet to offer
the rich produce of their soil. Once again I note many
affinities between my own land and the Alpine regions
situated at the same altitudes of from twelve to twenty-
four hundred feet. Last year these impressed me in
Cadore, whence Titian sent to his beloved Aretino
* Without sun I am silent.
28 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
game and fruit which were the pride of the daintiest
table in Venice.
Varallo's chief title to fame lies in its Sacro Monte,
which is the most important and the most curious of
all the sanctuaries in the district. It rises above the
town, on the summit of a wooded hill where it forms a
veritable city. Seen from the valley on approaching
VaraUo, it recalls those little towns of Tuscany and
Umbria whose white walls crown the olive-clad hill-
sides. The monk who instituted the pilgrimage to the
sanctuary, at the close of the fifteenth century, dreamed
of making it the New Jerusalem, and the mountain
on which it stands was to represent Golgotha to the
eyes of the faithful. The ascent takes half an hour
by a somewhat rugged road full of sharp pebbles, but
shaded by the most venerable chestnut trees in existence.
Nothing could be more beautiful than these groves
of chestnuts, hundreds of years old, which adorn the
Piedmontese Alps. The air and the light circulate
freely under their broad leaves ; between their trunks,
so robust that nothing can grow near them, there is
no brushwood, none of those damp spots encumbered
by a parasitic vegetation, where one divines a crawling
world of reptiles and insects ; the shadow is clear and
translucent, and only the sun pierces it with golden
rays through the branches.
From the summit the view extends over the whole
of Valsesia and the heights that dominate it. I must
confess that I preferred to enjoy this panorama rather
than to examine each of the forty-five chapels, where
the various episodes of the life of Christ are reproduced
in pitiable fashion by means of terra-cotta groups
akin to wax- work figures, and frescoes. I regret that
Gaudenzio Ferrari should have associated himself,
by modelUng a few figures and painting a few frescoes,
GAUDENZIO FERRARI 29
with these works, precursors — ^like those of Mazzoni
and Begarelli at Modena — of the religious objects sold
in the shops around Saint Sulpice. My idea in coming
to Varallo, indeed, was to become better acquainted
with the most famous of its sons, the excellent painter
Gaudenzio Ferrari, who was bom at Vaiduggia near
by, and lived at Varallo the greater part of his life.
Here, again, we have one of those artists who would
be almost illustrious in any other country. But Italy
is so rich that she has neglected him somewhat. His
fame has scarcely spread beyond the region where,
it is true, the majority of his works are still to be found.
And this indeed may be one of the reasons for this
neglect, for as M. Teodor de Wyzewa has observed,
" the atmosphere of the Lakes fills the soul with a
kind of voluptuous torpor, which makes it dread the
shock of a strong artistic emotion."
A good idea of Ferrari's talent will already have
been formed by those who have seen his pictures at
Novara, Cannobio and Como, his frescoes at Vercelli
and the Island of Orta, and above all, the splendid
cupola of Saronno, which I admired the other day,
and which Andre Michel, in his History of Painting,
ranks among the great achievements of Italian art,
comparing it to Correggio's masterpiece at Parma.
But one can only learn to know him thoroughly at
VarallO; in the little church of S. Maria delle Grazie,
at the foot of the Sacred Mount. Here his heart still
beats, in that sunny square where his house has been
preserved and where his fellow-citizens erected a statue
to him, wishing, as the inscription upon it tells us, to
honour him who immortalised himselE delV arte del
dipingere e del plasticare.^
Though this formula is comprehensible on the road
^ "In the axis of painting and modelling."
30 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
to the Sacro Monte — seeing that the artist worked on a
few of the statues in the chapel — it is on the whole
over-ambitious. Ferrari can only claim to rank among
the painters, but his place is a very honourable one ;
and without going so far as Lomazzo, who reckons
him among the seven great masters of the period, it
is but just to pay homage to his merits.
Before entering S. Maria delle Grazie, I wished to
see one of his pictures which still adorns the altar of
the parish church, built in the heart of the town on a
rock to which one climbs by a very picturesque stair-
case. Burckhardt incorrectly gives his readers to
understand that there are two churches, each possessing
a Marriage of Saint Catherine ; he makes a distinction
between the CoUegiata and San Gaudenzio, which are,
in fact, the same building. The altar-piece, in six
compartments, is an exquisitely harmonious work.
The Christ is very beautiful ; rarely has that lifeless
body, which is not a corpse, since it is to rise again,
been more perfectly rendered. The central compart-
ment represents the Marriage of S. Catherine, and is
no less remarkable in composition and colour.
But, like Luini, Gaudenzio was pre-eminently a
fresco-painter, and his masterpiece is the great decora-
tion on the rood-screen. In the chapel on the left,
under this rood-screen, the Presentation in the Temple
and the Jesus among the Doctors are also noticeable ;
but the importance of the large fresco makes it allow-
able to pass them over. The surface is divided into
twenty-one panels illustrating the life of Christ. The
general effect is by no means monotonous ; each of the
sacred episodes shows a wonderful variety of execution.
When we examine them closely, we are almost inclined
to think Ferrari superior to Luini, save in grace and
design. He has greater vigour and movement. There
FERRARI'S CRITICS 31
were passages that made me think of Signorelli, and
details of daring naturalism ; I will not go so far as
Corrado Ricci, and say " modernism." The torn and
dirty garments of the flagellants, the attitudes of the
Apostles who gaze at Jesus as He washes the feet of one
of them, the effects of light in the scene of the arrest,
among other things, bear witness to his researches and
his constant regard for truth. He exaggerates some-
times. Thus in the panel of the Crucifixion, there are
many futile and even ridiculous details ; the devil
who is tormenting the impenitent thief and the little
jumping dog in the foreground detract from the
emotional effect. We see the artist swayed by the
various influences brought to bear upon him, influences
among which M. Teodor de Wyzewa, following Miss
Ethel Halsey, has been at pains to discriminate.
According to these critics, the painter at first remained
faithful to his Lombard origin ; they then note in his
work a new manner so distinctly German that they
believe Ferrari must have worked for some months
on the banks of the Rhine. I must confess that I could
not trace this influence so clearly in the San Gaudenzio
picture described above, which belongs to this second
period. The artist then went to Parma, and fell under
the enchantment of Correggio ; the angels of the Flight
into Egypt in Como Cathedral, and the warm colour
of the admirable Ascent to Calvary at Cannobio, leave
no room for doubt on this head. Finally, at the close
of his career, Ferrari, assimilating all these influences
in his individual genius, produced the masterpieces
at Vercelli and Saronno.
These divisions are always a little arbitrary. I think,
moreover — and to me this is the secret of Ferrari's
charm — that he ever remained a Lombard more
or less. Having spent nearly all his life in the mountains
82 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
of Varallo and on the shores of the lakes, he preserved
the flavour of his birth-place and his race. He was the
last to resist the domination of Leonardo. When
he died in 1546, we may say that Lombard painting
had had its day.
CHAPTER V
VAKESE
It was not on the shores of Lake Varese, as a some-
what ambiguous phrase might lead us to suppose, that
Taine longed for a country house ; he never even
approached its banks, and was content to view it from
the road leading to Laveno. It was Lake Maggiore
which so fired him that he wished to live by it ; he
preferred it to Como, the voluptuous beauty of which
did not appeal to him. But I should have understood
it had his choice fallen on the town of Varese, for it
is charming, and its environs are among the most
delightful spots in Lombardy. It is gay, prosperous and
animated, sometimes even over-crowded on the days
of its famous markets and horse-races; the Milanese
have made it one of their favourite residential quarters
and have built handsome viUas there. As it is little
known to tourists, the traveller may linger there at
his ease between its festival periods, and enjoy the
dignified calm of its public gardens, which are among
the finest in Northern Italy. They are the park of
the ancient Corte which Duke Francis III of Modena
built in the eighteenth century. Planted in the old
GARDENS AT VARESE 33
Italian style, they have an air of noble severity. Secular
hornbeams border the spacious lawns. I remember see-
ing them long ago in the spring, when camellias, chestnut
trees, lilacs and Australian magnolias with their satiny
white blossoms filled them with their youthful sweetness.
Now the scents of autumn, less strong but more subtle,
spread a fever through the groves. A knoll studded
with firs and parasol pines in the background adds
much to the character and majesty of this garden.
From the terrace the view extends over the whole of
Lake Varese and as far as the chain of Western Alps
dominated by Monte Rosa. Turning about, we see
above the roofs of the town, the Madonna del Monte,
and beyond, the Campo dei Fiori, which rises 3,000
feet above the plain, an incomparable belvedere to
which, sad to say, a funicular, opened within the last
few days, gives access. A rack and pinion railway
had already dishonoured the famous pilgrim's way
of the Madonna, which in former days was climbed
on foot or in bullock carts, a rough Calvary with inter-
minable windings. The joy of the gradual ascent,
and the discovery at every turning of a wider field
of vision, was infinitely greater under the old con-
ditions. The panorama from the top is magnificent.
The view extends over the whole of Lombardy, as far
as Milan, dimly divined on the horizon. We distin-
guish six lakes : to the left, Como ; in front, Varese ;
to the right, the little lakes of Biandronno, Monate
and Comabbio ; finally, a long way behind them, two
fragments of Maggiore. These no doubt, made up
the " seven " lakes counted by Stendhal, when he
exclaimed : " Magnificent sight ! One may travel
through all France and Germany without receiving
such impressions." It is true that there are few pros-
pects so superb, especially towards evening, when the
34 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
sheets of water gleam in the setting sun hke^ golden
reliquaries. Yet in spite of this cry of admiration,
Beyle was very melancholy on that June day of 1817,
so melancholy that he scarcely looked at the women
who accompanied him in his walk, two of whom, at
least, he declares, were very beautiful. ** As I have
not time to be in love with any one of them, I am in
love with Italy. I cannot overcome my grief at leaving
this land." No doubt he was sincere ; but a memory
mingled with this regret which gave it a taste of bitter-
ness. He recalled another ascent six years before
on an October morning, " when the sun rose wreathed
in mists and the lower slopes looked like islands in the
midst of a sea of white clouds." How gaily he had
mounted then ! He was going to meet Angelina
Pietragrua, whom he had known in his youth, whom
he had lately seen again, even more beautiful than
he had imagined her during the years of separation, and
who had at last given herself to him. But the Madonna
del Monte had not been kind to the lovers. Although
the brother of the parish priest had handed him the
benedetta chiave (blessed key), the key of the door which
gave access from his lodging to the peristyle of the
church, he had failed to encounter the fair Milanese.
Either to fan the flame of his love, or because her
husband's jealousy had really been aroused, she managed
to evade him. On the terrace whence I gaze on the
lovely panorama, Beyle meditated on love, and waited
vainly for her whom later he stigmatised as " a jade."
A hundred years later almost to the day, I am conscious
of the touching grace this memory adds to the land-
scape, this landscape which he looked at with unseeing
eyes.
CHAPTER VI
COMO
How shall I be able to leave Lombardy and re-cross
the Alps without stopping on the shore of Lario, where
I have so often paced in idle meditation that I seem to
have lived there for years ? But this time, instead
of staying at Bellagio or Cadenabbia I mean to remain
at Como itself, and taste the charm of this town, which
at the present day is rather the city of Volta than that
of Pietro da Bregia, the architect of the Cathedral,
but which still has artistic joys in store for the pilgrim.
I remember that, in company with Maurice Barres,
I once rallied Taine for having devoted more pages to
Como Cathedral than to the shores of the Lake itself.
And even now I am not prepared to go back upon what
I said altogether, for Taine 's chapter still amuses me.
The writer exults when he quits Milan and its museums :
" After three months spent among pictures and statues,
I feel like a man who has been dining out every night
for three months ; give me bread and not pine-apple.
The traveller gets into the train light of heart, knowing
that when he arrives he will find real water, trees,
and mountains, that the landscape will be more than
three feet long and will not be enclosed in four gold
bands." Then, on the following days, after having
gone round the lake without leaving his boat, he devotes
a short page to the marvels he has beheld, marvels he
seemed to have longed for so fervently ; and unable
to resist the temptation of going to visit the Cathedral,
he writes a whole chapter in which he discourses at
length on the happy mingling of Italian and Gothic
in the works of the Renaissance.
35 B 2
36 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
Now that I have been able to examine the cathedral
at leisure, I can understand Taine's enthusiasm. Even
at the close of a journey in Italy, it is able to detain
and dehght the traveller in quest of beauty. The
fagade (parallel with the charming Broletto of tri-
coloured marble^ a third of which had to be lopped
off to allow space for the Cathedral front) is highly
original with its three divisions marked by vertical
lines of superposed statues. The middle stage is more
especially elaborate and decorative. The central porch,
surmounted by five lofty figures and a rose window
encircled by niches, is flanked right and left by graceful,
slender windows beneath which are the famous seated
statues of the two PUnys. I notice that there is a great
wealth of statues throughout ; even the window-frames
are adorned with them ; there are perhaps a hundred
on this fagade, which by reason of its wide, flat spaces,
looks almost bare at a first glance. The detafls of the
architecture are now Gothic, now Renaissance ; there
could hardly be a better demonstration in marble
of the struggle between the tendencies which divided
the fifteenth century. These transition works have,
moreover, a vigour and simpUcity which reveal a
robust and youthful art. No doubt, as Taine remarks,
a certain artlessness, an over-literal imitation of forms,
indicate a spirit which has not yet attained its full
freedom of flight ; exaggerated attitudes, superabundant
locks, betray the excesses and irregularities of inven-
tive genius ; but this desire to render and express
life has in its very clumsiness more charm than much
cold and learned perfection. Moreover, as I have
already pointed out more than once, Lombard sculpture
is above all ornamental, and its object is to contribute
to the general effect ; Lombard artists are decorators
rather than sculptors. This is still more evident in
COMO CATHEDRAL 37
the two lateral doors of the cathedral. The south
poroh is ascribed to Bramante, and although the
attribution has been contested, it seems to lue to bear
the mark of his hand : the breadth of the design, the
sobriety of the details, the firmness of the lines, the
nobility of the effect are at least worthy of that great
artist. The other door, generally known as the Porta
della Rana, because of a frog carved on one of the pillars,
is by the brothers Rodari. We divine that the two
Lombard artists aspired to improve upon their model ;
they succeeded only in making their work richer and
more elaborate, too rich and too elaborate. Why
those figures and that niche in its turn surmounted by
statues, on the entablature ? Why those huge carved
columns loaded with ornaments like the supports of
an altar ? I recognise here the minds and hands of
the artisans who worked on the Cathedral of Milan
and the Certosa of Pa via.
But let us not imitate Taine ; let us give these last
hours to the lake. At the end of last March, returning
from Toledo and the harsh plateaux of Castille, I ex-
perienced such physical delight in arriving on these
shores that they had never seemed so fair to me before.
I declared that their seduction was more enthralling
at that early season than in' the autumn. This is only
true from a certain point of view : the joy of the eye
is more perfect in the spring. Through the atmosphere,
not as yet tarnished by the dust of summer, the slightest
details of the soil appear. The hills, which enclose
the shores so harmoniously without imprisoning them,
take on more delicate tints ; their slender curves and
supple undulations become more definite; the leafless
trees do not mask them under the uniform tone of
^ their foliage. The snow which still crowns the mountain-
tops, relieves their crests against the blue, and at the
88 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
same time forms a most vivid contrast to the trees and
flowers.
^ut the deep poetry of this lake, and its unrivalled
fascination, are only fully revealed in autumn when
the languors and perfumes of the dying summer float
about us in a perpetual incense. In the balmy alleys
of its gardens one recalls those groves of Tasso, where,
under the soft persuasion of flower scents, a hero's
hate gave way to love. If other lakes are too chill
and too unsympathetic, this one is perhaps too sub-
missive to our desires and too indulgent to our sensuality.
True lovers sometimes suffer here from so much un-
necessary complicity, and so much joy that owes
nothing to their own ardour.
I decided to return on foot to Cernobbio to revisit
the Villa d'Este, and go over the ground I had travelled
the first time I came to Como. What changes twelve
years have wrought ! Innumerable houses have risen
along the road, which at present seems like the street
of a single town extending right along the bank.
Progress is always hostile to Nature, and the foe of
the picturesque. Very soon there will be no walks
unenclosed by walls. And as the high road will be
more and more encumbered by tramways and motor-
cars, we shall have to give up this once delicious walk.
Ah ! happy was the time when these comers were so
tranquil, when one met only peaceful pilgrims and
fine carriages, when, even on the outskirts of private
properties, trees and flowers leant so amiably from
terraces and through gateways that one seemed to be
wandering through a park. How shamefaced and
wretched the roadside verdure looks now under its
shroud of dust ! Alas ! too lovely shores ! your beauty
will perish of its own glory like that laurel of the Borro-
mean islands on which, tradition tells us, Bonaparte
PLINY'S VILLAS 39
carved the word Victory on the eve of Marengo, and
which has succumbed to the mutilations inflicted by
over-zealous admirers.
To find peace, one must take refuge on the eastern
side, towards Torno, where the carriage road ends,
and take the mule track which leads to Pliny's villa.
Here there is solitude, as in the days of Pliny. The
historian owned at least three country-houses on the
shores of the lake. Those he called respectively
Tragcedia and Comcedia because of their situation,
one on the height, the other close to the water, " one
standing on cothurni, the other on humble clogs, " must
have been in the neighbourhood of Lenno, where the
shafts of columns and haK-buried capitals bear witness
to the former existence of sumptuous buildings. The
third stood on the site of the present Villa Pliniana,
beside the changeful spring which puzzled him so
much, as we learn from his letter to Licinias Sura,
where he enumerates all the contemporary explanations
of the natural phenomenon. The spot is one of the
wildest in these generally smiling regions ; and we can
imagine how this mysterious, almost menacing setting
increased the terror and astonishment of the ancients.
The lake alone smiles between the black trunks of the
cypresses and quivers gently in the brightness of the
dazzling mid-day sun, as Carducci described it :
Palpito il lago Virgilio, come velo di sposa
Che s' apre al bacio del promesso amore.^
From this solitary corner, so near Como and yet so
deserted, to which the echoes of the all too noisy shores
do not penetrate, I see a little of Virgil and Pliny's
lake gleaming under the glowing light in the languor
^ Virgil's lake quivers, like the veil of a bride,
Which opens to the kiss of promised love.
40 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
of autumn, just as all Lario gleamed two thousand
years ago, under a more youthful sun, in a wilder
setting. /
CHAPTER VII
ISEO
Just as the spell of Venice causes us to neglect the
cities on the way from Milan to the Adriatic, so the magic
of the great ItaUan lakes makes us overlook the deUcious
Lake of Iseo, which is a kind of tiny summary of all
the rest. It has comers of vegetation as luxuriant as
that of the Lakes of Como or Garda, scenery wilder than
that of Lugano, and, like Maggiore, an imposing back-
ground of mountains with the snowy peaks of the
Adamello, the Pian di Nive, and the glaciers of Salarno.
Small as it is, it even boasts an island, the largest lake
island in Italy.
On leaving Vicenza, I determined to revisit this
lake, where something of the French spirit still lingers.
On its shores, indeed, " the neighbourhood of which,"
as she says, " is fresh and gentle as one of Virgil's
Eclogues," George Sand wandered with her turbulent
dreams, and put a little, nay, perhaps a good deal of
herself into the story of the unhappy loves of young
Prince Karol of Roswald and the actress, Lucrezia
Floriani.
In spite of the flowers and the garden walks all vocal
with birds among the azaleas in spring-time, it is in
September that I love best to visit these lakes, the
very names of which make my heart beat faster on dull
TAJNE AT COMO 41
days in Paris. Italian lakes and gardens I Why
should these simple words move me more than any
others ? I have never, like some enthusiasts, vowed
to take up my abode for ever on their perfumed terraces,
at Bellagio or Pallanza ; but it is delightful to spend
a week among them, to know that they offer one a
refuge, a haven of peace or of love.
Their magic is instantaneous. Scarcely has one seen
them gleaming in the sun than one is conquered.
They seem at once familiar, and this sudden impression
given by a lake, a town, a country is never deceptive ;
it is nearly always definitive. Good or evil, it is rarely
modified subsequently ; at any rate, it is never com-
pletely effaced. As between persons who meet for the
first time, sympathy, indifference or hostility is born
of the mere encounter. We seem at once to come in
contact with the soul of this lake, this town, this region,
a soul compact of many things : of the air one breathes,
the light which illumines it, the line of the shore or
of the streets, the faces one encounters, the curve of
the hills, and a thousand details visible and invisible.
The lakes of Savoy, of Bavaria and of Switzerland are
too cold, too sublime, or too austere ; they lack the
nobility, the perfect proportion, and also the languor
we find in combination here on this declivity of the
Alps which looks down on the land of light and beauty.
Taine, who extolled Lake Como, never really loved
it. He stayed there but one day. Delighted to think
he was not going to see any more pictures, but to bathe
in nature, he embarked in the morning, went round the
lake without landing anywhere, and returned to the
town in the afternoon. The next day he devoted to the
Cathedral, and to a long dissertation on architecture.
Would it not have been better if he had stopped at
Bellagio to taste the joy of life in the gardens of the
42 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
Villa Serbelloni ? It is difficult to enjoy a landscape
when one is chiefly concerned to get a few pages of
copy out of it. Dumas the elder declared that he
wrote the three worst articles he had ever produced
on the shores of these lakes, in the loveliest country
in the world. And I believe that George Sand came
to Iseo rather to attune the tumult of her heart to the
rhythmic murmur of the waters than to work.
Instead of embarking at once on the steamer for
Lovere, I preferred to make my way for a mile or two
on the new road which skirts the eastern shore as far
as Pisogne. It is a wonderful piece of work, for the
most part a terrace hewn in the rock, which rivals
the Ponale road or the famous Axenstrasse of the
Four Cantons.
Under the hot noon sunshine the water spreads out
its harmonious surface like breadths of brilliant be-
spangled silk. The vines run from tree to tree, laden
with bunches of golden grapes which bring to my mind
an excellent Predore wine with a fruity flavour. A
few gardens extend languorously between the road
and the lake. On the hiUsides there are first olive-trees,
then, throwing their dull gray into relief, evergreen
oaks and chestnuts. In the background, high moun-
tains stand out sharply against a sky so intensely blue
that it has metallic reflections, and recalls the blue the
Primitives painted behind the heads of their Madonnas.
Beyond these again a fine white line indicates the crest
of the glaciers.
But the water attracts me. I ask a fisherman to
take me across the lake. Lulled by the monotonous
movement of the oars, I see as in a dream the land and
the white houses which glisten in the sun fading away
in a golden dust. Here and there on the hills a village
clings round a hell-tower, like swallows' nests on the
LAKE SCENERY 43
edge of a roof. The water glitters till we seem to be
slipping across a frameless mirror. A warm breeze,
heavy with the scents of dying summer, fans us. The
air is so pure that I hear the sounds from the two shores
distinctly, and when the siren of a steamer shrills
through the air, I imagine I see the waves of sound
rippling over my head.
It is an exquisite hour, and I seem suddenly to
appreciate the essential charm of these lakes. It lies
in the fact that the horizon is restricted, and that the
eyes rest on actual definite things. All along the
Mediterranean coasts, on the Riviera, at Naples, Palermo
or Corfu, gardens as lovely lie in the languid air on the
shores of water no less deeply blue. The joy of life
may be felt before panoramas no less marvellous. The
sea even augments their majesty ; but from the very
fact of its majesty, its infinitude, and above all, its
mobility, its hold upon us is less direct, less physical,
so to speak. It limits neither eye nor mind ; it offers
adventure too boundless ; it is not, like the lake, within
the limits of sight and desire. The sea is like a woman
dancing at a distance in a shifting scene ; the Italian
lakes are beautiful maidens yielding to our embrace.
We have but to hold out our hands to touch and clasp
them. Like those October roses whose petals fall at
a touch, they are ready to sink into our arms. They
seem to offer themselves, like the nymph described by
Politian in one of his Stanze, who advanced, laden with
flowers, and whose " suave and gliding movement,"
il dolce andar soave, he praises in words I translate
inadequately enough.
A less joyous vision recalls me to realities. The
boat passes Tavemola, where I remember breakfasting
one morning under a pergola of roses. The charming
village is. now but a heap of ruins, of gutted houses.
44 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
On March 3, 1906, a large portion of the place slipped
and disappeared into the water. But why should we
grieve ? Does it not teach us once again that we must
enjoy life in the few days left us ?
And yet this thought of death, in the midst of the
joyous splendour around me, returns insistently. I
think of the stern phrase of Lucretius : surgit amari
aliquid. And almost involuntarily, I made my way
as soon as I landed to the gate of a little cemetery I
had noticed from the boat. There was no one in sight,
not even a custodian. Only a flock of sparrows, which
flew off at my approach with shrill twitterings.
Cypresses, those untiring sentinels, watched over the
dead ; their mourning spears rose in rigid lines along
the box borders of the alleys. Between their black
trunks stood the white marble of a few memorial monu-
ments, or wooden crosses enclosed by railings ; wistaria
and Virginian creeper, reddened by the summer sun,
clung to the iron which had already rusted. On some
of the tombs, willows dropped the languid tears of their
foliage.
How much better must it be to sleep here, than in
those sumptuous modem cemeteries where the bad
taste of the contemporary Italian is so horribly displayed.
It would be dreadful to me to think that I should one
day lie in the Campo Santo of Genoa or Milan, surrounded
by men in stone frock-coats and women in flounced skirts,
weeping and grimacing, handkerchief in hand, figures
whose coarsely realistic attitudes recall the wax-works
of the Musee Grevin. How much sweeter and softer
is the shade of these willows !
Outside the burial ground, and on the bright terraces
that rise above it, flowering shrubs, fig-trees loaded
with fruit, and oUve-trees of tarnished silver spread
their verdant branches. An arbutus covered with red
LOVE AND DEATH 45
berries gleams in the sun like a tree of coral. Vines
cling to the poplars ; the grapes have not yet been
gathered ; swarms of wasps and bees murmur round
the over-ripe fruit. Life seems everywhere triumphant,
yet between these walls, in the dim shade of the
cypresses rising heavenward in an eternal prayer
reigns a motionless peace, a cloistral silence. Only
the long locks of a eucalyptus sway in the wind, showing
flashes of silver. And this contrast causes me a strange
agitation, more poignant than that I felt on the lake.
I have never been able to enter a cemetery without
emotion ; and I have never felt more intensely the
close relation between life and death than here, between
these images of mortality and this exuberance of life.
I seem like one of Orcagna's young nobles, one of those
three " living ones," who, returning from hunting,
after tasting the delight of life and the perfume of the
woods, pass by festering corpses and breathe corruption
and death. How touching was that idea of Barres',
who regretted that the burial-grounds of the little
villages about the Italian lakes were not all situated
close to the waters, receiving the caresses of the waves
cast upon the shore by passing pleasure-boats. Such
a vicinity would enhance the joy of lovers and give
them that sense of exaltation felt by Venetian couples
when they cross themselves as their gondolas glide
past the red walls and the crosses of San Michele, or
wander hand in hand under the sombre yews of the
Franciscan island. Is it not natural, indeed, that
enjoyment should be heightened when we remember
that it is perishable, and that the coming second may
snatch it from us ? The lovers of the past who used
to give their mistresses a memento mori were far-seeing.
The delicately carved little skeleton turned their
thoughts perpetually on death, and stimulated their
46 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
desires. I understand why Michelet took his betrothed
to Pere-Lachaise, and talked to her of love among the
tombs. For Love finds pleasure in proximity to Death ;
and often they walk hand in hand, the warm, rosy
fingers of Love in the bony clasp of Death. I forget
where I read that it was Don Juan of Manara who
commissioned Valdes Leal to paint the horrible picture
of the Two Corpses which is still in the Caridad of Seville,
and in which a bishop and a noble are seen lying in
their coffins, devoured by loathsome worms ; the
lover of the thousand and one, we are told, sought to
exasperate the ecstasy of regret by imaging his own
beautiful face, which he had seen so often reflected
in eyes brilliant with desire, thus disfigured and devoured.
When Heinrich Heine tells us in his Memoirs of his love
for the daughter of the Diisseldorf executioner, he
recalls most vividly her long red tresses, which, when
twisted round the young girl's neck, made her look
like a decapitated person. But nowhere are Love and
Death more inseparable than on Itahan soil. I wish
I had brought Leopardi's works with me ; I would have
read the verses in which the poet of Recanati proclaims
the mournful fraternity of Love and Death. In this
burial ground enframed in the splendour of Lombard
gardens, I should have appreciated the austerity of
the elegy, the stern workmanship of which recalls the
harsh landscapes of the Marches :
Fratelli, a un tempo stesso, Amore e Morte
Ingenero la sorte.^
Bom at the same time. Love and Death are brothers ;
this idea has always been a favourite theme of the
Italian poets. In several passages of the Vita Nuova^
Dante stimulates his passion by thinking of Beatrice
^ Fate conceived Love and Death, the brothers, at the same
moment.
A RELIGION OF THE SENSES 47
in her shroud ; and on the ancient walla of the Campo
Santo of Pisa, in the background of that Triumph of
Death on which I have just been musing, there is a
coppice near the old mail-clad virago, where in the
golden shade of orange trees, careless lovers sport
joyously as in one of the scenes of gallantry of the
Decameron. Religion, too, is akin to Love ; in the
adoration of the Virgin by men, and of Jesus by women,
there is often a sensual ardour. Not that I doubt
the purity and sincerity of most religious sentiment.
But there are cases in which feminine devotion is but
a perverted tenderness, addressed to the Son of Man
in lieu of the lover. *I think there can have been no
more amorous creature than Saint Teresa, who even
pitied Satan because he can never know the joys of
love. But it is here in Italy that it is most difficult
to define the limits of religion and sensuality ; and the
Dominican nun. Saint Catherine, was even more
amorous than the Spanish saint. The letters of the
Sienese overflow with a passion in which the ecstasy
is rather sensual than religious. In despite of the
Church — ^nay, sometimes even under its auspices — ^for
a Pope was not afraid to approve the burial in San
Gregorio, among the sacred monuments, of the famous
courtesan Imperia and the inscription on her tomb
of her notorious calling — the old religion of Beauty and
Pleasure revives in this land which so long nourished
it, and mingles with Christian worship. I do not know
if it be true, as is said, that certain procuresses of Venice
and Naples are accustomed to show the young girls
they have for sale in the churches, but I remember
being accosted behind a pillar in St. Mark's.
While I meditate thus, a young woman of the people,
bare-headed and dressed in black, enters the cemetery.
Her wooden shoes, which, after the fashion of the
48 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
country, cover only the tips of her feet, clatter on the
ground. She approaches and lays a bunch of flowers
on a newly-dug grave marked by a simple cross. My
presence embarrasses her. She kneels for a moment,
murmurs a brief prayer and goes away, wiping a furtive
tear from her eyes.
The vanilla-like scent of oleander mingles with
the pungent smell of box and cjrpress. The wind brings
the odour of the neighbouring gardens. Here, again,
everything tells us that we must enjoy life for the
brief span remaining to us.
CHAPTER VIII
BRESCIA
If Vicenza is the city of PaUadio, Brescia is that of
Moretto. True, Brescia has many other interesting
aspects. But in these Italian cities, so rich in marvels
of every kind, the traveller must be moderate, and among
the many flowers of the parterre, he must choose the
loveliest and rarest.
Travellers seem to have shown little interest in the
city before our own day. Stendhal, who saw it in 1801,
tells us that it is " fairly attractive, of medium size,
situated at the foot of a little mountain and sheltered
from the north wind by its fortress on a mamelon of
the mountain." This was all that struck the author
of La Peinture an Italie in the birth-place of Moretto.
CHARACTER OF BRESCIA 49
Taine did not halt between Verona and Milan ; he
hardly deigned to cast a glance at Lake Garda from the
railway carriage at Desenzano. Th^ophile Gautier
certainly speaks of " Vicenza," but this was the name
of a Venetian brunette of whom he made a pastel
drawing ; as to Brescia, he passed through it at night,
and stayed only an hour, to change horses ; he noted
only the height of the houses and the delicious freshness
of the water.
The situation of the town is delightful, at the foot
of the Alps, the Brescian wall of which is pierced by the
valleys of Gamonica, Trompia and Sabbia. The Oglio,
the Mella and the Chiese debouch from these and spread
fertility over the plain. Few horizons are more varied
and verdant than those which encircle the fortress.
It is easy to understand the taste of the inhabitants
for landscape and fine prospects, nor are we surprised
to find so many of the inner courts of the houses
decorated' with frescoes which give an illusion of
country scenes and woodland greenery.
Few cities have a more glorious past than
Brescia la forte, Brescia la ferrea,
Brescia leonessa d'ltalia
beverata nel sangue nemico.^
These verses of Carducci's well express the martial
character of the city, which still derives its wealth from
the weapons it forges, and proclaims itself " the mother
of heroes." The plain of the Mella still bears the name
of the Valley of Iron and the towers, Torre della Pallata
and the Torre del Popolo, evoke the memorable sieges
undergone by Brescia on account of its strategic position,
at the opening of the valleys which descend from the
Tyrol. Scarcely a century passed when it was not
* Brescia the strong, Brescia the stern, Brescia the lioness of
Italy, steeped in the blood of her enemies.
E
50 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
forced to defend itself. Gaston de Foix sacked it for
a week. Bayard, who commanded his vanguard,
showed his nobility of character there. We read in
the Loyal Serviteur how he behaved to the two young
girls of the house to which he was brought when
wounded ; to their terrified mother, who offered him
a ransom, he said : " Madam, I know not whether I
shall be healed of my wound ; but as long as I live, no
discourtesy shall be shown to you or to your daughters
any more than to my own person." Away from France
it is pleasant to recall the chivalrous traits of our country-
men. The Brescian women took part in the fighting,
and have left a reputation of masculine courage.
Brescians still cherish the memory of Brigitta Avogrado,
who, at the head of a battalion of women, repulsed an
assault of the enemy. The women of to-day no longer
fight ; but they seem to have retained their martial
character, to judge by Alfieq's ironical verses :
Veggie Brescitttie donne iniquo speglio
farsi de' ben forbiti pugnaletti,
Cui prova o amante infido o sposo veglio.^
This warlike past, which began with the conflicts
of the old Brixia of the Celts and continues to Solferino,
sets a halo of glory about the town which seems to be
guarded by the beautiful Victory of the Temple of
Hercules built by Vespasian. It is one of the most
moving statues I know. All the great Italian poets
have sung it. D'Annunzio devoted one of his proudest
sonnets to it :
Bella nel peplo dorico, la panna
poggiata contro la sinistra coscia,
la gran Nik6 incidea la sua parola.
* I see Brescian women making themselves evil mirrors of
polished daggers, to be tested by faithless lover or aged husband.
IL MORETTO 51
** O Vergine, te sola amo, te sola ! "
grido ranima mia nell' alta angoscia.
Ella rispose : " Chi mi vuole, s'arma ! " ^
But let us forget the bellicose city, and give an hour
to the delightful Municipio, where we find Palladio's
hand again in the frames of the windows, and to the
Old Cathedral, so noble, so austere and so poignant
that the very soul of the city seems still to be quivering
in it. And let us devote ourselves to Moretto.
Alessandro Bonvicino, called II Moretto : here ia
one of those painters whose name is familiar to all,
but whose works are known to very few. When some-
thing has been said about his silvery grays, with the
addition that he is one of the most fascinating painters
of Northern Italy, the subject seems to be exhausted.
True, it is difficult to form a complete idea of him with-
out visiting Brescia. Nevertheless, some of his canvases
still remain in Lombardy and Venetia. I noticed
several in the Brera and at San Giorgio in Braida at
Verona. Venice has examples in the Accademia and
the Layard Collection ; and also the Christ at the House
of Simon the Pharisee which is at the Pieta, in the
nuns' tribune ; unfortunately, the church has been
under repair for several years and the picture, one of
the master's most important works, can no longer be
seen. The two panels in the Louvre, representing S.
Bernardino of Siena and S. Louis of Toulouse, are by
no means adequate examples : yet when we examine
them attentively we are fascinated by the calm, broacUy
treated faces, the quiet, noble attitudes, the sober
and harmonious draperies which give a simplicity and
^ Fair in her Doric peplum, her shield on her left hip, the great
Nik6 cut short his words. " O Virgin, I love but thee, but
thee ! " cried my soul in its lofty anguish. She answered : " Let
him who desires me arm himself."
E 2
52 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
unity to the general effect rare among the painters of
the period.
At Brescia, on the other hand, it is easy to follow
the artist step by step in his development. The
town is full of his pictures. There are examples in
every church, and one, San Clemente, is a museum
of the works of the painter, who is buried there. As
to the Martinengo Gallery, the principal room is almost
entirely occupied by Moretto ; it contains fourteen of
his pictures ; and this year the custodian showed me
a fifteenth which had come from the Santa Zitta
Institute.
The exhibition of Moretto's works, held at Brescia
in 1898, did much to make his name known. The
catalogue registered seventy works, coming almost
exclusively from the town itself or its immediate neigh-
bourhood. A great many had to be put aside for
lack of space. For this reason the exquisite picture
from the church of Paitone, The Virgin appearing to
a Deaf Mute, was not included.
The silvery-gray tone noted by all art-critics is,
indeed, one of the characteristics of the master, especially
towards the close of his career. It is very noticeable
when we can compare him with other painters, as for
instance at the Venice Accademia or even at San Giorgio
in Braida at Verona, which is a kind of museum of the
Schools of north-eastern Italy ; his beautiful Saint
Cecilia is very individual in colour. But we must
beware of exaggeration, and this silvery gray is to be
found in Romanino, his master and rival, and in other
painters of the district. This very year I noticed it
in Girolamo da Treviso, in two pictures of the gallery
which precedes the famous Malchiostro Chapel.
Moreover, II Moretto has other qualities. After
spending several hours in the Gallery, I tried to formu-
IL MORETTO'S COLOUR 68
late a few general ideas as to his work. Two very
marked characteristics presented themselves to my
mind.
In the first place, the artist possessed in the highest
degree the gift of harmony and gradation in his colour.
His taste is sure and delicate. The tones are contrasted
and balanced with the most cunning art. Grays,
yellows and pale blues give freshness and briUiance
to all his compositions. In certain canvases there is
a little of that fusion which has sufficed to immortalise
Correggio, and that vaporous gradation of tints which
the Italians call sfumato. Everything is combined for
the delight of the eye : the figures, the draperies, the
ornaments, the accessories and also the landscapes in
which he excels. One of the latest acquisitions of the
Gallery is the fresco in the centre of the room, a Christ
hearing His Gross, removed from the church of San
Giuseppe, where it was deteriorating ; here we may
admire a panorama of mountains crowned with fortresses,
which further enables us to appreciate his knowledge
of perspective.
The other quality is the perfect equilibrium the
master always achieves between the conception of the
work and its material execution. When treating
religious subjects, he gives his figures the dignity and
nobility that befit them. A deeply spiritual life
irradiates their faces. In his Saint Anthony of Padua,
the simple, tranquil majesty of the saint who raises
the lily with an ample gesture, the ardent veneration
of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino as he contemplates the
thaumaturgist, the benevolent serenity of Saint Anthony
Abbot leaning on his crutch characterise an unforgettable
trio. All his Virgins have a poignant gravity. They
are far removed, indeed, from the complicated art of
the Florentines, that Madonna of Saint Barnabas, for
54 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
instance, under which Botticelli was impelled to write
Dante's verse
Vergine madre, filia del tuo Figlios*
to explain the mysterious and enigmatical expression
in the eyes of the Virgin ; far too from the Virgins
the tender Luini was painting at the same time, whose
carnositd, or tondezza, as the Italians call it, is more
akin to pagan beauty than to the Christian ideal.
Moretto followed in the main the Venetian tradition,
which is free from the literary, theological or philo-
sophical pre-occupations of the painters of Rome and
Florence. Like Titian or Palma, with whom he worked,
Bonvicino is quite untouched by these more intellectual
than pictorial influences. His Salome even is so calm
and serious that we are surprised to learn that she is,
as the inscription under the picture tells us, the fierce
princess who " caput saltando dbtinuit " (who obtained
the head by dancing). This imperturbable serenity
has been taken by some for sadness, and a certain
writer tried to account for it by the impression made
on the painter by the calamities that befell Brescia
during his youth.
These qualities of Moretto 's are recognisable in
the rich series of pictures which adorns the walls of
the Brescian churches. The masterpiece among them
is the Coronation of the Virgin, in the Church of San
Nazzaro e San Celso. But it is at San Clemente that
we can enjoy the gentle genius of the master in all
its purity. Here, together with his perishable body,
is the very soul of Bonvicino. How radiant is his
Virgin surrounded by Saints behind the high altar !
Who that has once seen the warrior. Saint Florian,
that gallant youth in the armour with golden reflections,
^ Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son,
ROMANINO 55
can ever forget him ? The canvas attracts the traveller
directly he crosses the threshold of the little church,
and draws him back to it with irresistible magic. The
whole nave seems to be irradiated by it. There is
no finer example of the artist's two gifts : colour and
composition.
Moretto also painted a few portraits, one of which
is in the Martinengo Gallery ; in this branch, however,
he is eclipsed by the most gifted of his pupils, Giam-
battista Moroni. But Moroni, though related to the
School of Brescia through his master, belongs more
especially to Bergamo. And Brescia is so rich that
it need not borrow from its neighbour.
Romanino, on the other hand, although he worked
more outside his native city and travelled a great
deal — even to Paris, where he worked in the Queen
Mother's apartments in the Louvre — is thoroughly
Brescian. Born thirteen years before his pupil and
rival Bonvicino, he survived him some twelve years.
His career was long and prolific. The province of
Brescia is full of his works, and there is not a village
church in the Val Camonica which does not boast its
picture or fresco by Romanino. He is represented in
most of the great Italian galleries, sometimes by master-
pieces, as at Padua, where his Madonna is perhaps
the finest picture in the museum. Many churches too
are the proud possessors of his works, notably San
Giorgio in Braida at Verona, and the Cathedral at
Cremona, where there are admirable frescoes I should
like to have seen again this year, to complete my im-
pression of the master. Though they are not free from
occasional negligences and heavinesses, we can admire
unreservedly the nobility of the attitudes, and above
all, the colour, in which the beautiful yellow he affected
harmonises so finely with the gilded vault and pillars.
56 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
Beside them, Pordenone's famous works seem black
and declamatory ; they look like pictures. Romanino,
on the other hand, was a master of fresco. This may be
seen even at Brescia, either in the Corpus Domini
Chapel of San Giovanni Evangelista where he loses
nothing by comparison with Moretto, or in the Museum,
where are two frescoes, removed from the refectory
of the Monastery of Rodengo ; save for the somewhat
ungraceful attitude of the Magdalen (which we note
again in a painting in the church of San Giovanni and
in a Moretto at Santa Maria Calchera), the composition
is powerful ; but it is mainly by the colour they triumph
and produce the *' extraordinary effect " spoken of by
Burckhardt. Beside them, the artist's easel pictures pale
somewhat, if we except the altar-piece in San Francesco,
a masterly work he painted when he was still young,
on his return from Venice. The influence of Titian is
apparent here. The magnificent frame enhances the
effect of this picture, in which beauty of form competes
with splendour of colour.
Compared with these two masters, the other Brescian
painters seem to me greatly inferior, and I am surprised
to find that some critics rank Savoldo with them. He
is a second-rate artist, interesting only by virtue of his
landscape backgrounds and effects of light. Moreover,
save for the accident of birth, he has little connection
with Brescia, where he is barely represented. He
never threw off the influence of Venice, where he worked
for a long time ; he has no individuality. He is no
more noteworthy than a large number of the pupils
of II Moretto and Romanino, who created an artistic
centre important enough to enable an historian to say :
" In the middle of the 16th century, Brescia was greatly
superior to Florence."
It is strange and regrettable that these schools of
NORTHERN SCHOOLS 57
Northern Italy are so little known. The general ignor-
ance of them is due to the fact that for a long time art
criticism neglected Venetian painting and its collateral
branches in favour of Florence and Rome. It sacrificed
truly pictorial qualities to ideas and purity of line,
following the example of Vasari, who speaks very
summarily of the Northern painters, and dwells at
length on the masters of Central Italy whom he had
known personally or from immediate tradition. It
was not until later, when colour was given the pre-
ponderance due to it in painting, that it was shown
how Venice, together with Florence and Rome, and
almost untouched by them, had become a capital of
art, and at least their equal. Then, naturally, as there
were few records and little information available con-
cerning the less important neighbouring schools, these
were affiliated to Venice, and all the North Italian
painters were classified as the disciples of Titian, whose
reign had surpassed all others in length and splendour.
At present these impressions have been corrected,
and the characteristics of each group have been brought
out. The first to be re^constituted was the School
of Padua, which, though materially nearer than any
other to Venice, submitted less than any other to
Venetian influence ; its scientific curiosity, its interest
in expression, its precision, verging at times on dryness,
have nothing in common with the voluptuous charm
of the Venetians. Of the remaining Northern centres,
Verona, Treviso, Vicenza, Brescia and Bergamo, Brescia
was undoubtedly* the most important and the most
original. II Moretto was one of the greatest painters
of Northern Italy.
58 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
CHAPTER IX
BERGAMO
" Passing over the plains of Lombardy Oswald
exclaimed : * Ah ! how beautiful it was when all the
elms were covered with leaves and the vines hung
in festoons between them.' Lucile said to herself :
* Yes, it was beautiful when Corinne was with him ! * "
True indeed ! It is ourselves we project on the land-
scape. But the road from Milan to Bergamo on a bright
September morning is in fact delicious. " Magnificent,"
says Stendhal in his Journal, and he pronounces the
region the loveHest spot on earth and the most ex-
quisite he had ever seen. True, he also beheld it with
the eyes of a youth of eighteen, and I am well aware
that when he is moved by the glories of Nature, when
a panorama, to quote his own words, " played as with
a bow upon his soul," it was himself he put into things.
Remember that curious phrase of his : " The line of
the rocks as we approached Arbois seemed to me a
lively image of Mathilde's soul." But Lombardy was
always the land he loved, and we must admit that
he, who wished for no title on his tomb but the word
Milanese, remained faithful in his love and admiration.
Walking along this road in the morning sunshine we
realise the delight Leonardo must have felt when, leaving
behind him his sweet but somewhat austere Tuscany,
he viewed this plain where everything breathes joy
and pleasure. How lovingly he must have studied
its youths and maidens with their long, large eyes,
deep and enigmatic under the shade of their warm
eyelids.
Ah ! the grace of those *^ Italian mornings on roadfi
HISTORY OF BERGAMO 59
bordered by fields and meadows ! The air is pure and
light. The vines run from tree to tree, from one pioppo
to the other, like festival garlands. It is not surprising
that they should always have enchanted Northerners,
accustomed to the vineyards of France or the Rhine-
land, with their stunted, surly stocks. Goethe declared
that they had taught him the meaning of the word
" festoon." As to President de Brosses, he describes
them with all the tenderness of a Burgundian who
confesses himself less sensitive to the beauty of cities
than to the spectacle of Nature. He lauds the richness
of these vines " all mounted upon trees, over the branches
of which they clamber, and whence, as they fall, they
encounter other sprays to which the vinedressers fasten
them, till they form from tree to tree festoons laden
with fruit and foliage. No opera scenery could be
more picturesque or decorative than such a landscape.
Each tree, covered with vine-leaves, forms a dome,
whence hang four festoons which are fastened to its
neighbour trees."
But Bergamo now appears at a turn in the road.
The old city rises in the golden light with the girdle
of ramparts recalling its warlike past, the days of the
Lombard League and the struggles against Milan.
In 1428 Filippo Maria Visconti ceded it to Venice,
which kept it in subjection till 1797, save for a few years
when it belonged to Louis XII, after the Battle of
Agnadel. For nearly four centuries it enjoyed peace
and prosperity. It seems strange that though so near
to Milan, it should have remained so long in the
possession of Venice. But we can understand the pride
of Francesco Foscari, when from the summit of the
Campanile, gazing across the lagoon and the islands,
he contemplated with all the joy of possession the
immense plain where he divined the presence of Treviso,
60 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
Padua, Vicenza and Verona, already subject to the
Most Serene Republic, and the new possessions with
which he had just endowed her, Bergamo and Brescia.
How moving was the fate of this Doge, who, after
exhausting all the intoxication of glory and popularity,
tasted every bitterness, had to condemn and exile his
own son, to abdicate, and finally died of a sudden
congestion, as he heard the bells summoning Venice
to the marriage of his successor with the sea !
The new town lies in the plain between the Brembo
and the Serio, affluents of the Adda. It is of no
particular interest.. The ancient Fair of Sant'
Alessandro, where for centuries the finest Italian cloth
was sold, lasts a month, from mid-August to mid-
September, but it has lost its ancient prestige. The
fiera is over, and the traders are taking down their
stalls. It is amusing enough to watch the life of these
exuberant Bergamese, whom Bandello rallies in his
Novelli. They are somewhat coarse and vulgar, Hke
their Bergamasque dance and the music of their
Donizetti. Perhaps the thought is suggested by the
fact that I am in the land of Harlequin, but the people
seem to me to be always acting. All these traders and
peasants have most mobile, varied faces ; with their
grimacing mouths, their laughing eyes, their restless
arms, they put an exaggeration into the expression
of their sentiments which, though sincere, seems more
akin to the theatre than to actual life.
I am eager to revisit ancient Bergamo : instead of
following the road which winds along the hiUside and
creeps up to the ramparts as if seeking to enter by
surprise, I take a too modem but convenient funicular,
which brings me to the heart of the city. Here the
streets are calm and empty. There is nothing to dis-
tract one from contemplation of the past. To the
COLLEONI CHAPEL 61
dreamer no towns are so precious as those which are
so nearly dead that they are like beautiful tombs. He
is not obliged, as in Rome and Florence, to make a
constant leap from past to present. The silence of the
deserted ways, the peaceful serenity of the buildings,
the majestic air of solitude in palaces and houses all
carry back the mind to one period and no ahen pre-
occupation intrudes. The central square, small but
dramatic, where the heart of the community beat for
centuries, is even more evocative. All the civil and
rehgious buildings necessary for public life are gathered
together in a dignified group. Silence reigns here.
The grass is growing in places between the uneven stones
of the pavement, recalling the verses d'Annunzio
dedicated to Bergamo in his Gitta del Silenzio :
Davanti la gran porta australe i sassi
deserti verzicavano d'erbetta
quasi a pascere i due vecchi leoni.^
We will stop at the Colleoni Chapel. It is the
masterpiece of Amadeo of Pa^ia, and one of the finest
achievements of Lombard sculpture, which indeed,
can boast only skilful artisans without much individu-
aUty, who worked mainly at collective tasks, such as
the exuberant decoration of Milan Cathedral and the
Certosa of Pavia. Amadeo played an important
part in these works, which he directed for several years ;
but he left some more notable productions, such as the
bas-reliefs on the two pulpits in Cremona Cathedral
and the sepulchral monuments of Santa Maria delle
Grazie at Milan, the autliorship of which has lately
been restored to him on sujSicient evidence. The
^ Before the great south gate the deserted stones are green
with grass, almost enough to serve as food for the two old
lions.
62 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
Colleoni Chapel establishes his rank as the best Lombard
sculptor of the Renaissance.
The faQade is rather a great decoration than an
architectural work, and there can be no doubt that the
mouldings of the plinth, the gallery under the dome
and the sculptures are by the hand of Amadeo ; we
need but recall the details of the fagade of the Certosa
of Pa via. Here we see the same graceful, rich and varied
art, rather overloaded and highly coloured. I will not
say with Burckhardt somewhat childish. The red,
white and green marbles form an iridescent and on the
whole, agreeable harmony.
The interior has unfortunately been restored, and
Tiepolo's three frescoes are out of keeping with their
surroundings ; they complete the destruction of any
religious and sepulchral character in the chapel. In
addition to the two monuments it contains, Amadeo
carved the delightful little fountain in the sacristy and
the pillars at the entrance to the choir, which he
decorated with vine-garlands and children treading
out the grapes. The tomb of Medea, Colleoni's daughter,
was originally at Basella, in a cloister of the Dominican
church ; it was only brought to this chapel in the course
of last century. It is entirely of Carrara marble, and
is a work of accomplished elegance, of simple and airy
grace. The coffin is ornamented with three bas-reliefs,
two of which are merely the arms of the city of Bergamo
and of the Colleoni family respectively, surrounded by
elegant wreaths of flowers and foliage. Above the
sarcophagus are three small statuettes, the Virgin
between Saint Magdalen and Saint Catherine. But
I admire above all the recumbent statue of the dead
woman, dressed in a richly embroidered robe. It is a
life-size portrait, delicate and natural.
Colleoni, greatly pleased with Amadeo 's work, thought
TOMB OF COLLEONI 63
of his own glory and ordered a tomb for himself. But
as a simple sarcophagus in the chapel of some church
did not seem to him adequate, he farther commissioned
the artist to erect a special building for its reception.
The Condottiere's tomb, richer and more imposing
than that of his daughter, occupies the entire back-
ground of the chapel, for Amadeo relegated the altar
to a little lateral rotunda adjoining the main building.
The monument consists of two superposed rows of bas-
reliefs surmounted by an equestrian statue in gilded
wood by a German master. The general efiEect is
inharmonious and somewhat theatrical. The lower
bas-reliefs are by far the best and most important ;
they are carved in a single block of marble resting on
four columns supported by lions ; they represent scenes
of the Passion : a Flagellation which is a veritable
miniature, a very animated Bearing of the Cross, a
Crucifixion in which I noted the beautiful attitude of
the swooning Virgin, a dramatic Entombment , and a
Resurrection inferior to the rest, ill-composed and
nerveless. These bas-reliefs, fascinating as they are,
cannot be said, on close examination, to rise above
fine studio-work. There is no evidence of passion in
the artist, no inner life in the whole. The art is delicate
and elaborate, but superficial ; the intense and exag-
gerated expression is somewhat shallow and artificial.
Amadeo 's art may be said to be an epitome of Lombard
sculpture, which is rarely more than rich and pleasing
decoration.
This chapel seems to me a somewhat insipid sanctuary
for the slumber of that Bartolomeo Colleoni whose
stem, tall figure on the Campo SS. Giovanni e Paolo
of Venice haunts me in the midst of aU this grace and
puerility. But maybe it was Verrocchio who exaggerated,
and his statue was rather a symbol of all those Con-
64 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
dottieri of whom Colleoni was the last, than a realistic
portrait. The great race of adventurers came to an
end with Colleoni, and he died without having been able
or perhaps willing to create a principality for himself.
To the Venetian senators who came to greet him on his
death-bed he said : " Never give to any other General
the power you entrusted to me ; I might have turned
it to worse account than I have done." He seems
to have had no ambition but to amass a fortune and
enjoy it, no care for anything but his glory and the
name he was to leave behind him. He died before the
chapel in which he wished to rest was completed.
During his last days he often came himself to superintend
the work ; then he would go and, from the ramparts
which peace had already made useless, contemplate
the plain where he had fought alternately for Venice
and Milan.
To-day there is nothing martial about the fortifi-
cations ; but they give the town an air of majesty
which it preserves with pride, like those fallen priiices
who jealously guard the paraphernalia of past splendour.
They have been transformed into a magnificent
promenade, shaded by fine trees, and so deserted that
as soon as evening falls, Harlequin can keep his trysts
without fear of interruption. A walk round Bergamo
on a clear September morning on these ramparts is
an exquisite experience. The views are infinitely varied.
The landscape changes like some gigantic scene on
the stage. To the north there is a panorama of moun-
tains where the picturesque chain of the Bergamasque
Alps stretches out, dominated by the peak of the Tre
Signori. The valleys of Brembano, Imagna and Seriana
open their deep, irregular gorges, clothed with pastures
and forests. To the south, the wonderful plain of the
Adda extends as far as the eye can reach, green and
PLAIN OF THE ADDA 65
smooth as a vast pacific sea. Fields of maize and
cereals, meadows, rice-grounds, mulberries and fruit
trees cover it with a luxuriance unknown in any other
part of Europe. I can think of no landscape which
gives such an impression of wealth, abundance and
fertility. The immemorial lists of nations, we can
understand the greed they evoked in all the conquerors
who beheld them, from the hordes of Alaric to the
soldiers of Barbarossa and Napoleon. Each crop here
yields a double harvest, and hay is cut several times
in one season. The Alps work this recurrent miracle
with their melting snows and overflowing lakes. The
fat soil is nourished by constant moisture. At this
season especially, after a rainy day, one repeats in-
stinctively the verse of the Georgics : Plenis rura
natant fossis, for truly the meadows swim, the ditches
overflow. It was in the kindred plain of the Mincio,
like the Adda a tributary of the Po, that the elegiac
soul of the Mantuan awoke. Never have I felt closer
to him. The same atmosphere bathes me, that
atmosphere of joy and plenty. At the foot of the ram-
parts, on the sunny terraces, peasant women are
gathering the grapes in large baskets, singing and
chattering gaily, just as, two thousand years ago, the
women must have made their vintage on the land of
66 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
CHAPTER X
THE TERRACES OF BELLAGIO
I COULD not tear myself away from the garden of
Lombardy without pausing at least for a few hours at
Bellagio. I longed *to see the sun set on those flowery
shores from the terraces of the Villa Serbelloni, which,
rounding the magic promontory, command the three
arms of the lake in turn. The paths are bordered with
roses, camellias and magnolias, pomegranate-trees with
gnarled, twisted trunks like huge cables, orange and
lemon-trees, the glaucous spears of the cactus, and
huge aloes with massive fleshy leaves. The oleanders
bend beneath the weight of their poisonous bouquets.
On this afternoon of dying summer, odours more
intoxicating than the must of vine-vats rise from the
hot earth and the banks of flowers, disturbing emanations
such as one breathes at Florence in the spring-time
in the overcharged atmosphere of the Mercato Nuovo.
It is as if one were standing in the middle of a hot-
house where the pollen hangs heavily in the warm air,
or plunged in a liquid pool of perfume. And above
all these odours, the Olea fragrans sheds its powerful
aroma. No flowering tree distils a scent more subtle,
penetrating and exquisitely voluptuous than this olive
of the far East, which has been acclimatised on the
shores of the Italian Lakes, where it flowers in September.
A single shrub perfumes a whole garden ; an invisible
incense seems to enwrap him who approaches it ; as
twilight darkens, the scent makes one almost dizzy.
At every step exquisite glimpses of the banks of the
lake are seen through the bosky verdure that borders
the walks ; Bellagio is like a diamond set among the
SERBELLONI GARDENS 67
sapphires of the three encircling lakes, and the little
towns lie crouched at the water's edge, like sleepy
beasts in the dazzling sunset. I see pink and white
villages, gay holiday houses in the midst of gardens
and shady trees.
Before me, bumble-bees shake out their wings and then
drop heavily to the ground. Little gray lizards flee
at my approach, slip into a hole in the wall, and peep
at me with their shining eyes. Pigeons run about
on the gravel, rolling along heavily as if they had not
the strength to rise ; they remind me of the Borromean
doves described by Barres, which, intoxicated by the
accumulated scents of the terraces of Isola Bella, rose
so lazily that he might have caught them in his hand.
The hreva, the south wind which blows upon the lake
after the mid-day calm, is still so warm that as it touches
one's face, it feels like the brushing of moist lips. On
each side of the path the flowers droop in voluptuous
languor. At the ends of their long stalks, cannas
open their hearts to the caresses of the breeze. Hot
tears of resin flow from the burning bark of the pines.
Cantharides spread their green wings motionless on the
leaves. A golden mist hovers over the sharp summits
of the cypresses, which seem to vibrate in the metallic
atmosphere. The trees are wreathed with Virginian
creeper, blood-red amongst the green ; others, clothed
in ivy intermingled with climbing roses, recall Mantegna's
flowery porticoes. ^
On the topmost terrace, crowning the promontory,
whence the northern shores of the lake are seen as
from the prow of a tall ship, a vast calm reigns. The
graceful silhouettes of parasol pines stand out against
the sky, and make a delicate framework for the luminous
landscape. Below them the gardens lie blurred by a
bluish dust. The bare trunks of the olives look black
F 2
68 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
against the horizon ; but the shade of their foliage
quivers with the old Virgilian softness ; when the wind
lifts it, waves of silver run among the moving branches.
It is the hour when the setting sun seems to linger
lovingly before it disappears, as if anxious to immobilise
for a moment the rich scene it illumines. The vast
expanse of water reflects, as in a mirror, the golden
and coppery tones that dying day casts on everything.
The rippling water is like an expanse of shot silk ;
where the sun catches it, it gleams like a damascened
shield covered with brilliant scales. On the gilded
shores the little towns are encircled by luminous haloes.
Close at hand Varenna at the opening of the Val d'Esino
extends in the verdure of its gardens. The Fiume
Latte has been dried up by the heat ; but we can still
perceive the track of the torrent which in spring-time
descends in a cascade white and foaming as a stream
of milk. By the water, on the railway cut in the solid
rock beside the Stelvio road which forms a winding
ledge, a train hastens towards Colico ; seen from here,
it looks like a child's toy ; it plunges into the various
tunnels, some of them so short that the engine emerges
at one end before the last carriages have entered at the
other. Towards the north, certain thin light lines
suggest the distant villages, huddled upon the banks
like flocks of gulls : Rezzonico and its old castle,
Gravedona, Dervio at the foot of the pointed Legnone.
A white boat steers slowly towards Menaggio, leaving
behind it a triple furrow which widens gradually.
But night is beginning to fall, and I must go down.
As day dies, the scent of the flowers becomes more
intense. Never does Nature speak more insistently
to the senses than in the summer twilight. The charm
of the morning, like the love of a young girl, is woven
of airy tenderness and purity ; the splendour of the
LITERAEY MEMORIES 69
afternoons is full of voluptuous languor. The dawn
is frank and joyous ; the sunsets are ardent and dreamy.
The clusters of ivy, the flowery garlands that hang
from trees and walls seem to me as indolent and
lascivious as the arms of sleeping Bacchantes. In my
growing exaltation, I imagine that I am walking in the
enchanted gardens of Armida ; the couples I meet
become the heroes of Tasso, forgetful of the world in
their amorous frenzy. For these gardens, like all
the others reflected in this lake, are not inert ; so
many desires bore their fevers about here, so many
vices lurked, so many guilty or terrible passions
wandered under their complaisant shade that they are
as it were saturated with voluptuous ferments. Beauti-
ful love stories, intoxicating or disturbing, always stir
the dark depths of our sensuality. Jean Jacques
Rousseau was well advised when he gave up the idea
of making the shores of these lakes the scene of his
Nouvelle Helo'ise; Julie's heroic struggle against un-
lawful love would have been too unequal. Nature,
and more especially this Italian Nature still under
the domination of the great god Pan, is the most
dangerous counsellor, the most redoubtable auxiliary,
the most insidious accomplice of lovers. She teaches
submission to brute forces. Only such purity as that
of the Poverello and his companions of the Portiuncula
could have failed to find Satan lurking in the leafy
alleys of the woods.
Under the great oak which shades the terrace near
the villa I lean on the marble balustrade the red veins
of which seem to swell with warm blood. Between
the branches of the tree and through the slight veil
of motionless leaves which interpose like the foreground
of a stage scene, I see the two creeks of the lake
quivering in the light amidst a double, curve of green
70 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
hills. The water is like molten gold, full of yellow
and russet reflections. Though the sun has disappeared,
it still works this miracle by illumining a few light clojids
which hover over Greneroso in the distance. These fiery
clouds shed amber lights upon the lake; the parts
of the sky which are clear tinge the waters with paler
reflections. What a symphony in gold ! Any painter
who should put it on canvas would be accounted
extravagant ; in nature as in life, truth is often stranger
than fiction. Between the arms of Como and Lecco,
the Brianza spreads out its meadows, its vineyards,
its mulberries and olives, ' a veritable hanging garden
emerging from a bath of gold. Red roofed houses are
scattered over it. I can see the famous gardens with
musical names : Melzi, Poldi, the park of the Villa
Giulia and its camellia groves, slumbering motionless
in the languid air. Looking down on plateau and banks,
softly rounded hills rise in graceful curves and leap one
above the other like waves suddenly congealed.
There are few more fascinating panoramas. True,
Florence as seen from Fiesole or San Miniato, and the
gentle Umbrian valley viewed from the Giardino di
Fronte at Perugia, excite a deeper emotion ; but certainly
there is no more voluptuous vision than this. Indeed,
it is almost too beautiful. The excitement it produces
is too violent, too physical, as I said of Lake Iseo.
Our senses are taken captive by the languor that breathes
from everything, and more especially from the water
which lends a kind of feminine grace to the landscape.
These shores have the warm sensuality of Lombard
girls. The gaily coloured villas, festooned with garlands
like dancing saloons, the painted roofs, the bedizened
fagades smile like courtesans on the wayfarer. Carducci's
verses are more applicable to Bellagio than to
Sale:
STENDHAL AT BELLAGIO 71
Lieta come fanciulla che in danza entrando abbandona
le chiome e il velo a I'aure
e ride e gitta fieri con le man* piene, e di fieri
le esulta il capo giovine.^
■«v,
But alas ! the shores of Virgil's Lario have been
more ruthlessly invaded by the cosmopolitan crowd
than even Venice, Naples or Palermo. How Beyle
would, suffer could he return to the shade of the plane-
trees of Cadenabbia, under the lovely Casa Sommariva,
now Germanised and re-christened 1 Yet man has
not been able to disfigure the scene completely. So
much natural beauty cannot be destroyed in a few
centuries. From this spot Stendhal might read his
fine description at the beginning of the Chartreuse de
Parme without having to change much. He would
recognise the enchanting sites of Tremozzo and Grianta,
the Villa Melzi, the sacred woods of the Sfondrata,
and " the bold promontory which separates the two
arms of the lake, the voluptuous side towards Como,
the austere branch towards Lecco, sublime and graceful
prospect which the most famous view in the world,
that of the Bay of Naples, equals, but cannot surpass."
Perhaps he might still find everything here " tender,
noble and eloquent of love ; " but he could hardly add
as he did that " here nothing recalls the ugliness of
civilisation."
Night has fallen gently and gradually. Things are
wrapped in silky veils. An invisible mist has risen
from the waters, has blurred the sharp outlines, and
draped the shores in supple velvet. The hills seem to
have drawn themselves together round the lake. Long
vaporous scarves float over the tree-tops. The moonless
* Joyous as 9, maiden who, entering the dance, tosses hair and
veil to the winds, and laughs and throws flowers with lavish
hands, and with flowers delights her youthful head.
72 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
heavens are spangled with stars which the moisture
in the air causes to seem less distant and more brilliant.
The Pleiades, still breathless from the pursuit of Orion,
twinkle hurriedly, like palpitating hearts. The Milky-
Way is all aglow. This evening the stars do not suggest
the golden nails of the ancients, but rather globes of
fire suspended in the darkness and ready to fall, drawn
down by the perfumes of the earth and the languor
of the waters. But very soon they pale. The moon
rises on the horizon, over Lecco where the mountains
dip. It seems to be emerging from the lake. In the
mist which veils all contours the ancient heathen
divinity, the confidant of lovers and astrologers, is
a fiery boat burning in the night. Under its slanting
rays the Lecco arm shines like a silver mirror.
It is a very hot evening. I hear the muffled panting
of a big steamer making its way to Menaggio in a blaze
of electric light. Then silence, peaceful and complete,
save for the blundering flight of an occasional bat,
and the tireless lapping of waves against the banks.
Gradually I yield to the solemn emotion which all
Impressionable souls feel before the serenity of Nature
on a still night. Life seems to pause and sleep in such
nocturnal hours, like Michelangelo's recumbent woman,
and until dawn only man and the world will continue
to grow old. From the silvery skies a bluish dust
falls on the scented gardens whose incense still flows
out in heavy waves. The sail of a skiff gleams in the
moonbeams, a great white swan afloat on the quiet
waters. Only a light or two still twinkle in the distance
like little winking eyes. Bellagio is falling asleep
amidst the perfumes.
PART II
EMILIA
CHAPTER I
PIACENZA
Before continuing my journey to Umbria, I will
take advantage of this fresh, moist season of early
autumn to revisit Emilia and follow the Via Emilia
from end to end. I trust a benignant sky will spare
me the fatigue of those dusty torrid days, when the
traveller finds it impossible to slake his thirst, in spite
of the innumerable drinks he swallows in all the osterie.
Frequent rains have left the landscape almost green
and he may tread the road of two thousand years
without being blinded by clouds of dust. Sometimes
he will even notice a trickle of water in those famous
torrents of the Apennines which are generally dried
up for six months of the year, and whose beds, often
wider than those of our largest rivers, cannot even serve
to dry linen, according to the time-honoured jest,
since no pool of water in which to wet it is available.
There is no happier illustration of the intelligence
of the Romans than the conception of the Via Emilia.
They perceived very clearly that the straight line would
not, in this case, be the shortest way to unite their
capital to the towns of Upper Italy and to trans-Alpine
countries. By skirting the Apennines, they evaded
both the difficulty of constructing a wide carriage-
road through a wall of mountains, and the dangers of
permanent contact with warlike populations who
75
76 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
would have found it easy to guard the passes and bar
access to them. They also saw that the favourable
point for an invasion of the Gauls, who had already
poured into the valley of the Po, was towards the
Adriatic, where the narrow plain between sea and
mountain forms a natural corridor. Thus, after having
completed the Via Flaminia, they marked out the new
road which, running in a straight line from Rimini to
Piacenza, makes a magnificent strategic bulwark. The
skill of the Consul Marcus ^^milius Lepidus who carried
out this plan in the year of Rome 567 was so perfect
that after twenty-one centuries, the Via Emilia is still
'the principal route of communication for the region,
and that no modification of the course would be
necessary, were the road to be constructed anew to-day.
He overcame all the difficulties that presented them-
selves by making it pass neither too near the Apennines,
which would have exposed it to the rigours of a very
severe winter climate, and necessitated artificial pro-
tection, nor through the lower part of the plain, where
the numerous marshes of those days were dangerous
to health.
It was at Piacenza that the Via Emilia ended, and
it was thence the three great roads leading from
Italy into Gaul started : one by Genoa and La Turbie,
the other by Susa, Brian9on and Die, the third by
Aosta and the Little Saint Bernard. The choice of
Piacenza as the outpost fortress to ensure the free
passage of the legions across the Po also indicates a
high degree of practical sense. The town is still, by
virtue of its position, an important citadel ; if an
invasion were threatened from the north-east, the de-
cisive encounter would probably take place at Piacenza,
which commands the river between Cremona and the
passes of Stradella,
PALAZZO COMUNALE 77
Founded very early as a military colony, the city
flourished throughout the Roman period and in the
Middle Ages, when it was one of the most active
members of the Lombard League. Its decline dates from
the time of the Farnese, who are disagreeably recalled to
the visitor by the inelegant remains of a heavy castle,
and the two equestrian statues of Alessandro and
Ranuccio which Stendhal stigmatised as " more absurd
than the statues in Paris." It is undeniable that the
charming Piazza dei Cavalli is disfigured by Francesco
Mocchi's two monuments, the works of a forerunner
of Bernini, whom he equalled in theatrical exaggeration
and surpassed in bad taste. It is to be feared that
the Piacenzans, who appear indeed to be proud of him,
wiU never banish him from the fine fagade of their
communal palace.
This building of white marble and rosy brick is a
masterpiece, and I know few structures of the Gothic
period at once more majestic and seductive. The
lower storey consists of a marble portico of five great
pointed arches open to the street, where the citizens
walk to and fro to-day as they did five centuries ago,
passionately discussing questions of local politics with
musical expressive intonations. On this plinth of sun-
kissed marble rests the upper part of the building, a
single storey in red brick, crowned by a cornice of
indented battlements. Six round-headed arches en-
frame the very graceful windows, richly pierced and
decorated with slender columns ; no two windows are
alike. On the lateral waUs the windows are still more
fanciful ; on one side they are surmounted by a rose-
window, on the other by an elegant square dormer.
This palace is perhaps the earliest and certainly one
of the richest of those municipal buildings which bear
witness to the prosperity of the towns of Upper Italy
78 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
in the Middle Ages, and attest their independence. In
the plain of the Po, where the air was freer and livelier
than elsewhere, Gothic civil architecture developed
untrammelled. The cities, numerous and powerful,
rivalled each other in the splendour of their communal
buildings. Piacenza, proud of its Roman past, was
bent on being one of the first in the contest.
Leaving the Municipio, I feel disinclined to revisit
the other sights of the town. The Cathedral is certainly
a fine Romanesque church, but I know of others more
beautiful upon my route, and I am not allured by the
frescoes of Guercino or Carracci ; why should one on
his way to Bologna seek out the works of these painters,
which he remembers having seen to satiety, almost
with nausea ? The Madonna di Campagna possesses
some famous frescoes by Pordenone ; but are they
better than those of the Malchiostro Chapel at Treviso,
or those in Cremona Cathedral, which I thought so
declamatory beside the works of Romanino ? I recall
a chapel in this little church of Piacenza, with a strange
Birth of the Virgin, in which Saint Anne and the infant
Mary are merely a pretext for the attitudes of servants
in sumptuous robes, a work the art of which, skilful
and superficial, is too obviously lacking in emotion.
And as San Sisto has only a copy of Raphael's Madonna,
now the pride of the Dresden Gallery, I elect to saunter
through the streets of the town this bright and joyous
evening, to admire the gay fa9ades of pink brick, and
stroll down to the river. But here a cruel disappoint-
ment awaits me ; the old bridge of boats admired by
so many travellers is partly demolished ; a heavy
stone bridge now unites the two banks of the Po, and
to give access to this, they are pulling down old houses,
and laying out a wide commonplace avenue with a
tramway and electric lamps. A big slice of the majestic
PLAIN OF THE PO 79
landscape of former days is now barred and spoilt by
gigantic arches of masonry. Alas ! it is the problem
that presents itself in all old cities ! And can we
blame those who strive to live again and shake off
their torpor, who desire to obey the law of progress,
especially when, as in this case, nothing essential has
to disappear 1
CHAPTER II
BOEGO SAN DONNINO
It is much to be regretted that at the exit from
Piacenza by the Porta San Lazzaro there is no splendid
triumphal arch to match that of Rimini, at the other
end of the Via Emilia. After passing through a few
suburbs which prolong the town a little, the road rapidly
approaches the Apennines, of which there is a series
of fine views. The rich fat country stretches out
before one as far as the eye can reach. Though I see
it every year, the amazing fertility of this plain of the
Po never fails to fill me with astonishment We advance
as between a double green hedge pierced by the golden
rays of the sun. There is an endless succession of fruitful
orchards whose trees arrest the eye. The cicalas utter
their shrill cries, and seem as it were the soul of this
gay and luminous landscape — Anacreon's cicalas,
" who care only to sing, who know not sufiering, and
are almost akin to the gods." In every one of her
aspects, radiant or austere, fair Italy, Dante's dolce
terra latina, fetters and dominates us like a sorceress.
It has been said that a friend who shows us too plainly
80 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
that he is trying to form us provokes irritation, whereas
a woman who forms us while appearing only to charm
us, is adored as a celestial being, the bearer of joy.
"It is in this sense," adds M. Maurice Barres, " that
men who for centuries have received all the intoxications
of delight from Italy justly call her their mistress."
I am surprised not to encounter more life and move-
ment on the load this bright morning. Only at long
intervals do we meet a motor-car, or groups of labourers
going to the fields. We need not evoke the period
when the tramp of the Roman legions made the cause-
way tremble, nor the troubled days of the Middle
Ages ; but how amusing it must have been barely a
century ago, with the incessant going and coming of
carriages, state-coaches, the escorts of Princes and
Cardinals, the troops of soldiers, pilgrims and students !
In all ages, moreover, this Via Emilia, like all the other
Latin highways, was traversed by artists and men of
letters. There was constant communication between
France and Italy, especially at the time of the Re-
naissance. A sojourn in Rome was then, much more
than now, the indispensable complement of a good
education, and the traveller went thither to develop
his intelligence as well as to acquire learning. Mon-
taigne recommends his countrymen to go to Italy,
not to learn " how many paces such and such a church
measures, but to rub and file the braiu against the
brains of others." It was already the land chosen by
poets in which to express their joy or lament their
woe. Majrnard, the good Maynard himself, took it
for his confidant :
J'ai montre ma blessure aux deux mars d'ltalie
Et fait dire ton nom aux echos strangers.^
^ I showed my wound to the two seas of Italy, and told thy
name to the echoes of a strange land.
OLD TEAVEL-BOOKS 81
From the sixteenth century onward, countless French-
men have seen their genius develop and have produced
their masterpieces there. And it was of Poussin and
Claude Lorrain, who both lived in Rome and died
there, that Chateaubriand wrote : " Strange that it should
have been French eyes which best saw the light of Italy."
There is nothing more amusing than to read the
works of the tourists of the past. The books of those
who travelled through the Latin land are especially
numerous. As far back as 1763, the Abbe Coyer
apologised for publishing his impressions in these words :
" After so many Travels in Italy formerly or recently
published, another Journey in Italy ! What could be
more wearisome ! " But he reassures himself at once,
declaring that travellers are privileged to treat matters
which have already been studied, and moreover, that
Italy is such an inexhaustible mine of documents and
works of art that it will never be completely explored.
I like these old books — irrespective of the documentary
interest there is in knowing what modifications have
been brought about by successive civilisations — because
they reveal the mental attitude of our forefathers,
and are moreover the most delightful of travelling
companions. They are never irritated by our gibes
and impatience. When by chance we read in them
some impression akin to our own we feel such a com-
municative satisfaction that they seem to be sharing
the pleasure of the coincidence. When, on the other
hand, we find them entirely alien to our tastes and
ideas, how subtle is our amusement. It is most curious
to note how artistic sensations may be Poles asunder
within an interval of three centuries. Montaigne, for
instance, in the lines he devotes to Piacenza, says not
a word of the Municipal Palace, which seems to me the
most noteworthy thing in the city. And here, at
G
82 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
Borgo San Donnino where I have just arrived, he
mentions only the walls the Duke of Parma was putting
up round the town, and the preserve of apples and
oranges served at his breakfast. Misson, in his famous
Journey in 1688, speaks of the statues of Alessandro
and Ranuccio Farnese, but never alludes to the Com-
munal Palace. Between Parma and Piacenza he notes
merely that he passes through Borgo San Donm'no,
" a little dismantled town." And in like manner the
Abbe Coyer, who was a man of intelligence and an artist,
travelling over this same route from Piacenza to Parma,
remarks only that he crosses the river Taro, and ex-
presses his surprise that it has no embankments.
And yet how could anyone have failed to devote
an hour to the Cathedral of San Donnino, a beautiful
Romanesque building, the fine fagade of which is
remarkable for the three porches adorned with sculptured
lions and bas-reliefs ? It is one of the most interesting
of the series of churches so numerous in Lombardy
and the neighbouring provinces that their characteristic
style has been christened Lombard. All the cities in
the plain of the Po : Milan, Pavia, Cremona, Verona,
Ferrara, to name the most important ; all those upon
the Via Emilia : Piacenza which we have just quitted,
Parma, Modena, Bologna, our present destination,
have, like Borgo San Donnino, old cathedrals built
in the course of the twelfth century. This Lombard
style, in spite of the theories of certain students, who
have been misled by the assumption that many of these
buildings were much earlier than they actually are,
is merely derivative, a variation of the Romanesque.
To be even more exact, this architecture is but a survival
of Roman art, transformed by the new Romanesque
art which was flourishing so magnificently in France.
But here, as in all else, the Italians were original, even
BENEDETTO ANTELAMI 88
as imitators, and their energies were directed to the
exterior of the monument, notably the fa9ade, which
became a decorative work whose details, though often
useless and arbitrary, are always strikingly effective.
Blind arcades supported by miniature columns are
multiplied unnecessarily to produce graceful galleries.
Luxuriant ornament invades walls and porches. Here
in the Cathedral of San Donnino, the sculptures are
probably by the artist whose name is associated with
the Cathedral and Baptistery of Parma : Benedetto
Antelami. And as in the architecture, in this infant
statuary Northern influences are evident. Antelami
was undoubtedly familiar with French work ; it might
even be supposed that he had worked at Aries, so closely
do the carved reliefs imitate the frieze in the porch of
Saint Trophime, and so great is the affinity between
the statues of David and Ezekiel and those still to be
seen on the facade of Saint Gilles.
After Borgo San Donnino, several little towns are
passed ; then the way leads across the interminable
bed of the Taro on a splendid, monumental bridge
affording a fine view of the sullen flanks of the Apennines.
The ever fertile plain surges, a verdant sea, on either
side of the road. Here and there groups of trees rise
above fields and orchards, pines and poplars which
still mingle their shade as in the days of Horace :
Pinus ingens albaque populus
Umbram hospitalem consociare amant
Ramis.i
But the silhouettes of the towers and spires of Parma
are already visible on the horizon. By the Via Massimo
d'Azeglio, the Via Emilia penetrates into the heart
of the city of Correggio.
^ Immense pines and pale poplars love to mingle their boughs
in hospitable shade.
G 2
84 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
CHAPTER III
PAEMA
No artist exercises so instant and irresistible an
influence on a writer who is not primarily an art-critic
as Antonio Allegri da Correggio. I remember the
impression I received when years ago, I first entered
the small rooms reserved for him in the Parma Gallery.
Never had I yet been confronted by works which seemed
to communicate their inward fire to me so swiftly and
so intimately. As from those great lyrics which carry
you away and kindle in you the ardour of their own inspi-
ration, so from these pictures such a flame of emotion
bursts forth that you have not time to reason or to
analyse your agitation. The serious Buckhardt him-
self speaks of " intoxication,'* and goes on to describe
his emotion as " daemonic." It is because Correggio
is above all a poet. Critics may argue as to the influences
which formed him, may hesitate between Mantegna,
Lorenzo Costa, Raphael, Dosso and others, may question
whether or no he visited Rome ; not thus will they
explain Correggio, an original genius who owed nothing
to any person, to any teaching, to any school, to any
city, and in respect of whom we might almost use the
term spontaneous generation. He simply allowed his
heart to speak, and expressed, not in sounds but in
colour, the music within him. And because he had
no master but his own inspiration, he was one of the
most original of painters. No other varied so much ;
no other modified his manner so often, simply in
obedience to the moving caprice of his dream of beauty,
CORREGGIO 85
for which he incessantly created anew the means of
expression dictated by his fancy.
This solitary spirit was born, moreover, in one of the
Italian towns least affected by pictorial activities.
These scarcely began in Parma before the end of the
fifteenth century, and the few local artists of repute
seem almost barbarous compared with those then work-
ing in Florence, Padua, Venice or Mantua. After
Correggio, again, we find the same mediocrity. His
genius was too individual for the creation of a school ;
not one of his imitators save Parmigiano produced a
single interesting work. No other artistic centre
which had boasted such a master, ever descended at
once to the level of works so feeble and unattractive.
Some critics deal severely with Correggio, and insist
more especially on what is lacking in him ; I confess
that I am deeply moved by this exuberant soul, whose
sensations flow forth like swelling waves. What joy
he must have felt in painting ! With that instinctive
perception often shown by poets Musset describes
him as :
Travaillant pour son ccBur, laissant k Dieu le reste.^
No heart was ever more guileless and more sensitive,
more vibrant and more ecstatic. But we must not
look for psychology, nor intellectuality, nor depth of
thought in his works ; we must seek the joy of life,
serene pleasure, voluptuous delight. Never was feminine
flesh rendered with so much emotion. Remember
the Dande in the Borghese Gallery, the Antiope in the
Louvre, the provocative Leda in the Berlin Museum,
and above all, the rapt lo at Vienna. No painter ever
ventured so far without leaving grace behind, as Schure
^ Working for his own heart, leaving the rest to God.
86 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
once said ; his canvases burn and quiver, but their
fervour redeems their audacity.
Allegri was the painter of joy. His works breathe
an intimate happiness ; they are worthy of him who
sometimes signed himself Lieto (joyful). In spite of
Vasari's gossip, it is probable that he was perfectly
happy, and that few artists had a life of such unity ;
one love, his wife ; one passion, his art. For nine
years his existence, divided between the two, passed
sweetly and calmly as a lovely dream. After the death
of Geronima Merlini, he lived solely for his work, drawing
a new power from his sorrow. It matters little that I
am unable to say why his art delights me. Can we
analyse the charm of a falling rose, a reflection in the
water, a feminine glance ? Do we know why certain
verses, more than any others, move us to tears ? As
long as there are passionate natures, Correggio will in-
toxicate them, and no place will be more deUghtful
to them than the city of Parma, which is still ablaze
with his genius.
How many hours I have spent in the Pilotta, in the
convent of San Paolo, in the Cathedral and in San
Giovanni Evangelista ! There are, of course, other
marvels here, such as the Baptistery, and other good
pictures in the Museum, but in Correggio's city I care
only to see his works, and even among these I have
my favourites. I daresay that the most stupendous
of these are the wonderful cupolas, where he found full
scope for his poetic art, those cupolas which an ignorant
Canon compared to a " hash of frogs " but for which
Titian declared the artist would still have been in-
adequately paid, had they been turned upside down
and filled with gold for him. Unfortunately, they have
deteriorated, and they are difficult to see ; my pious
pilgrimage leads me to less imposing works.
FRESCO OF S. JOHN 87
The first is the magnificent portrait of the AposUo
in San Giovanni Evangelista. Nothing could be more
moving in its quiet simplicity than this head painted
in a kind of lunette above the door leading to the
cloisters of the Chapter House. The artist wished to
represent S. John at Patmos. The beloved disciple
is certainly younger than he was when he retired to the
island ; but Correggio always loved to render youthful
grace of a type akin to feminine beauty. The face of
the Saint is illuminated by the dazzling apparition ;
we feel that the Evangelist, transfigured and exalted,
obeys the divine command almost involuntarily. He
is truly the Seer. His burning eyes, the eyes not of
one hallucinated, but of a visionary, probe the depths
of infinity. Altius Dei patefecit arcana^ as Correggio
has written upon the canvas. All veils are torn away.
S. John sees the eternal verities and penetrates
into the essence of things. He looks fearlessly at the
flaming Archangel, who holds the book with seven
seals and reveals the supreme secrets. The symbolic
eagle is pluckmg a feather from its wing, as if to offer
it to its master that he may forthwith set down the
terrific visions of the Apocalypse. The intensity of
the colour, the transparency of the chiaroscuro give
this fresco the appearance of an oil-painting. Time
and a few retouches have injured it somewhat ; but in
spite of this, the impression it produces is still profound,
and I linger before it till I am put to flight by the
importunate commentary of the sacristan, and the
turning on of the electric lights with which sacrilegious
admiration has surrounded the work.
In the little room of the Museum, however, I am
allowed to study the Madonna with S. Jerome in
peace. Of all the painter's masterpieces, this is the
^ He revealed more deeply the secret things of God.
88 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
most perfect and the most complete. All his qualities
find their highest expression here ; the magic of light
could not be carried further. The very shadows are
full of colour. And what a melting brush, at once
light and luscious, has suggested the transparent skins
and velvety carnations ! Well might Vasari declare ^
this picture to be colorito di maniera meravigliosa e
stupenda.^
We overlook the defects that might be noted in the
S. Jerome and his somewhat ridiculous lion, and see
only the inimitable and unforgettable central group :
the Virgin, the Babe, the angel, and above all, the
Magdalen, the loveUest and sweetest figure left us by
the painter of feminine grace. The supple attitude
is incomparable ; we divine the movement of the body
under the folds of the violet robe and the splendid golden
yellow drapery. The hands are wonderfully painted,
and the adoring gesture is one of the happiest inventions
of the master : the Magdalen lays her cheek almost
voluptuously against the Child's leg. The picture is
in such excellent preservation and so brilliant that it
looks as if it had been lately finished ; the tones have
all the splendour of the first day, and yet they never
clash, but are fused into absolute harmony. It is a
triumph of the sfumato which reigns throughout the
canvas, even in the upper part, where a peaceful bluish
landscape is displayed under the folds of a great red
curtain. The Virgin is seated on a rustic mound ;
grass and flowers at her feet give the serenity of a rural
scene to the picture.
Beside this canvas all the rest, even the famous
Madonna with the Bowl, pale a little. In the Palatine
Library, however, there is a figure which may almost
rival the Magdalen ; it is a Madonna blessed by Jesus,
^ Coloured in a marvellous and stupendous manner.
THE MADONNA AT PARMA 89
the fragment of a painting originally in the hemicycle
of San Giovanni Evangelista, and now over a door at
the end of a long corridor. The enlargement of the
choir of the church in 1587 entailed the destruction of
the fresco, only the central part of which was preserved.
The various fragments reproduced by the Carracci
before its destruction, and the copy by Aretusi which
replaces the original in the apse of San Giovanni
Evangelista still enable us to form an idea of the
composition as a whole. The essential portion was,
happily, the fragment preserved in the Palatine Library.
If the Christ is mediocre, the Virgin is very remarkable.
AUegri never painted a head more expressive and more
serene. The divine Mother folds her hands and bends
her head to receive the crown from her Son with an
exquisite gesture of gravity and submission. I re-
member seeing in the Louvre a study by Correggio in
which the Virgin has the same delicious action of the
folded arms ; but the Parma head is greatly superior.
I have a special affection for it, perhaps because it has
escaped destruction, and perhaps, too, because it was
beloved of Stendhal. *' The Madonna blessed by Jesus,
in the Library moved me even to tears," he declared.
" I shall never forget the downcast eyes of this Virgin,
nor her passionate attitude, nor the simplicity of her
draperies."
I do not know if Stendhal was much in Parma, and
many improbabilities in his famous novel might lead
one to suppose the contrary ; but it is certain that
he never forgot Correggio. " He who has never seen
his works," he says, *' knows nothing of the power of
painting. Raphael's figures have the statues of
antiquity for rivals. As feminine love did not exist in
antiquity, Correggio is without a rival. But to be
worthy to uncjersts-nd him, a man must have made
90 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
himself ridiculous in the service of this passion." Here
we have the secret of his admiration. If his dictum
be true, no one could boast higher qualifications for
such comprehension than Beyle. When he came to
Parma for the first time on December 19th, 1816, and
saw the "sublime frescoes,"r he had just left Milan,
his eyes, his heart and his mind full of one of the women
he had loved most passionately, and who played the
most important part in his life. He could think only
of this Metilde Viscontini who seemed to him " a more
beautiful version of Leonardo's charming Herodias."
Had he any presentiment at the time that for nine
years she would be the most ardent passion of his life,
that he would beg for her love as a starving man begs
for bread, and that she would die without yielding to
him ? Perhaps he had some vague and secret premoni-
tion of all this when he declared bitterly that he had
never been able to charm any but women to whom he
was himself indifferent. Be this as it may, he never
forgot Allegri's Madonnas. On May 6th, 1817, he
travelled to Correggio to visit the master's birthplace,
and was delighted to find *' his soft eyed Madonnas
moving about the streets disguised as peasants."
And I believe that the while he evoked the languorous
shores of Lake Como, he recalled the grace of the
Correggian heroines when he found such moving words
to paint the exaltation of La Sanseverina.
Indeed, where would the passion of love find a more
favourable soil than in this city of Parma, surrounded
by broad shady ramparts dominating a vast horizon
which invites to reverie and meditation ? What
places evoke more voluptuous dreams than the park
of that citadel in which Fabrice del Dongo languished,
or the shade of those chestnut trees in the gardens of the
former ducal palace, where Napoleon's forgetful wife
VIEW OF MODENA 91
indulged her belated passions ? Dante's immortal
verse rises instinctively to the lips :
Tutti li miei pensier parlan d'amore.^
and how sweet is this summer evening in the deserted
alleys ! On the grass, studded in spring-time with
pale violets, the broad dead leaves have laid a rusty
mantle, touched here and there into burning patches
by the slanting sunbeams. Wisterias, suggestive of
bygone mourning garments, recall the memory of those
who once wandered among these groves. A little
Arcadian temple on an island in an artificial lake further
reminds us of the evanescence of our joys. I am haunted
by Lorenzo de' Medici's verses, the refrain of the
Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne :
Quant' h bella giovinezza
Che si fugge tuttavia !
Chi vuol esser lieto, sia :
Di doman non c'6 certezza.2
CHAPTER IV
MODENA
After passing through impoverished Reggio and
crossing the Secchia on a handsome stone bridge, one
feels an almost physical satisfaction as one sights the
towers of Modena, and under the vault of the Porta
Sant' Agostino perceives the bright houses on either
1 All my thoughts speak of love.
2 How fair is youth whioh yet flees fast I Let him who will,
enjoy. There is no certainty of to-morrow.
92 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
side of the Via Emilia. Few cities look more inviting
to the approaching traveller. Painted f a9ades, pleasant
arcades, broad, clean streets animated by lively crowds
give it the appearance characteristic of more important
centres. True, the setting is sometimes a little
theatrical, and we are conscious that we are nearing
Bologna ; but on the whole, it is just the agreeable
aspect and atmosphere I remember. The happy
impression is enhanced, on this occasion, by the ease
of mind of a traveller who knows exactly what he wants
to see again, and who, in the intervals of his pre-
determined visits, is free to idle as he pleases, amusing
himseK with the thousand picturesque details of Italian
streets. This is one of the subtlest delights of a
return to a city rich in masterpieces ; we have friends
among them who perhaps make us unjust to the rest,
and it is delicious to know beforehand how they will
receive us.
Modena has always been somewhat neglected by
tourists, who rarely speak of it, or mention it only as
a halting-place on their travels. If President de Brosses
was pleased by it, it was because he arrived in the middle
of the Carnival. It must indeed have been lively enough
at the Court of the Duke and Duchess of Modena in
those days, and the good Burgundian turned his back
regretfully on the town where he had met a compatriot,
" Mademoiselle Grognet, formerly a dancer at the
Opera Comique and the favourite of Mademoiselle
Salle, now the first dancer of the Duchy, and high in
the good graces of certain ladies of the city."
For those, who, like myself, are in search of the best
only in each of these Italian towns, Modena is easily
summed up : there is a very fine Cathedral, and a school
of terra-cotta sculpture. Its picture gallery contains
works of importance to students of the various Emilian
MODENA CATHEDRAL 93
Schools, whose numerous painters are very little known,
and we find here a fresh example of that happy de-
centralisation which made each city an art centre ;
but I pass the door of the Museum without regret on
these fine mornings. It is much pleasanter to go and
dream upon the old ramparts which, as at Parma,
surround the city with a girdle of leafy shade, whence
one sees the dark outline of the Apennines gradually
blurred by a blue mist as the heat increases.
The external decorations of Modena Cathedral are
among the richest and most complete that any of the
Lombardo-Romanesque churches can boast. They are
not confined to the fa9ade, but are continued on the
sides. A graceful gallery with delicate triple columns
runs all round the church, enframed in larger arches.
The various doors open under vaults upheld in the
customary fashion by lions ; one of them is perhaps
the earliest example of those Lombard doors which
were transformed into porches. Before this, as in the
old churches of Pavia for instance, the doors did not
project ; here, on the contrary, an archivolt with two
bas-reliefs representing monsters overhangs the bay.
Several other sculptures complete the decoration ;
they reproduce scenes of the Book of Genesis, from the
birth of Adam to Noah, and we are fortunate enough
to be able to decipher the signature of the artist with
the date 1099 on a scroU held by the prophets Enoch
and Elijah. He was Wiligelmus or Guglielmo, the
artist who worked at San Zeno, Verona. As at Borgo
San Donnino, French influences are apparent in this
sculpture ; I need but instance the door near the
Campanile, with the two episodes from the history of
Renart on the lintel, and the knight representing Arthur
of Brittany on the architrave.
The interior of the church is unfortunately by no
94 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
means equal to the exterior ; it has been spoilt by
restorations. I enter only to go down into the crypt,
guarded by lions and dwarfs, to see Guido Mazzoni's
Adoration. My memory did not play me false ; it
is a realistic work, the harsh naturalism and violence
of which offend the eye. A nun and St. Joseph are
kneeling before the Virgin ; an ugly, ill-clad servant
with torn sleeves bends forward. The figures bear
little relation one to the other, and are somewhat
ridiculous on the whole. This group, however, is not
the best work of Modanino ; and one must go to San
Giovanni Decollato to get a truer idea of the sculptor.
Here, in the simple rotunda that opens on the Via
Emilia is the Pietd,, his masterpiece. The group is
much more important than the Adoration in the
Cathedral. In the foreground Christ is lying, not on
His Mother's breast, as critics, repeating Burckhardt's
inaccurate description, assert, but on the ground. The
seven persons who mourn for Him really take part
in the action ; the general effect is most striking. The
expression of grief, very skilfully differentiated, achieves
real pathos, especially in the face of the Virgin where
it has a dramatic intensity. No doubt there are vul-
garities and evidences of bad taste in this group ; but
it would be unjust to pass it over altogether, or dismiss
it with a shrug of the shoulders.
Neither would it be just to treat Begarelli, as so many
have done, with disdainful silence. True, he was
incapable of setting up a single torso or modelling a
figure apart from a common action ; he started from a
false principle when he attempted to model in clay
pictures which had to be placed in special niches and
looked at ^rom a fixed point like a painting. But
granting this, it cannot be denied that he had the
great gifts of composition, truth, and vitality. It is,
BEGARELLI 95
of course, absurd to compare him to Sansovino, or to
take Michelangelo's exclamation too literally. If, as
Vasari tells us, he cried when he saw the works of the
Modenese : " Woe to the statues of antiquity, if this
clay should become marble ! " it was no doubt because
he saw in these reaHstic essays a happy reaction against
the growing insipidity of Florentine and Roman
idealism.
Modena owns many works by the most famous of
her sons ; to my mind, the best are The Descent from
the Gross in San Francesco, and the Pieta in San Pietro.
In the first, there are thirteen life-size figures : above,
four persons standing on ladders lower the corpse of the
crucified Saviour ; at the sides four Saints contemplate
the tragic scene ; the principal group in the centre,
the swooning Virgin supported by three women, is very
moving. Although the actors in the sacred drama
are all treated with a- noble gravity and vigour, the
general effect is not very harmonious, and I prefer the
Pieta in San Pietro, which contains but four figures :
Nicodemus raising the body of Christ and the kneeling
Virgin leaning upon S. John. As it was the artist's
ambition to produce a pathetic picture, it must be
allowed that he was entirely successful. The work has
simplicity and grandeur ; we even recognise a veritable
emotion. But for faults of taste in the fullness and
flutter of the draperies, we might admire unreservedly,
though I think Burckhardt goes too far when he declares
that " this group attains the serene heights of the
masterpieces of the sixteenth century.'*
My chief quarrel with Mazzoni and Begarelli is that
they falsified the principles of sculpture and thus opened
the road to every aberration. They were to some
extent the precursors and the creators of the art that
flourishes in the shops around Saint Sulpiqe, How
96 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
can I judge the masters of Modena impartially, when
I remember the Nativities, the Crucifixions, the
Adorations, all the abominations in terra-cotta, wax
and papier-mache that disfigure our churches ?
CHAPTER V
BOLOGNA
What strikes me most each time I revisit Bologna
is the effort the city is making to become an important
centre. Its great ambition is to equal Florence, its
neighbour and rival. Admirably situated at the
intersection of the great railway systems of the penin-
sula, it might aspire to become the capital of Italy, if
the choice of a capital were determined solely by eco-
nomic considerations. In any case, it is determined not
to remain merely " learned Bologna," and were it to
issue a new coinage, it is unlikely that it would be
content with its old device : Bologna docet. In spite of
its rapid growth, its streets are often melancholy and
empty, save in the vicinity of the picturesque Piazza
Vittorio Emanuele, with its girdle of fine buildings,
and of the Piazza del Nettuno with the fountain by
Giovanni da Bologna, that Frenchman whose works
no less than his name often cause him to be taken for an
Italian. The special charm of the town lies in the fact
that its activities are displayed in the setting where
they have developed ; it has avoided leveUings and
straight lines ; some of its roads describe veritable curves.
Very little has been demolished, merely a few houses
FASHION IN BOLOGNA 97
to open up the central squares and arteries. Nearly
all the streets have preserved their irregular arcades
and their unexpected aspects ; there is infinite variety
in the amusing caprice of these arcades, under the shelter
of which it is possible to explore nearly the whole of
the town.
A further impression we get from Bologna is that
everything there is done for effect. The majority of
the houses look like palaces, with sumptuous entrances,
colonnades, inner courts, terraces and galleries. The
fa9ades are intended to impress. And in no Italian
town is more attention paid to dress. The young
civilians and officers who saunter for hours together
in the Piazza del Nettuno have bestowed the most
elaborate care on their toilets, not always escaping a
certain touch of bad taste. The elegance of the
Bolognese ladies charmed President de Brosses. " They
dress in the French fashion," he says, " and better than
anywhere else. Every day big dolls are sent to them,
dressed from head to foot in the latest fashion, and they
wear no trinkets that do not come from Paris." The
cafes are more numerous than in any Italian town,
and are situated even in the most frequented
thoroughfares. The restaurants and the hairdressers'
shops are open to the street ; huge mirrors enable their
customers to eat and shave in pubUc as it were. The
Bolognese are the true children of their painting, and
their outer life is akin to the canvases in their museums.
I did not intend to go to the Accademia this year,
remembering the many times I had come out weary
and dissatisfied. However, I wanted to ask myself in
the presence of the works themselves, why their authors
had so long ranked with the greatest artists of the world. ,
Why, above all, the School of Bologna, hitherto obscure
and almost non-existent, suddenly took the first place
H
98 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
at the close of the sixteenth century ? This has been
very well explained in a recent article in the Revue des
Deux Mondes by M. Marcel Reymond. He shows the
necessity that had arisen for a renewal of religious art,
and the inability of the other schools to initiate this
revival. Bologna, untouched alike by the Florentine
Renaissance and Venetian sensuality, near enough to
Milan and to Parma to receive the great traditions of
Leonardo and Correggio, was the learned and religious
centre required for the establishment of the new logical
art in which the form was to be the faithfu^ servant of
the idea, and expression was to be subordinated to
conception.
The three Carracci evolved the theory which was at
east ingenious, that in order to create a model school,
it was only necessary to take the best elements from each
of the others. Agostino, in an artless poem, has left
us a receipt for the making of a good picture. It will
suffice to give it " the drawing of the Romans, the move-
ment and shadows of the Venetians, the fine colour of
the Lombard painters, the sublimity of Michelangelo,
the truth of Titian, the pure taste of Correggio, the
harmony of Raphael, the solid proportions of Pellegrino,
the invention of the learned Primaticcio, and a little
of Parmigiano's grace." To this receipt we owe the
works I have just been looking at again. Well, I can
understand the admiration felt for them at the time
when they were painted, for they were in perfect harmony
with a certain phase of thought and feeling. I can
understand too why they should still retain the favour
of Catholics and of all those who look for edification or
pathos in pictures ; but what I cannot understand is
why they should so long have been accepted as the
very consummation of art.
It must not be supposed that I am in danger of going
SCHOOL OF BOLOGNA 99
to the other extreme. I recognise the great technical
mastery displayed in many of these canvases ; it is
natural enough that a painter should praise the handling
and seek to learn something from it. But what surprises
me more and more is the fact that refined and subtle
spirits, men of taste, writers — -and these some of the
most illustrious — should also have been enraptured by
these declamatory works painted not from the heart
but from the brain. Without going back to De Brosses
who exhausts ail the resources of his style to express
his admiration, I need only open Stendhal to learn that
Guercino is sublime and that Annibale Carracci is equal
to Raphael. " The School of Bologna," he says in his
History of Painting in Italy ^ " which came later, was to
imitate all the great painters successfully, and Guido
Reni may be said to have carried beauty to the sub-
limest heights ever attained by man." More recently
M. Maurice Barres has not hesitated " to prefer to the
Primitives and even to the painters of the first half of
the fifteenth century Guido, Domenichino, Guercino,
the Carracci and their rivals, who have given us such
rich and powerful analyses of passion." How can this
wonderful writer, susceptible as he is to beauty, prefer
the art of the Bolognese to the art of the fifteenth
century (that radiant and adorable Quattrocento, when
the fervid, ingenuous souls of artists turned so eagerly
and enquiringly to Nature), to those works of freshness
and sincerity in which truth and fancy, the real and
the ideal are so artlessly intermingled ; that springtide
of beauty, the touching candour of which breathes a
perfume as of eternal youth. Compared with these
old masters who give themselves up so simply to their
inspiration, allow their hearts to speak, and so achieve
real eloquence, the Bolognese seem to me amazingly
clever orators, erudite and sympathetic, who substitute
H 2
100 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
science for emotion, and only manage to construct
fine phrases, empty and sonorous. Their works are
pretentiously dramatic. True, they accumulate a vast
number of things on a canvas and the action appears
intense ; but on closer examination, we see it is a
factitious life, due to studio formulas. And yet these
works were the delight of the eighteenth century, that
age of taste and intelligence. There where I see nothing
but skill and declamation, the subtlest of mankind
admired fire and passion. To the artists of those days
Bologna was a capital of art no less than Kome ; the
most delightful of our own masters learned their craft
there. It is true that the seventeenth century had
demolished many of the masterpieces of the Primitives,
and exalted the Baroque and Jesuit styles. We
must not be too absolute. In works of art there is
much that we add ourselves, and we love them in
proportion to the manner in which they respond to our
sentiments, our conceptions, our personal ideals. We
men of letters see beauty in the things that move us.
We can only offer subjective criticism — not the worst
kind of criticism, perhaps. We do not care for a
picture because of the difficulties overcome or the skill
displayed by the painter, but because it stirs our
emotions. And may the history of the Bolognese
always remind us that it is dangerous to judge for
eternity !
The same thoughts occur to me before the admirable
doorway of San Petronio. Only of late years has justice
been done to Jacopo della Querela, and even now he
does not enjoy the fame which rightly belongs to one
of the greatest of Italian sculptors. Nowhere can we
better appreciate the genius of the Sienese master in
all its power than here. It is strange indeed that
Bologna, which always showed such a strong aSection
SAN PETRONIO 101
for sculpture — a tendency natural enough in a city so
careful of scenic effect — had no good native sculptors
and was obliged to rely on its more skilful neighbours
for the decoration of buildings and open spaces. Thus
it invited Niccolo Pisano, the Venetians, Dalle Maxegne
and Lanframi, Andrea da Fiesole, the Florentine
Tribolo, Alfonso Lombardi of Ferrara, Jean Bologne
of Douai and many others to work within its
walls.
When Bologna started to buUd San Petronio, it hoped
to raise a cathedral which would rival the Duomo of
Florence and be one of the largest churches in the world.
Unfortunately only the nave was completed. The
choir and transepts were abandoned, faith and more
especially money having failed. But the conqeption
has given a special majesty to this great church
which will never be finished. The Bolognese, desir-
ing a sumptuous fagade, applied to Jacopo della
Querela, whose Fonte Gaja had just made him famous.
It was in 1425 that the contract between the Legate of
Pope Martin V. and the Sienese artist was approved.
In it the decoration of the central door of San Petronio
was entrusted to Della Querela, and the payment fixed
at 3,600 florins. Numerous historians have related the
details of this enterprise which lasted two years ; at
the death of the sculptor in 1438, it was not quite
finished, and became a subject of contention. But
we need not concern ourselves overmuch with the story,
which Perkins called without undue exaggeration
the tragedy of the door. What matters it whether the
delays were due to Jacopo's natural slowness, to his
neglect, or to other causes ? Let us be content to
contemplate the work.
The sculptures of this porch are almost entirely by the
hand of Jacopo. On the pilasters there are ten bas-
102 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
reliefs, representing scenes of Old Testament history ;
on the architrave five bas-reliefs reproducing episodes
of the life of Christ ; above this lintel, three statues :
the Virgin, S. Ambrose, and S. Petronius bearing a
model of the church. There are further on the inner
face of the uprights, and on the arch over the door,
thirty-three half-length figures of prophets ; but these
medallions, of minor importance, are probably not all
by the master. His authorship of the majority, how-
ever, can hardly be disputed, in view of the powerful
modelling of some of the heads and hands. As to the
fifteen bas-reliefs, they are so many masterpieces,
which make the strongest impression on the spectator.
It is impossible to forget the Birth of Adam, for instance,
in which the first man wakes to life with a truly startfing
gesture of amazement, and the Creation of Eve, whose
charming face already expresses the most timid curiosity.
These two reliefs were the admiration of Michelangelo,
who sought inspiration from them while magnifying
them by his own genius. And was it not a great honour
for Jacopo to have suggested to the master of the
Sistine Chapel that wonderful Birth of Adam in which
God, bending from the clouds, bestows life and in-
telligence on His creature by touching him with His
finger ? The most beautiful of the reliefs on the archi-
trave is that of the Flight into Egypt. Jacopo 's
Virgins have always a poignant expression ; here it is
extraordinary. Bending over the Babe as if to protect
Him already against invisible evils Mary seems to bear
on her anxious face all the marvellous and tragic destiny
of her divine Son. Jacopo is indeed a man apart in
his century, and above all, aparl from the Florentines.
He is not a Renaissance artist at all, but a master of
the transition, who links the sculptors of the pulpits
at Siena and Pisa to the sculptor of the tombs of the
JACOPO BELLA QUERCIA 103
Medici. He is in a sense the last of the Gothic artists.
He is intent on grand lines, on ample, soberly-treated
form, rather than on the graceful precision and realism
of the Quattrocento. He neglects detail and acces-
sories ; he seeks only to render the movement of soul
and body ; he is eager to express life in all its power
and variety. Was not his art that which first revealed
itself in the ingenuous works of the Pisan masters, and
blossomed forth a century later in the reasoned art of
Michelangelo ?
Like Correggio, Jacopo della Querela was an isolated
figure. He may be said to have had neither master
nor pupil. He grew up at Siena, where he learned
his craft by studying the pulpit of Niccol6 Pisano and
the Gothic artists who were working at the building
of the Duomo ; it was to them that he owed his occasion-
ally archaic style, the fullness of his draperies, the heavi-
ness of his stuffs and folds. At Florence he seems to
have been attracted chiefly by Giotto and Andrea
Pisano, if we may judge by some of the bas-reliefs of
San Petronio, which resemble those of the famous
Campanile in arrangement. He sent in an Abraham's
Sacrifice to the competition for the Baptistery doors
which ha^ not come down to us, but which he prob-
ably used for one of the sculptures of San Petronio.
Vasari tells us that the figures of this composition were
considered good, but inelegant : non avevano finezza.
And it is obvious that Jacopo 's robust art must have
seemed harsh to the subtle and refined Florentines.
The Sienese master has had no more able interpreter
than M. Marcel Reymond. I think he exaggerates a
little when he declares that Jacopo 's works dominate
Italian art, that they rank with those of Phidias, and
that all Ghiberti's grace is eclipsed by his grandeur ;
but it is evident enough that they are the only achieve-
104 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
ments of the fifteenth century which foreshadow the
mighty conceptions of Michelangelo.
Bologna has preserved other works by Jacopo della
Querela : two bas-reliefs in the Museum, and at San
Giacomo Maggiore the tomb of the Jurisconsult,
Antonio Galeazzo Bentivoglio. The latter is truly
representative both of the art of statuary and of the
University town which bestowed sumptuous tombs
on its professors. On the front of the sarcophagus we
see the master surrounded by pupils, who, seated at their
desks, receive his instruction attentively ; the dead
man is represented again above, lying at full length
on an inclined plane, his head and feet resting on huge
folios. Jacopo's work is admirably composed and very
stately in effect. The face of the recumbent figure is
full of nobility. Tombs are often the monuments in
which sculptors put the best of themselves, and this
because we cannot think of death without gravity and
emotion.
Among the memories we bring back from our travels,
the strongest are often those connected with this idea.
I cannot think of the delights of the Italian lakes with-
out recalling the hour I spent in a little burial ground
at the edge of the sparkling waters. And so, too, in our
visions of art, those which speak to us of death leave
the most durable impressions. The King of Terrors
has always been the great inspirer of artists.
CHAPTER VI
FAENZA .AND CESENA
This part of the Via Emilia is the most interesting
of all, from the picturesque point of view. To the
right the traveller skirts the last spurs of the Apennines
almost continuously, and can distinguish the villages
nestling in the folds of their slopes, clustered round
slender campaniles. Behind Bologna, above the roofs of
the town, rise the heights of the Monte della Guardia and
the Madonna di San Luca, whence one surveys a magnifi-
cent panorama, extending in clear weather from the
Alps to the Adriatic. As one advances on the road,
there is a series of fine views into each of the gorges
through which the torrents descend, some to the Reno,
the others straight to the sea. To the left, on the other
hand, is Romagna, a low, damp region abounding in
marshes, an interminable plain which extends as far
as the eye can reach, to the lagoons we divine on the
horizon. Dante indicated its boundaries accurately
enough when he said that it stretched
Tra il Po, il monte e la marina e il Reno.^
Although less fertile than the land on the other side
of Bologna, the district is rich and well cultivated.
Great white oxen, six, eight and even ten pairs yoked
together, plough up the fat soil. And ever, as if to give
a festal aspect to the famous highway, the vines hang
their garlands from one pioppo to the other. The heavy
clusters of berries are swollen to the point of bursting.
We are nearing the vintage time, that autumn equinox
which d'Annunzio declares to be the most enchanting
* Between the Po, the mountain and sea, and the Reno.
105
106 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
season of the year, because it exhales a sort of aerial
intoxication emanating from the ripe grapes.
And now I suddenly recognise an inn, a rustic osteria,
where I halted once before one summer day in I forget
what year. Instead of waiting for the meal that will
be ready for me at Faenza, in a low, airless room, I
decide to enjoy some frugal fare with a bottle of cool
lambrusco, that Emilian wine which has the savour
of our French sapling vines. There are times when the
blood of my peasant forbears throbs strongly in my
veins, and I feel the need of living nearer to Nature.
When I have finished my meal, I am reluctant to start
again at once, under the burning sunshine that is scorch-
ing the road white. Through the arches of the pergola,
I see the rich landscape drowsing in the mid-day heat.
Two cypresses rise high into the air, and stand out
sharply against the sky ; their tall heads rustle sonor-
ously with a sound that recalls a verse of Theocritus.
An oleander completes the eclogue. Bees fly past with
a musical murmur. And half asleep, I see myself
many years ago gazing upon this same scene. I
remember distinctly how I watched the tops of these
cypresses swajdng against the sky. Then, suddenly,
as in a magic dream, everything about me disappears
under the spell of a mirage akin to that fata morgana
which appears on the coasts of Reggio on certain brilliant
evenings, and transports the dazzled sailors to unreal
shores. I am standing again on the sunburnt terrace
whence my first childish dreams took flight. And I
feel the same agitation I used to feel, an inexplicable
agitation, a kind of panic terror born of the motionless
brightness of noon, the enveloping silence, the complete
torpor of things. . . .
But it is getting late ; it is time to start. The long
wide ribbon of the Via Emilia runs in a straight line
FAENZA 107
through towns of mam«»l aspect : Castel San Pietro,
Imola girdled with walls, dominated by its massive
Rocca, and Castel Bolognese, a big borough also sur-
rounded by well preserved ramparts with their corner
towers and circular bastions, an ancient fortress where,
it is said, Piccinino vanquished Gattamelata.
And here is Faenza, its central square bordered with
fine arcades and handsome buildings, among them the
Cathedral which vaguely suggests a San Petronio on
a small scale. In the Museum I renew my acquaintance
with the charming little bust of S. John, which Burck-
hardt attributes to Donatello, but which is probably
the work of Rossellino or Desiderio da Settignano,
and the wooden S. Jerome which, on the other hand, is
perhaps by Donatello. A rich collection of pottery
recalls the importance of the earlier ceramists of the
town ; at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of
the sixteenth century they were highly esteemed. The
neighbouring workshops of Cesena, Forli, Ferrara and
Rimini competed with them in vain ; a decree dated
1532, found in the archives of Ravenna, forbids the
importation and sale of the products of Faenza except
on market-days. There are a few modern factories
which are trying to revive the industry.
Scarcely have we passed the suburbs of Faenza
when the high towers of Forli appear on the horizon.
We begin to meet on the road those little painted
carts which are to be found in all the regions near the
Adriatic. The hemp fields become more numerous,
and the air is heavy with their nauseous stench.
At Forli, the Via Emilia skirts the Piazza Maggiore
— transformed like so many others, into the Piazza
Vittorio Emanuele — an imposing space, with its monu-
mental fa9ades, its town-hall, the church of San
Mercuriale and a Campanile of Venetian aspect. Forli
108 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
was the birth place of the excellent painter Melozzo ;
all we shall see in the Museum is his Pestapepe, an
apothecary's sign, representing an apprentice pounding
a drug in a mortar.
On leaving the town the road is bordered for several
miles by a double row of poplars, as far as the river
Ronco, now completely dried up. The torrents, much
shorter here, flow directly to the Adriatic, and are
more formidable than those we have left behind.
In the rainy season, and when the snows are melting,
they swell in a few hours to raging floods, bearing
down all before them. Man has so far been unable to
tame them. A great scheme has been outlined for the
construction of a vast canal at the foot of the Apennines,
the whole length of the chain, to receive the waters
as they reach the plain and carry them off to the sea ;
but such an enterprise would present the most serious
difficulties and entail an immense outlay. A channel
of enormous width and depth would be required to
contain the volume of water which sometimes issues
from all the gorges at the same time. On the other
hand, water is so scarce in the summer that it has to
be brought in water-carts and sold by the quart.
And the torrents have not been uniformly destructive ;
with the earth they brought down from the Apennines,
they gradually filled up the marshes which formerly
covered a large part of Romagna. They were the most
active agents in the levelling and fertilisation undertaken
by the Romans, who here again have left us evidences
of their genius. When we look at the fields to the
left of the road on leaving Faenza, we see that the paths
and ditches which divide them are equidistant and
parallel, perpendicularly to the Via Emilia. The,
landscape forms a gigantic chess-board, the squares of
which, arranged in regular rectangles, corresponded
PLAINS NEAR RIMINI 109
to the allotments of the Roman assessors. This arrange-
ment, noticeable in some places before Bologna, is more
evident between Imola and ForU, except in the neigh-
bourhood of the watercourses, where it is effaced by
constant inundation and erosion. It was Marcus
^milius Scaurus who in the year 115 B.C. began the
reclamation of this plain, and ordered the digging of
the ditches which were to drain the water off into the
Po or the Adriatic. Then, having expropriated and
expelled the Gauls, the Romans divided up the land
into equal portions which they gave over to veterans
for drainage and cultivation ; we read in Livy that these
maremme were measured, and divided among the
colonists. This network of roads and canals is two
thousand years old. It is curious to see that the
Imperial assessment still obtains, and that Nature
herself preserves the imprint and proclaims the continuity
of Roman genius. These regular divisions cease in the
north, following a sinuous line which (corresponds to
the shores of an ancient lake, the Padusa, a kind of
lagoon, separated from the Adriatic only by a strip
of sand ; the torrents have gradually filled it up.
Thousands of aCres, once merely reed-beds, are now
rich wheat-fields. All these lowland districts snatched
from the waters have a very distinctive character.
This was the region described by Francesca when she
spoke to Dante of her native place near the sea, " where
the Po and its tributaries throw themselves into the
sea in search of peace " :
Siede la terra dove nata f ui
Su la marina dove '1 Po discende
Per aver pace co' seguaci sui.
It is a rich, watery, restless soil, a flat district, a kind
of southern Flanders, entirely unlike the rest of Italy,
the lines of which are in general so clear and precise.
110 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
A few lofty parasol pines in the distance herald the
Pineta, and the approach to Ravenna, the ancient city
of the Exarchs, now so remote from the world, that
city in which, by one of the strange caprices of history,
civilisation concentrated for a century, to leave it merely
the custodian of tombs. It is comprehensible that
Dante, old, weary and wretched, should have chosen
this city, already moribund in his day, to die in ; here
he was able to withdraw from human intercourse,
encountering only Imperial ghosts among the deserted
streets and funereal pines.
To the right of the Via Emilia, however. Nature
has remained smiling and varied. Near ForHmpopoli
a series of cheerful hill-side draped with vines have an
almost Tuscan grace. On one of them, in a delightful
position at the foot of the Monte dei Cappuccini, stands
the village of Bertinoro, a former property of the
Malatestas, the vineyards of which were already famous
in their times. Further on, at the foot of a spur of the
Apennines, we come to Cesena. The town, formerly
on the mountain-top, has gradually descended into
the valley, but in a haphazard fashion which gives it
an irregular appearance of a very original kind. The
site is pleasant with its crown of green hills domi-
nated, one by a convent, the other by the ruins of
a fortress. A little way off is Santa Maria del Monte,
a Renaissance church attributed to Bramante. By
virtue of a fine bridge over the Savio, and a sixteenth
century fountain, Cesena is sometimes called the town
del monte, del ponte e delfonte (of the mountain, the bridge
and the fountain). It is almost unknown to tourists,
and yet it can offer them, in addition to its picturesque
attractions, one of the most charming libraries in
Italy. Few Renaissance buildings were more intelli-
gently planned than this palace, built in 1452 by Matteo
THE RUBICON 111
Nuzio, for Malatesta Novello, the brother of the tyrant
of Rimini. It comprises several rooms containing
precious books and manuscripts, some of which were
used for the famous editions of the classics printed by
the Venetian, Aldus Manutius. The great hall, some
120 feet long, is a gallery of three aisles, resting on
graceful fluted columns of white Codruzzo marble.
The happy arrangement of the building was so novel
at the time of its inception that Michelangelo was
inspired by it in several details of his Medici Library.
After leaving Cesena we cross a series of little streams
each of which claims the distinction of being the original
Rubicon. The Pisciatello, which is the first we come
to, the Fiumicino, which bathes verdant Savignano
surrounded by tall poplars, the Uso which reflects the
castle of Sant' Arcangelo, compete, and probably will
always compete for the honour. Each of the neigh-
bouring cities invokes Strabo, Pliny, the geographers of
antiquity or of the Middle Ages in support of its
pretensions. In all probability the riddle will never
be solved. But what does it matter ? There are the
towers of Rimini ! and here the blue line of the Adriatic
and the purple and yellow sails swelled by winds from
the East.
CHAPTER VII
RIMINI
RlMTNl : for how many of us these musical syllables
are associated only with a tragic love story and a verse
in an immortal poem ! Few episodes have been more
112 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
popular and few have inspired more artists than that
of the hapless passion of Paolo and Francesca. This
is due to Dante's pathetic narrative and also to the
fact that the brief scene recorded by the poet is a most
moving drama of love and death. What lovers would
not pity and envy those who were united in the grave
by the same dagger ? Dante himself is indulgent to
the guilty pair, and desires pardon for them ; he almost
excuses them, laying the blame on destiny, and invoking
the triumphant instinct which attracts one sex to the
other. What other story teaches so effectively that
love is the first aim of life and the surest claim to
immortality in the minds of men ? We learn the same
lesson from the church of San Francesco, dedicated by
Sigismondo Malatesta to Isotta, who was originally his
mistress, and whom he married after repudiating his
first wife, the daughter of a Count of Carmagnola,
poisoning the second, Ginevra d'Este, and strangling
the third, Polyxena, the natural daughter of one of the
Sforzas.
Though we can understand the passion of Paolo
for Francesca, whom we may reasonably suppose to
have been a desirable creature, we are at a loss to account
for the fierce Malatesta 's passion for Isotta degli Atti,
the daughter of a citizen of Rimini. All extant portraits
of her, the medals of Matteo da Pasti and Pisanello,
the statue of the Archangel Michael to which Ciuffagni
gave her features, the marble bust in the Campo Santo
at Pisa represent her as entirely lacking in grace and
beauty. She must have been intelligent and cultivated ;
but perhaps she held Sigismondo captive simply by the
tenderness, at once calm and voluptuous, of a woman
who knows all the violence and all the lassitude of man's
desire. Moreover, how should we be able to read the
complex souls of those tyrants who recoiled at no crime.
SIGISMONDO MALATESTA 113
and yet who sometimes showed the most exquisite
delicacy and the most refined taste ? By one of the
frequent anomalies of human nature, the most cruel
of them were also the most enlightened. The verdict
of history need not affect our admiration for them ;
they ordered splendid monuments and were incom-
parable patrons of art and artists. Among them there
is no more striking figure than that of Sigismondo
Pandolfo Malatesta who
Mit a sang la K-omagne et la Marche et le Golfe,
Batit un temple, fit T amour et le chanta.^
These two lines of a famous sonnet sum up very happily
in one of those brief phrases dear to the author of the
Trophies, the Condottiere who conceived the strange
idea of raising a temple to his mistress, or rather, of
transforming a Franciscan church into a heathen temple.
No trace, indeed, has been left therein of the chaste
idyl of S. Francis and "Madame Poverty." We might
search in vain for a religious inscription, a Christian
image, a sacred symbol ; we find on every side antique
statues, ephebi, Greek divinities, garlands, wreaths of
fruit and flowers ; the arms of Malatesta : the elephant
and the rose ; and above all, Isotta's cipher interlaced
with his own.
Sigismondo chose L. B. Alberti as his architect.
And Alberti had to solve the same problem which was
to present itself a century later to Palladio in the basilica
of Vicenza : the utilisation of an old building and its
transformation into a new monument. Less fortunate
than Palladio, Alberti never saw the completion of his
conception : a great building with a dome, of which
we get an idea from a letter in which he speaks of a
1 Wlio drenched Romagna and the Marches and the Gulf with
blood, built a temple, made love and sang it.
I
114 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
cupola like that of Santa Maria dei Fiori, and from the
reverse of a medal which Sigismondo caused to be struck
in 1450, on the occasion of his jubilee.
Alberti encased the Gothic church in a kind of shell
of marble, and respecting the interior chapels, preserved
the Gothic bays ; but on the outside he enclosed them
in round headed arcades, forming so many niches, the
stylobates of which served as bases for the tombs of the
poets and learned men pensioned by Malatesta. As
he was fettered by no restrictions in the fagade, he
gave free rein to his imagination here, and achieved a
masterpiece. It has the appearance of a triumphal
arch : the pretext for the work was, in fact, the cele-
bration of the victory gained by Sigismondo as General
of the Florentines over Alfonso of Aragon, as we learn
from an inscription on one of the pilasters. This
facade, the first produced by the Italian Renaissance,
is marvellously effective, though it is unfinished, and
still shows the gable of the old Gothic building ; the
effect is due entirely to the simplicity and the graceful
proportions of the architectural mass. A new art came
to birth with L. B. Alberti.
There is no more interesting figure than that of this
Italian. Athlete, savant, astronomer, inventor of scien-
tific instruments, man of letters, jurist, a Latinist of
such parts that he wrote plays which were long ascribed
to Plautus, musician, sculptor, and architect, he was a
kind of universal genius, a precursor of Leonardo da
Vinci. Politian, despairing of enumerating all his
attainments, declared that it were wiser to be silent
altogether concerning him than to risk sajdng too
little : tacere satius puto quam pauca dicer e. He has
written on innumerable subjects, and we might find
in his works the germs of many modern discoveries.
We also read in them formulas which might have been
L. B. ALBERTI 115
written by a contemporary : "I appeal not only to
artists but to all minds eager for instruction.'* . . .
" By means of study and of art, we must try to under-
stand and express life." . . . " It is not enough to render
things faithfully, we must learn to bring out their
beauty." . . . When he defines the mission of the
artist, he recommends him not to isolate himself, but
to seek the society of orators and poets in order to find
fresh sources of inspiration in their company. He
was the first to draw an analogy between music and
architecture and he compared rhythms, forms and sounds
very judiciously. The fascination antique monu-
ments had for him probably developed his bent
towards architecture. That which interested him
above all was creation, the plan. He confided the
execution of his designs to others. Thus for the temple
at Rimini he applied to the celebrated medallist, Matteo
da Pasti ; but we must not therefore conclude that he
was a roving dilettante who tried his hand at every-
thing more or less. He was a Humanist in all the beauty
and all the force of the term. He went back to the
sources of antique wisdom. He demanded of art and
science the means for controlling his passions ; he
sought in them consolation for the woes of life. Bom
in exile in Florence, he kept himself always above
pettinesses, jealousies, and hatreds. Nothing could be
more admirable in its sovereign sense of justice and
humanity than a dissertation on law which he wrote
one day at Bologna in a few hours. And how full of
wisdom is the formula with which he concludes one of
his works : " Virtue is a beautiful thing ; kindness is
a beautiful thing."
His work at Rimini may be said to inaugurate the
Renaissance. Such a movement is not, of course,
spontaneous, and could not be initiated by any one
I 2
116 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
man. It was the outcome of an entire generation,
and many generations prepared it. Long before the
fifteenth century the new tendencies were making
themselves felt in all the domains of art and intellect.
S. Francis of Assisi, Dante, Giotto, Giovanni Pisano
were innovators who were the first to break the ancient
moulds in which the thought of the Middle Ages had
been cabined and confined. In architecture, Brunellesco
was the first to free himself and begin the reformation ;
the Pitti Palace and the cupola of Santa Maria dei
Fiori were rising in Florence when in France men were
stiU building Gothic cathedrals and private houses
like that of Jacques Coeur. But it was with L. B.
Alberti, a theorist rather than an architect, that the
Renaissance first became conscious of itself and de-
liberately broke with the tradition of the Middle Ages.
He completed the movement and ensured its triumph
by fixing the laws which were to govern it. No more
pointed arches, dim vaults and darkness ! Life and
light were to be its aims ; hence wide bays and large
porticoes through which the sunshine could enter, and
simple logical structures, suitable to the climate and to
the needs of the times.
The Roman column took the place of the Gothic
pillar and the Classic Orders were reproduced with a
just sense of their proportions ; thus for the fagade of
San Francesco, Alberti found his inspiration directly
and very ingeniously in the Arch of Augustus which
he had before his eyes. Such were the new rules. The
architects of the Renaissance had only to apply them,
taking the temple at Rimini for their model.
Alberti's skill is no less happily applied in the interior ;
he overlaid the brick of the Franciscan walls with marble,
stucco and gilding. He called upon the tender and
sensual Agostino di Duccio to scatter smiling images
CORSO D'AUGUSTO 117
everywhere, even on the tombs, and to write the love-
poem in honour of Isotta. Unfortunately the decoration
was not left entirely to Duccio ; many coarse and clumsy
details betray the hands of other artisans, notably the
somewhat heavy hand of Ciuffagni.
But the daylight is fading, and as I must leave to-
morrow, I want to finish my pilgrimage and explore
the last section of the Via Emilia, which passes through
Rimini. It enters the town after crossing the Marecchia
(the Ariminus of the ancients) on a fine travertine
bridge begun by Augustus and finished under Tiberius.
Its five massive arches, the piers of which are slightly
oblique in order to lessen the impact of the current,
has resisted the onslaughts of the torrent for twenty
centuries. This Marecchia, which to-day I could easily
jump across, is often a tremendous river which breaks
down its dykes, tears up the trees on its banks, and
throws them against the pillars of the bridge, which it
sometimes submerges. The Roman cement has so far
held good in spite of its fury.
The Via Emilia traverses Rimini under the name of
the Corso d'Augusto. It skirts the Piazza Cavour,
where there is an old fountain which dates, they say,
from the time of Antoninus Pius, then the Piazza di
Giulio Cesare, the ancient forum of the city, and ends
at the triumphal arch which the Senate and the people
erected in honour of Augustus, in the year 27 B.C. It
is one of the imperial monuments with which both
time and man have dealt tenderly. Built entirely of
travertine, it is very simple in effect, at once graceful
and majestic. Two pilasters, in which fine Corinthian
colunms are imbedded, support an audacious arch some
twenty-seven feet in span. It is decorated with two
ox-heads, the emblem of the Roman colonies, and with
four medallions representing Jupiter, Venus, Neptune
118 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
and Mars, the protectors of the city. A quadriga with
a chariot in which Augustus was seated crowned it
originally, but this was destroyed during the struggle
with the Goths and replaced eventually by the present
disfiguring battlements. Each of the pillars adjoins
the ramparts of the town, of which it was long the
principal gate, the Porta Aurea, as it was called because
of the inscription in letters of gilded bronze. On the
other side of the arch the Via Flaminia begins, the road
that led to Rome through the country of the Senones,
Umbria, and the Sabine land, and entered the Eternal
City after crossing the Tiber by the Milvius bridge.
So I have come to the end of my road ! To-morrow
I shall return to Venice, faithful to my annual rendezvous,
the marriage of Autumn and the Adriatic. The journey
which seemed such a long one in perspective has passed
so quickly that one seems to have been watching a
cinema show. In a few days I shall recross the Alps,
my heart full of that sorrow in quitting Italy which
depressed even Madame de Stael, and repeating in my
turn the verse that rose to her lips as she mounted the
winding road of Mont Cenis :
Vegno di loco ove tornar desio.^
I had only visited Rimini once before, a few years ago
while waiting for a train, to see Alberti's temple which
I had long wished to know. I was going towards Umbria
and I remember a lovely twilight on the Adriatic, and
a nocturnal arrival at Ancona. I can even fix the date ;
it was in August, 1905, the day of an eclipse of the
sun. I see myself again on the little square of San
Francesco, reassuring a group of old women who
trembled and lamented as the light was gradually
extinguished. Five years already ! But what are
' I come from the spot whither I would fain return.
Arch of Augustus, Rimini,
ADRIATIC FROM RIMINI 119
five miserable years on this road, before this arch of
Augustus, under which twenty centuries have passed ?
Yet they count as something to us as long as, in Dante's
beautiful phrase, we are still among the living of this
life, which is but a race to death :
. . . vivi
Del viver ch'e' un correre alia morte.
How swiftly the days pass on this Italian soil where
all is joy and delight, especially when real youth is
over, and we begin to look back. Just now I read
again on Isotta's tomb the wise warning : Tempus
loquendi, tempus tacendi (a time to speak and a time to
keep silence). A day will come, is perhaps very near,
when one can only be silent.
Before night falls I want to see the Adriatic which
has so often cradled my hopes and dreams. The
fishing boats are returning two by two, like pairs of
lovers, folding their shining sails. They disappear
behind the mole, on which a light is kindled. The calm
is so intense that we can almost hear our hearts beat.
There is no sound but the almost imperceptible ripple
of the waves on the soft sand. And now, unnoticed,
night is upon us. One by one the moon, the planets, the
stars light their lamps, all those luminaries of which
we know nothing in our tall houses with their blinding
lights, but which, when we are travelling seem to live
with us and follow us amicably. A few lights quiver
on the bank. The sharp tinkle of a piano comes from
the big hotel, already almost deserted. A last boat
returns to port, slipping silently over the water, like a
cat on velvet paws. Ah ! September evening, sweet
and mournful. . . .
PART III
THE MARCHES. UMBRIA
CHAPTER I
PERUGIA
Returning and revisiting are often more delightful
than discovery. The traveller who finds himself once
more in a beloved city experiences the same pleasure
as he who reads anew a fine book, noting on every page
fresh grounds for love and admiration. There is nothing
more fascinating than to halt from time to time in
familiar places where one can wander at will, "v^ithout
having to consult a map or to follow the directions of
a guide. In museums and churches, at the corner of
a square or of a street, you know what work of art is
your bourn, a bourn to which you make your way in
j oy ous confidence , sure of a friendly reception . Whereas ,
when you arrive in a town for the first time, you are
eager to see everything, to examine each masterpiece,
to place it in its century and its school ; and this in-
cessant mental labour is very exhausting, especially
for a poor novelist taking a holiday, who, to quote
Bourget, is neither an art-critic nor an archaeologist.
But need he regret this ? He is, perhaps, in better
case for the appreciation of beautiful things, and the
reception of the deep or violent emotions they com-
municate, than he who is encumbered by too heavy a
weight of erudition.
A year ago, when I arrived at Perugia, I felt as if I
were entering an unknown city so great was the move-
123
124 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
ment and agitation in the streets. M. Schneider, in
his delightful book on Umbria, exaggerates a little
perhaps, when he tells us that the city has remained
" in almost Arcadian solitude," and is as " unfamiliar
as it is beautiful." Nevertheless, my memories of
Perugia were memories of a quiet town, dozing in the
shelter of its ancient walls, and I found a lively, feverish
and crowded city. By a curious coincidence the jubilee
festival of the famous Madonna della Grazia — and an
Italian festival entails concerts, illuminations and
fireworks — was taking place at the same time as the
Modugno lawsuit, which was convulsing Italy. I
arrived on the very day when one of the leaders of the
defence, the famous barrister Bianchi, had been
murdered, though his violent death had no relation
whatever to the case in which he was engaged. I
had stepped into the very centre of the tragedy. In
spite of the strong emotions which were agitating the
crowd, I was struck by its dignity and reticence. The
Umbrian, like his neighbour the Tuscan, is very anxious
not to appear ridiculous ; thoughtful and serious, he
is less heavy than the Lombard, but less exuberant
than the Roman or the Neapolitan. The women, too,
are graceful and elegantly dressed ; in olden days this
was made a reproach to them ; perhap^ it was by no
mere chance that the mirror of the University Museum,
the finest mirror of Romano -Etruscan art that has come
down to us, was found at Perugia. The race is closely
akin to the Florentine type, but of sterner stuff.
Umbria has had too much of war and violence in her
past to have escaped from all traces thereof. The
history of Florence is almost pacific compared with that of
Perugia, which, for over two hundred years, was a fortress
rather than a city, and had more towers than houses.
Perugia turrita, towered Perugia it was called. Its grifl&n
"TOWERED PERUGIA" 125
with threatening beak, outspread wings, claws unsheathed
and ready to tear, was a truthful symbol ; the she-
wolves of Rome and Siena, the lions of Venice and the-
Guelfs, the neighing stallion of Arezzo are less bellicose.
Etruscan or Roman, feudal or democratic, under the
yoke of Pope or tyrant, Perugia was always at war.
In the Middle Ages more especially, ground between
Rome and the Empire, and rent by internecine quarrels,
it never laid aside its arms. In the little streets of the
town, narrow and tortuous as passages, cut-throat alleys
where everything is eloquent of attack and defence,
between the old palaces with grated windows, on the
ancient pavements, undisturbed since the centuries
when they were so often stained with blood, we cannot
but think of that terrible Baglioni family, of which it
was said that their children were born with a sword
at their sides, and whose members without exception
died a violent death. One day the boyish Simonetto
had to defend himself single-handed against a bevy
of enemies. If the youthful Raphael was not present
at the scene, he often witnessed similar exploits, and
there can be no doubt that they inspired the two pictures
in the Louvre, the spirited St. George and St. Eaphael,
which he painted for his native town during his sojourn
at Perugia. What tragic scenes were witnessed by the
Municipio, that frowning mass of masonry which is
only enlivened by apertures, colonnades and pointed
bays, at a height where attack was not to be feared.
The very churches were stern and bellicose, like that
strange Sant' Ercolane, with its bristKng battlemented
walls, where the many masses that have been said have
proved powerless to efface the stains of blood. One
morning before a ceremony when no water was obtain-
able, the walls of the church had to be washed down
with wine.
126 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
It is indeed one of the most curious phenomena of
the history of Italy, this perpetual mixture of barbarism
and religion which characterised the dawn of the Re-
naissance. Sigismondo PandoKo, Captain of the Holy
Church, commissioned L. B. Alberti to enshrine the
temple of Rimini in marble in honour of his fourth
wife, after having repudiated his first, poisoned his
second, and strangled his third. But nowhere was
the antithesis more startling than here, in the small
towns that lived on pillage and murder, where war was
waged between city and city, quarter and quarter,
family and family, and yet where the delicate art of the
Umbrian School and the holy works of Franciscan
piety sprang up like flowers between the blood-stained
flagstones. St. Francis himself, a soldier in his youth,
is the living type of that martial and mystical Umbria
where oak and olive alternate on the hill-sides.
Italian devotion is, indeed, entirely formal and ex-
ternal. At a High Mass celebrated by the Cardinal of
Ferrara, who presided over the jubilee festivities that
year, I saw people coming into the church as into a
theatre, and going from one altar to another, loudly
admiring the decoration and illumination of the church.
The women were walking about fan in hand, pausing
for a moment to take part in the service, genuflect
and make the sign of the Cross, and then continuing
their promenade, chatting with the friends they
encountered, and admiring the Madonna della Grazia,
illuminated by limeUght at the top of the nave like the
" star " in a ballet.
To-day the Cathedral is deserted. The sacristan,
seeing a stranger, hurries to me and proposes to show
me the works of art of his church, especiaUy Baroccio's
Descent from the Cross ; but I make off while he is drawing
up the curtain that conceals it. Why should I look
i
STREETS OF PERUGIA 127
again at that vociferous canvas, a work entirely lacking
in feeling, and impressive only as the sight of an epileptic
seizure is impressive ? How much more poignant in
its harsh simplicity is Luca Signorelli's Madonna with
Four Saints ! At the time when he painted this picture
no artist, not even Mantegna himseK, had a more
profound knowledge of anatomy. What sobriety,
what gravity of arrangement, what severe and some-
what bitter power ! It is well to come and look at this
work after studying the Peruginos in the Pinacoteca ;
quitting the cold and artificial world in which the
imagination of the master of Perugia delighted, we
shall the better appreciate life and reality.
On leaving the Cathedral I enter the labjnrinth of little
streets which intersect each other in every direction,
ascending, descending, terminating in a flight of steps,
or on a terrace above which we see the rippling silver
of olive groves and the gentle undulations of hills
covered with houses. The tiny squares overhanging
the ravines that separate the various suburbs of the
town, such as the Piazza di Porta Sole or the Piazza
delle Prome, are full of fascination. The soul of the
past hovers over them, emerges from the ancient houses,
and wanders round the silent gardens that slumber in
the shade of the walls, showing only the funereal
distaffs of their tall cypresses. Branches of willow and
Virginian creeper climb up the iron gates, and hang,
pensive and weary, from the rusty bars, as if they
remembered. Mosses sprout between the stones of
the walls, sometimes so thickly that they pad the
houses as it were, and deaden vibration. Blocks of
freestone fallen from ruined gateways, roofs overgrown
with grass, all have the resigned but haughty air of the
things of a bygone age which await death without
protest, knowing that nothing can make them live
128 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
again. Yet here and there an open window, a figure
seen at the end of a dark passage, a shop, a stall, a
housefront with oleander blossoms remind us that
daily life goes on, that creatures are born and struggle
and die, that lovers embrace and suffer, here as elsewhere.
The pride of Perugia is the Giardino di Fronte, a
terrace clinging to the mountain, which overhangs
the valley like the prow of a ship on the waves. Nearly
all the cities of Tuscany and Umbria have these ad-
mirably situated terraces commanding the plain,
designed rather for the delight of the eye than for the
exigencies of attack and defence. The Italians provided
themselves with free spectacles of infinite variety.
They were familiar with all the magic of light, the fresh-
ness of morning, the splendours of noon, the violence
or the sweetness of twilight. Even so far from Greece
as this, we can understand the farewells of antique
heroes to life. Under a sky less intensely blue but as
pure as that of Athens, the most mournful of all thoughts
must be the reflection that we shall never behold the
light of day again. When the people of the North
shrink from death, they dwell on annihilation, the
disappearance of their moral and intellectual personality ;
those of the South regret the joy of living and breathing
in the sunshine, the delight of loving and admiring
which they will know no more.
My favourite time for dreaming in this garden is the
twilight, when the sky is turning a milky blue, the
soft shade of Parma violets. The Umbrian valley
thrusts itself between the double chain of the Apen-
nines and the hills that dominate the Tiber. The
mountains draw together and form one of those vague
backgrounds beloved of Leonardo. The towns in the
distance are blurred by the light mist which rises from
the overheated soil. Yet one can still distinguish the
THE GIARDINO DI FRONTE 1^9
windings of the river, the roofs of the Portiuncula and
Bastia, and white Assisi on the flank of the Subasio.
So familiar is the panorama to me that I can even place
Spello, Foligno in the plain, Montefalco on the summit
of its peak, and behind the hill of Bettona, the Rocca
of Spoleto and its wood of ilexes.
The approach of evening enhances the spirituality
of this spot which Dante called " the garden of the
Peninsula," and Renan " the Galilee of Italy." I
can recall no other landscape so full at once of sweetness
and majesty. Before this valley where so many civilisa-
tions have followed one upon the other, where so many
centuries of history have left their mark, where religion
and art found their purest expression, all sensation
seems to become more vivid, all thought more lofty.
Every little town in the plain or on the hills suggests
glorious names and famous works. Setting aside
Perugia, where a great school arose and flourished,
where the Pisani and Angelico worked, where Perugino
developed and Raphael studied, we have Assisi with
Cimabue and Giotto, Spello and its Pintoricchios, Trevi
and its Spagnas, Spoleto and its Filippo Lippis, Monte-
falco and its Gozzolis. The eye wanders from the ancient
Tiber to sacred Clitumnus, from the Topino sung by Dante
to the roofs of the Portiuncula, from the hills of Trasy-
mene to the walls of Spoleto where Lucrezia Borgia
reigned. From this very belvedere, the Perugians saw
the Etruscan cohorts and the legions of Flaminius,
the crowds which flocked to S. Francis, the armies
of the Pope and the soldiers of Napoleon. One might
grave on the gates of Perugia, with a slight modification,
an inscription akin to that at the entrance to Siena :
Cor mag is Perugia pandit. Perugia opens the heart
more widely.
When I arrived a few tourists were seated on the stone
K
130 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
benches, Baedeker in hand, trying to recognise the
various towns below or to follow the course of the
Tiber which disappears among trees and meadows.
But as evening fell, they departed. Only an old man
remained, walking to and fro and leading an idiot
child who babbled incoherently.
Gradually darkness crept over the landscape. The
hills drew together and formed a closer circle round the
plain, throwing their shadow over the valleys. A
cracked bell rang shrilly from the tower of San Pietro,
seeming in Dante's mournful words to lament the
dying day. The tramontana began to blow, sharp
and cold. I returned hurriedly by the deserted Corso
Cavour, pursued by the doleful voice of the little idiot.
CHAPTER II
UMBBIAN ART
Befoee entering the Museum, I had a fancy to see
once more the Fonte Maggiore, one of the most beautiful
fountains in Italy, which has so many. It is supremely
elegant with its three superposed basins and its double
row of bas-reliefs. One of these bears a pompous
inscription still decipherable, in which the names of
Niccolo and Giovanni Pisano are coupled for the first
time. The father was nearing the end of his illustrious
career ; the son was beginning his. The dawn of the
fourteenth century was already breaking. Abandoning
ancient formulas, Art was turning to Nature, and no
LEGEND OF S. FRANCIS 131
longer confining itself to the expression of religious
sentiment. This revolution was initiated by sculpture
under the dual influence of the antique statues, casts
of which Niccolo had seen in Southern Italy, and of the
new French art. When and how did the Pisani study
the admirable sculpture of the French cathedrals ?
I must leave the question to historians, but it is
certain- that as early as the middle of the thirteenth
century, Gothic art was familiar to them. The pulpits
of the Baptistery of Pisa and the Cathedral of Siena
bear witness to this, as also certain details of the Fonte
Maggiore. The figure representing Dialectics ^ for
instance, is dressed in the French "manner, and Music,
instead of holding the traditional lyre, is striking little
bells, as on the capital in the Cathedral of Chartres
where she is represented above Pythagoras.
But there was another influence at the root of this
artistic revival : the Franciscan movement. Thode
went too far, perhaps, in maintaining that the Re-
naissance was the outcome of this movement, and
Renan too exaggerated when he declared that " the
sordid beggar of Assisi was the father of Italian art " ;
but there is no doubt that S. Francis did more to hasten
the dawn of the new era than any of his contemporaries.
His life, instinct with love and humility, pity and
charity, the legend of the Portiuncula mingling at every
turn with the life of the people, the history of the popular
order of the Fratelli, all spoke directly to the sensibility
of artists who did their best to translate the tender
or pathetic impressions they received. It is a mistake
to couple the name of S. Dominic with that of S. Francis
in connection with the Italian Renaissance, as some
have done. True, the violent apostle of Calahora and
the preaching friars who carried his doctrines throughout
the world, also used art as a means of education and
K 2
132 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
propaganda ; but they did not inspire artists directly.
They merely demanded from them vast symbolical
compositions to serve as moralising influences among
the masses, synthetic works in harmony with their
cold, dogmatic spirit. A sure proof that they had no
part in the artistic revival is the fact that there are
hardly any portraits of S. Dominic and his disciples,
whereas those of the Poverello may be counted by
thousands. He may be recognised in the mosaics of
San Giovanni Laterano and Santa Maria Maggiore,
in the old frescoes of Giunta and Berlinghieri, and in
one of the sculptures of Orvieto. In the cupola of the
Baptistery of Parma, the scene of the stigmata forms
a pendant to the vision of Ezekiel. Last year at Siena
I was struck by the numerous representations of S.
Francis in the Istituto delle Belle Arti ; the first picture
one sees on entering, attributed to Margheritone of
Arezzo, the next two, described in the Catalogue as
" in the Greek manner," and over forty others in the
gallery all depict him opening his coarse woollen gown
to show in his side the mark of the spear.
In order to illustrate the Franciscan poem, artists,
in default of tradition, were driven to direct observation
of life. Heretofore, they may be said to have expressed
but a single sentiment, one common to all Christianity :
the awe of man in the presence of Deity. In the earliest
paintings that have come down to us, God is a fierce
and threatening master, inaccessible to the faithful.
The Madonna is always the Byzantine Virgin, impassible
and rigid ; in the Crucifixion scene, she weeps, standing
upright. The persons round the cross, stiff and motion-
less, have very large heads, and vacant, lifeless eyes,
after the vecchia maniera greca goffa e sproporzionata
(the old Greek manner, clumsy and disproportionate)
of which Vasari speaks. We feel that the painter was
THE FONTE MAGGIORE 133
oppressed by the religious terror which overhung the
whole of the Middle Ages. When the sun of Assisi
had illumined the Italian sky, Art, bursting open its
leaden coffin, sprang upwards towards the light. The
old Christian drama was rejuvenated and humanised ;
it learned love and pity. The ancient moulds gave
way under the pressure of the new castings. Artists
abandoned their painfully acquired formulas to seek
inspiration and models in their own surroundings ;
their personages were real and living like themselves,
like those S. Francis had shown them in his stories.
Christ became once more the Son of Man ; they
represented Him crowned with thorns, His eyes closed,
His head bowed. His body drooping and bleeding, as
in the fine wooden crucifix of the Pinacoteca which
Perugino fastened to one of his works, Jesus was no
longer the Christ of glory and majesty, but the suffering
Saviour who died for the sins of the world. The hieratic
Madonna was humanised ; she bent maternally over
her Babe, or pressed Him to her bosom. The episode
preferred above all others was the most human of all,
the scene the Italians called a Pieta, the Virgin with
the dead body of her Son across her knees. And
painters and sculptors began to look at Nature, to seek
inspiration around them, paraphrasing the Hymn of
created Things. Trees, fruit, garlands of vine, and land-
scape were introduced. Thus on the Fonte Maggiore,
in spite of its dilapidation and the railing which prevents
us from examining it closely, we recognise rustic scenes,
the works of the successive months, the vintage, hunting
and fishing, animals, no longer terrible and grimacing,
but natural and lively, a lamb, a wolf, a dog, birds, a
falcon, all those the saint had loved and with which he
had talked so often. The month of April is typified
by a woman holding a cornucopia and a basket of
134 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
roses ; does she not herald the advent of the Re-
naissance, like Botticelli's Spring, crowned with leaves
and scattering flowers ?
But let us enter the Municipio. The Pinacoteca is
almost empty . . . Boccati, Bonfigli, Fiorenzo : how I
love your works, those ardent and vivid acts of faith !
Your colour, lucid and transparent, aptly translates the
purity of your hearts ; its limpid fluidity seems almost
immaterial. Your tints are red as the flame of your
love, or blue as the immaculate azure of your skies in
which shone the most radiant light that had beamed
upon the world since the Star of Bethlehem. I regret,
of course, that your pictures are no longer in the churches
for which you painted them. But here, at least,
you have been spared incongruous surroundings, and
your gentle Virgins, moved by the appearance of the
Annunciation Angel, are not jostled by bathing nymphs,
or voluptuous Ledas. You did not look upon the sacred
legends as agreeable anecdotes which lent themselves
readily to illustration. Your Christianity is sincere, not
false and theatrical as it too soon became among your
neighbours in Florence, Rome and Bologna. You
sought to serve religion by your art ; later, it was religion
which was made to minister to art. And I love you also
because you have been misunderstood. Even nowadays,
the critics are severe, when, indeed, they notice you at
all. They mention you grudgingly, in the interests of
completeness. One of them, speaking of Bonfigli of
late, merely notes in passing " the mediocre efforts of
a painter of insipid angels crowned with chaplets of
roses." Others, because you were pious, artless, and
sincere, class you as mystics obstinately opposed to the
realistic movement, and explain this by the fact that
you lived in the neighbourhood of S. Francis ; they
fail to see that it is hardly logical to make the same man
FIORENZO DI LORENZO 135
responsible for Giotto's naturalistic revolution and the
alleged reaction of the Perugian painters.
But, in fact, even in the old Boccati there is a curious
striving after truth. What could be less mystical than
the frieze of archers and horsemen, or the Child playing
with a hare ? The flowery portico behind the Virgin
is like those affected by Mantegna, and the variety of
the musical instruments in the concert of angels shows
an evident desire for reality. These naturalistic
tendencies become more pronounced in Bonfigli. His
naivetes are not always due to awkwardness and inex-
perience ; they are often deliberate and aim at dramatic
.effect. Is not the gesture of the friar who covers his
face with his hand to hide his tears, in the Burial of
S. Ludovic, a very touching one ? What a sense of
movement and picturesqueness there is in the Banner
of 8. Bernardino ! How vividly the painter has depicted
the strange scene of the fanatical crowd burning all
objects of vanity and luxury, books and jewels, at the
bidding of the saint ! The background of the picture
is an exact representation of the fa9ade of San Bernar-
dino, which had just been completed ; the majority of
the figures are portraits. The work of Fiorenzo di
Lorenzo is still more devoid of mysticism ; and what
was very remarkable at the period, the artist preferred
to paint external life rather than pious episodes. Grace
and movement are his chief preoccupations, and he is
more akin to Ghirlandajo and even to Verrocchio than
to Perugino. The modelling of faces and bodies, the
colour of stuffs, the animation of scenes, are all carried
to a high degree of perfection in each of those small
panels intended for the door of a sacristy, which are
among the most fascinating works I know. Everything
in them is lively, nervous and intelligent. What
lightness, what almost feline flexibility in the young
136 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
warriors ! What grace and fancy in the landscape back-
grounds and the architecture, what richness and variety
in the begemmed and embroidered garments which
recall CrivelH's sumptuous draperies !
Such were the tendencies of that School of Perugia
which we must not call Umbrian, for this over-compre-
hensive term does not distinguish between these painters
and other artists, who, though born in Umbria, attached
themselves either to Siena or Florence. The confused
and sometimes contradictory views put forward in this
connection are due in the main to a desire to classify
all painters born or having worked in Umbria, as of one
single school. I think, on the contrary, that if we wish
to understand these artists, we must divide them into
three groups.
There are first the painters of the Southern group,
which I may perhaps be allowed to call the School of
Foligno, because its two chief representatives. Gentile
da Fabriano and Niccolo Alunno, were born in that
town. Both were very strongly influenced by Siena,
and later, by Benozzo Gozzoli when he was working in
the district, that is to say, at a time when he was still
deeply imbued with the ideas of his master, Fra Angelico.
They were artists of austere and passionate piety, stub-
bornly faithful to the old traditions, and entirely
untouched by the emancipating movement which was
spreading outward from Tuscany.
At the other end of Umbria, in the part nearer to
Florence, the new tendencies manifested themselves
very rapidly. Piero della Francesca, Melozzo da Forli,
and Luca Signorelli of Cortona are admirable painters,
bold and original, men who have nothing in common
with the Sienese idealists.
The true Umbrian School is in reality that of Perugia,
which was born and developed under the double influence
PERUGINO 137
of Florence and Siena. The religious ideal persisted
here in all its purity, but artists sought to express it in
a truer, more real, and more vital manner. Boccati,
Bonfigli and Fiorenzo di Lorenzo are its representative
painters. Perugino unfortunately arrested the realistic
movement in its infancy. More gifted than the others,
and more skilled in the technique of oil-painting, he
obtained the greatest success with sentimental, mystical
works in which material perfection was carried to its
highest point. The love of money, to which he sacri-
ficed everything, induced him to repeat them incessantly.
There is no more lamentable instance of a master who
debased his art. His studio became a devotional
picture-shop. Tuscany and Umbria were inundated
with his commercial productions, works of facile tech-
nique, executed from memory according to formulas dear
to the public. When Perugino did something more than
repeat himself — either in works in which he took some
pride, or in portraits like those of the Cambio and the
sacristy of San Pietro — he was really a great painter.
Was he a believer at first, or was he always a sceptic ?
The question, which has often been discussed, is of little
moment. It is, however, interesting to note that the
same man who inscribed the first words of one of Savona-
rola's sermons beneath his own portrait died after refusing
to make his confession, a most audacious act in those
days.
I am inclined to think that he was always an unbeliever.
He painted religious scenes because the artist of those
times rarely painted anything else. And as he could
neither animate an action nor reproduce movement he
confined his attention to faces, the colour of draperies,
and landscape. If he had been a man of strong sensi-
bility, if he had lost his faith during some crisis, we
should note a change, a transition. If he had been
138 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
really sincere at first, something would have betrayed
him later. Now his works are always characterised by
the same coldness, the same ecstatic expression, devo-
tional rather than pious. His persons have never lived
and suffered ; their impassive faces are marked by an
eternal indifference ; they seem, to quote Taine, to have
had their intellectual growth arrested in childhood by a
conventual education. They never look at anything.
They have no part in the scenes at which they are
present. The symmetry of their attitudes and of the
landscape enhances their insipidity. In an Adoration
of the Shepherds the setting consists of four wooden
pillars surmounted by a little triangular roof, about the
most stupid framework ever devised by a painter.
Individually, the figures, the draperies and the per-
spectives are beautiful, but the general effect is cold
and undeniably tedious. Perugino's faults are more
especially prominent in galleries where his works are
hung among those of other artists as in the Pinacoteca,
where Fiorenzo di Lorenzo's Adoration of the Magi
confronts his Coronation of the Virgin. Perugino's
work is as frigid and inert as that of Fiorenzo is warm
and vital. There is nothing mystical about the Fiorenzo,
the true and animated figures of which all play their
part in the action ; those of the Perugino, on the other
hand, are motionless, false in expression and attitude ;
their diminutive hands and faces are out of harmony
with their elongated figures.
By bringing the School of Perugia to the apogee of
its renown, Perugino killed its glory. Local artists — •
who were very numerous, if we may judge by the long
list of works catalogued under the heading, " School of
Perugino "—^ confined themselves to the imitation of
him who had so sedulously imitated himself. Among
these were some who might have become great
ASSISI 139
painters, had they escaped his depressing influence :
Giovanni di Pietro, for instance, called Lo Spagna,
fine examples of whom are preserved at Spoleto,
Assisi and Perugia, and Giannicola Manni, an artist
who should be better known, and who does not
appear to very great disadvantage beside Perugino in
the Cambio. I admire his grace and facility. Fortunate
Pintoricchio, who was summoned to Rome, and still
more fortunate Raphael, who was to breathe the free air
of Tuscany ! In the fresco by the latter in San Severo,
there is already a more vital power. The worship of
beauty was about to be born again on the old pagan soil.
Very soon sensuality was to break through the veil of
religion. The Virgins were to become merely young
women with rich, supple carnations. Raphael at
Perugia, on his return from his first journey to Florence,
seems to me the embodiment of this dramatic moment
in the history of human sensibility, when the pious
dream of the Middle Ages faded before renascent
paganism.
CHAPTER III
ASSISI
Intra Tupino et I'aequa che discende
Del colle eletto del Beato Ubaldo
Fertile costa d'alto monte pende . . . ^
Tms fertile slope which lies at the foot of Monte
Subasio, between the Chiascio and the Topino, is the
1 Between Tupino and the water that descends from the
height chosen by the Blessed Ubaldo hangs the fertile slope of
the lofty mountain.
140 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
hillside of Assisi ; I see it covered with vines and olives
from the carriage which is taking me down towards the
Tiber, to the leisurely trot of a pair of horses who seem
already tired as we start. The morning is fresh and
luminous. There was rain in the night, and through the
clarified atmosphere everything is so sharply defined
that I think of the lumine acute spoken of by Dante. A
single shower has sufficed to bring Umhria verde to
life again as by magic. Drops of water still shine on the
light foliage of the olives, whose doleful trunks look
blacker and more tragic than ever after their bath of
rain. They are, indeed, the most melancholy of trees,
meet witnesses of the Saviour's Passion. Those which
clothe the slopes of the hills are some of the most
venerable in Italy. They are so old that they must
have been centenarians in the time of S. Francis. Torn
and ravaged as if by internal suffering, cracked and
hollow, they bear the imprint of their struggles to push
aside the rock and find the scanty soil. Sometimes
nothing but the bark is left of the trunk, and we wonder
how the sap can still rise. Cold, heat, rain and wind
have tortured them for centuries, like the lost souls
which moan from the darkest pages of the Inferno.
Like serpents intertwined in deadly combat, like twisted,
knotted cables, like muscles rigid in their incessant
defensive readiness all the aspects of the tree beloved
of Pallas seem here to symbolise war rather than peace.
But by a curious contrast, the most delicate foliage
veils the rugged trunks, and there is no more charming
sight than the shimmer of the little leaves, glinting in
the sun like silver scales.
At the foot of the slope, nature changes and becomes
smiling. We see very few olive-trees now. The land-
scape is like a huge garden. Mulberry-trees, vineyards,
corn and maize share the fields of this plain which was
'^ GENTLE UMBRIA" 141
once the bed of Lake Topino. On the slight undulations
there are a few groups of massive ilexes, and here and
there a poplar, or a cypress, less vigorous, but concentra-
ting all their sap on a single point to spring heavenwards.
The houses are embowered in orchards and pergolas.
Heaps of tomatoes drjdng in the sun make large red
splashes. It seems as if life must be easy here, and the
horizon itself, bounded on every side by a line of har-
monious hills, attunes the soul to peace. A light breeze
is blowing and its murmur is soft as that of the wind
among the reeds of Thrasymene. An impression of
strength and health rises from the rich earth. Umbria
is at once more joyous and harsher then Tuscany ; it
realises more fully the soave austero. We are easily
duped by words, by that^i^er*e against which Montaigne
warns us, and very often we find in things the appearance
we desire beforehand to see in them ; but " gentle
Umbria" is really no mere conventional phrase, especially
if we take the word in its widest and strongest sense.
Umbria is " gentle " because it is peaceful, because
its rhythms are quiet and equable, because the admira-
tion it inspires is without terror, because it is truly
human. I understand why the joy of life held a larger
place in the religion of S. Francis than the fear of death.
If at Perugia it is possible to forget the Poverello, here
in this valley on which his eyes first opened and finally
closed in death, along this road studded with little altars
to the Virgin, it is out of the question. Each corner
suggests an episode of his wonderful life or witnessed
one of his miracles. His name is ubiquitous. We
walk on the very roads he trod, and they have hardly
changed. Here is the Ponte San Giovanni, the old saddle-
back bridge across the Tiber ; although it is nearly
dried up, the sight of the stream stirs the blood ; the
waters are mysterious mirrors which keep some vibration
142 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
of the things they have reflected. Over this bridge S.
Francis passed every time he went from Assisi to Perugia,
and on that evening when he was led away a prisoner by
the triumphant Perugians. The same meadows, the
same trees saw him, and also the same gentle, amiable
inhabitants, to whom he talked of his dreams and his
beliefs. I imagine him on summer mornings sallying
forth from the Portiuncula, going to meet the peasants,
chatting with them and helping them in their work.
Then at close of day, after sharing a meal at a farm,
speaking to them of the glories of Nature, under the
tranquil splendour of the starlit heavens.
The love of Nature has become a commonplace.
There is hardly anyone in these days who does not admire
— -more or less sincerely — a sunrise, or a sunset, the
sparkling sea, a flowery meadow, a russet wood in
autumn. In the poems and novels of recent years
more pages have been inspired by the beauty of land-
scapes than by analysis of the human heart. And many
writers might repeat with the poetess of Cceur
innombrahle :
La foret, les 6tangs et les plaines f^condes
Gnt plus touch^ mes yeux que les regards humains.*
, But in mediaeval Italian literature, it is rare to
find a few lines devoted to a natural spectacle. Pictur-
esque details are conspicuously absent. We must
make a reservation in the cases of Dante, Petrarch, and,
in the following century, that Sylvius ^neas Piccolomini
who, when he became Pope, loved to hold a consistory
on the verge of a meadow, in the shade of venerable
trees, and whose descriptions of Todi, Nemi and Siena
seem almost modern. The Umbrian plain, now so
^ Forests, pools and fertile plains have said more to my eyes
than h\iman looks.
THE UMBRIAN PLAIN 143
famous and so belauded, did not inspire the writers of
bygone ages who beheld it. Montaigne devotes but a
few lines to it, when, on the road to Ancona he halted
at Foligno, without deigning to ascend to Assisi. Presi-
dent de Brosses did not leave his coach, and admired the
famous landscape through the window *' taking good
care, " as he says, " not to go to Assisi, for he feared
stigmata like all devils." Goethe merely noted a temple
of Minerva in the town of S. Francis, and Stendhal
himself says nothing of the road by which he travelled
returning from Rome to Perugia : on the journey
thither, he did not enter Umbria at all, and he was
content with an absent-minded survey by moonlight
of the remains of " those cities of ancient Etruria,
always perched on the top of some mountain " ; the
only sentiment they seem to have evoked in him was
indignation with the Romans, " who, by no better title
than, that of a brutal courage, came to trouble the peace
of those republics which were so greatly their superiors
by their fine arts, their wealth and their faculty for
happiness." S. Francis, on the other hand, spent his
life praising this valley, rejoicing in its light, drinking
it in with his eyes, to use a popular but expressive
phrase. He had been contemplating it since his child-
hood, the age when impressions leave such ineffaceable
traces on a fresh imagination that the boy Ruskin,
gazing at the plain about Croydon, exclaimed that his
eyes were coming out of his head ! The parents of the
young Bernardone lived at Assisi, in the upper part of
the town, and from his windows he could admire the
landscape in all the grace of spring and all the melancholy
of autumn. Its wide horizons and their undulations
had no secrets for him. Even where the Chiascio
disappears amongst the verdure, his practised eye
could follow its sinuous course through the fields. Few
144 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
rural scenes are more steeped in poetry than this valley
between Perugia and FoUgno. How mournful must
the Poverello's sensations have been, when, on returning
from his journey to Egypt, eager to see his native land,
he halted in the Venetian lagoon under the funereal
yews of the little desolate island which has been sacred
to him ever since. How gladly he must have turned
away from the dismal scene, where everything spoke
of sorrow and death ! How he must have evoked the
smiling hills of Assisi shaded by their silvery olive-
trees ! And, how joyfully they must have welcomed
their loving and docile son !
To the amazement of my driver, I tell him not to stop
at the Church of Santa Maria degl' Angeli. The memory
of this was one of the least agreeable I had carried away
from the holy hill, and I was loth to revive it. True,
the Portiuncula stood here, it is the cradle of the illus-
trious Order which was to give five Popes to Christen-
dom ; but what remains of the primitive hut which was
the scene of the idyll of S. Francis and " Madame
Poverty " ? In a pamphlet I bought on a former
visit, and find among my notes, I read that " the
elegance of the various styles, the perfect purity of the
lines, the vast space it covers, make this basiUca one of
the finest in the world, and on entering it, the heart
swells, uplifted by its luminous ampUtude." But I
remember sadly the miserable little chapel in the huge
new church, Overbeck's heavy fresco, and the very
modern garden of thornless roses from which the monks
— 'for a consideration — 'will pluck you a few speckled
leaves. Gentle Poverello, who would once fain have
pulled down the walls covered with tiles which your
companions had substituted in your absence for the
original thatched huts, what would you think of the
cold and sumptuous dwelling which the people of this
S. FRANCIS OF ASSISI 145
century have built for you ? Vainly would you seek the
roof of the humble cell on which, the evening that you
died, the larks alighted at sunset with joyous cries,
although it is their habit to sing only in the brightness
of morning, alaudce aves lucis amicce (larks, those birds
which love the light).
At a turn in the road, Assisi appears in all its majesty.
Seen from this point, the city is formidable. It is a
warrior- town, an impregnable fortress, set upon a butt-
ress of the Subasio. It is a citadel of another kind, too,
one of the most glorious of the spiritual world. At the
sight of it I thrill to one of those profound emotions
which once or twice in a lifetime stir the most secret
fibres of our being ; when, before a work of art, we
discover pure beauty ; when, under the lines of a book,
the very laws of life are revealed to us ; when from some
height we see, as did Ruskin on the terrace of Schaff-
hausen, a panorama so marvellous and magnificent that
we are ready to fall on our knees.
The places where a great man lived will always
move us, if they served to develop his sensibilities.
Landscapes more especially appeal to our imagination,
because they do not change, and we can say to ourselves :
this is the horizon on which his eyes rested ; these are
the plains and hills, unchanged after centuries, which
enchanted him. The landscape round Assisi stirs us
more deeply than its churches and its monastery.
These trees, now reddened by the summer sun, these
golden vine-branches hanging from the elms, these
yellowing fields will all be clothed in verdure again,
for ever young and new, when those massive walls have
crumbled to dust.
No saint has proved so attractive to the erudite, or
inspired so many learned commentaries, as he who
condemned science and one day sold the only Psalter
L
146 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
of the Portiuncula to give bread to an old woman. I
forget who it was who said somewhat maliciously that
S. Francis hated books because he foresaw those which
would be written about himself. No writer has felt
more tenderly towards him than the author of the Vie
de Jesus ; Renan admired more especially his love of
poverty, a love so strange and individual that even his
disciples did not understand it, regarding mendicancy
as a work of piety which conferred special graces. "Like
the patriarch of Assisi," said Renan, " I have gone
through the world without any serious attachments
to it, and merely as a lodger, so to say. Though
neither of us had anything, we both considered ourselves
rich. God gave us the usufruct of the universe, and we
were content to enjoy without possessing."
The charm of S. Francis and the attraction he has for
minds utterly unlike his own are perhaps due to the fact
that he was very Uttle of a churchman. He is nothing
of a priest, nothing of a theologian. He was not very
well versed in the Bible, and quite ignorant of scholastics.
He knew little about the saints, though he was to be
one of the greatest of them. He was, above all, pro-
foundly human. Having lived the life of this world,
he was sensible of its sorrows and humiliations. It is
with him, says one of his historians very aptly, as with
the Imitation of Christ ; "a book in which men most
opposite in thought and opinion find sustenance, and
which was dear to the founder of Positivism. It is not
essential to beUeve in order to love this book, or to
admire the acts and words of this Saint ; it is enough to
have loved and suffered." The son of Bernadone, the
clothier of Assisi, had lived, loved and suffered. He
might have adopted the verses th6 Abbe Le Cardonnel
repeated to me a few years ago, on the little balcony of
San Pietro which I see from here, hanging on the hillside,
MONTEFALCO 147
the balcony on which Cardinal Pecci used to stand and
dream when he was still only the Archbishop of Perugia :
Comiue le voyageur qui n'a trouve que sables
Chercheur d'ivresse, coeur amerement puni,
Pour avoir trop aime les beaut6s perissables
Je sais quelle tristesse est au fond du fini.^
CHAPTER IV
MONTEFALCO
One of the most extraordinary phenomena in the
history of art is the prodigious florescence of painters
who, about the period of the Renaissance, covered the
walls of Italian churches, more especially those of
Tuscany and Umbria, with masterpieces. Tiny chapels
hidden among the mountains contain frescoes which are
often remarkable, and nearly always interesting. New
examples come to light daily from beneath the plaster
overla5dng them, and many are no doubt still sleeping
beneath their white shrouds. In their stupid haste to
get rid of these venerable relics, the people of the 17th
and 18th centuries did not allow themselves time to
destroy them, and were content to cover them over with
a coat of whitewash. These barbarians thus became the
involuntary preservers of the works which offended their
bad taste. Would that I had leisure to go and visit
some of these humble churches ! That of Rocchicciola,
1 Like the traveller who has found nothing but sand, seeker of
joy, heart bitterly punished, I, who have loved too fondly the
things that perish, know the bitterness that lies in the depths of
the end.
L 2
148 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
for instance, which is only to be reached by a rugged
path, and where a few years ago, M. Broussolle had the
joy of restoring a whole series of fine paintings to life.
But time presses. I must leave Umbria. I have only
two more days to devote to it, and these I have kept
jealously for Montefalco.
The crossing of the plain of Foligno, the ascent of
the peak on which the little town is perched like a falcon
in its eyrie, the walk through the olive groves, the
horizons that gradually expand as one mounts, the
art-treasures that await the pilgrim in the Church of
San Francesco, are certainly among the deepest and most
exquisite of the impressions offered by this lavish
Umbrian land. This is mainly because civiHsation has
changed scarcely anything in this spot. Montefalco
has remained almost what it was in past centuries, and
tourists are very rare here still. For two days I was
the only stranger wandering in the deserted street ;
no other sacrilegious step resounded on their sharp
stones.
The plain of Foligno is one of the most fertile in Italy.
Even in Lombardy I have rarely seen such magnificent
vines. The branches hang from tree to tree in leafy
garlands, heavy with golden grapes. The vigorous
stems, as thick as a man's arm sometimes, twine round
the trunks of mulberry and elm ; the flexible shoots of
the vine dart above the rounded heads of the trees and
sway lightly in the wind like festal pennons. The
varying tones of green mingle with harmonious grace.
In some places the vintage is ending. The vine-dressers,
perched upon ladders, and half hidden among the foliage,
gather the grapes that have ripened on the topmost
branches, and pass them to the women, who receive
them in great baskets ; when these are full, they hoist
them on their shoulders with a lively gesture and carry
THE CLITUMNUS 149
them off, moving with elastic step and rhythmic gait.
Where' have I noted just such a scene ? I remember :
in the Campo Santo at Pisa, in the Noah's Vintage^
so famous for the purely accessory episode of La
Vergognosa. It must have been here that the idea of
the fresco presented itself to Gozzoli : I recognise his
vine-dressers, his grape-gatherers ; here, near a farm,
is the same arbour. And is this illusion ? The land-
scape he painted seems to me to have been just this
comer between the double line of old willows along the
ditches of the road.
We meet carts drawn by great white oxen with splendid
shining horns. Their eyes are pensive, gentle and sad,
their hides spotless, of the milky whiteness of the old
Gubbio majolicas. Suddenly my driver turns round,
points with a theatrical gesture to a trickling stream,
and solemnly announces : " The Clitumnus ! " Then
he explains that this was the sacred stream whose
waters made all the animals who drank of it white. The
little bridge over the river is so sharply ridged that the
horses have to be whipped up into a gallop to climb it.
Here again was an engineer who has not been surpassed
by modern rivals ! The water is absolutely limpid.
We can understand the old belief. True, many other
torrents of the Apennine slopes have the same trans-
parence. But why reject the legends ? They are
beloved of poets. Pliny, a poet, too, at times, compares
the colour of this water to that of snow. Let us not
contradict either him or Byron, who declares that the
nymphs never bathed in purer crystal.
After crossing a series of other little bridges over the
numerous arms of the Teverone, which makes its way
to the Topino, watering the fields of Bevagna on the way,
the ascent begins. The horses subside into a walk ;
the driver gets down from the box ; it will take us a
150 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
good hour. But it is such a delightful sensation to rise
thus above one of the most glorious plains in the world,
among silvery olives quivering under the golden sunshine,
that the road seems almost too short. The pleasure is
complete : joy of the soul and joy of the mind, joy, too,
of our "brother the body" to use the language of S.
Francis. As we ascend, peaks, hills and valleys stand
out clearly. Behind the slopes the little towns appear,
rising from every fold in the ground. In the hollow the
valleys spread out, perfectly even ; we see that it is the
ancient bed of a dried-up lake.
While they prepare me a room and a frugal meal at
the hotel, I hasten to San Francesco. The custodian
approaches me, grave and venerable. With a cere-
monious gesture, he invites me to enter " his " church.
There is nothing more melancholy than a disused
church. All death moves us ; but this death more than
another, because life was once more fervid here. Never-
theless, it is well to leave these paintings in the places
where the artists conceived them. Frescoes transferred
to museums always remind me of those caged love-
birds, which cfouch in a corner, shivering under our
cold skies, and looking at us pitifully.
The custodian points out Giotto's Madonna, the works
which have been completely restored, and those which
are beginning to emerge from under the whitewash.
Nearly all the Umbrian painters are represented in this
church, the artistic wealth of which has caused it to be
transformed into a State Museum.
What freshness ! What suavity of composition and
colour ! Never was the master more perfect ! And this
because he was never more sincere, because he put his
whole self into his work, without seeking to astonish
or dazzle us. All that he knew already, all that he had
learnt from Angelico, or from the frescoes of Assisi serves
BENOZZO GOZZOLI 151
to express the emotions inspired in him by the pious
country which had offered the hollows of its hills as a
cradle for renascent Christianity. No other horizon, no
other atmosphere could have been so inspiring to a
believing and artistic soul. Gozzoli lived here for two
years. After the work of the morning and at eventide
his eyes sought rest in contemplation of the gentle
valley. From the white walls of Assisi, from the roofs
of the Portiuncula where the first flowers of mysticism
blossomed, from the fields of Bevagna where S. Francis
preached to the birds, the aroma of the marvellous
legend rose to him, a heavy, intoxicating incense. But
this plain, and also the life of the Poverello, taught him
to love truth and nature. What a difference there is
between these frescoes and the earlier ones at which
he worked under the guidance of the Monk of Fiesole !
Though his heart had remained faithful to the tender
ideal of his master, his mind was enlarged. The artist
had thrown off formula and approached reality. And
it is this which fascinates us in him. Later, at Florence,
at San Gimignano, and at Pisa, he emancipated himself
still further, but at some cost to his sincerity. He was
absorbed in the brilliant, gaily coloured spectacle of
worldly life. His art became secular, almost pagan.
A skilful stage manager, a most picturesque story-teller,
he set his ingenious cavalcades upon the walls of the
palace that Michelozzo Michelozzi had just built for
Piero de' Medici ; but then he was no longer the moved
and moving painter of Montefalco, and in spite of all his
science and all his skill, he seems more remote from us
than here, in this Church of San Francesco, where he was
content to let his heart speak. In the execution of these
frescoes he does not show that respect for elegance and
high finish which were later to be his chief preoccupations.
Often, indeed, he is awkward and incorrect ; but he is
152 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
loyal and truthful. There are no. unusual attitudes, no
elaborate essays in expression. He paints as he sees, or
as he imagines. He illustrates to the best of his ability
the Franciscan poem as it haunted the thoughts of a
Christian of those days, with all its artlessness and all
its candour. He adapted the scenes of popular life in
which he took part daily to the life of the saint. The
faces he gave to the actors in the legend were those
he encountered in the streets of the Httle town. For
a background he took the prospects on which his eyes
rested, the Apennines, the Subasio, with its deep gorges,
Spello, Bevagna, surrounded by its fat pastures, Monte-
falco, with its ramparts and its churches. This love of
reality makes him sometimes akin to our modern painters.
The grave and tranquil silhouette of the mother of Francis
receiving him at the top of the staircase reminded me of
Puvis de Chavannes and his Ste. Genevieve watching over
Paris. In the S. Francis preaching to the Birds, the
face of the Saint is so true and so expressive that we
seem almost to hear the exquisite sermon : " My
brothers, praise your Creator who covered you with
beautiful feathers, and gave you wings to fly in the pure
and spacious air." All the birds Gozzoli saw round him
are gathered together ; white pigeons, ducks, the linnets
that sing in the bushes and the swallows that build in
the walls of Montefalco. All Umbria, all the charm and
all the sweetness of the valley are summed up here in
the choir of this modest church, where one of the most
exquisite among the painters of the 15th century glori-
fied the purest idyll known among men since the time of
Christ.
\
1
PART IV
VENETIA
CHAPTER I
VERONA
If I have but an afternoon to spend in Verona, where
should I spend it but in the Giusti Gardens ? Of all the
fair gardens of Italy, which has so many in which I have
mused and dreamed, I think this is my favourite. Others
stir us more by their memories, and others again are
more voluptuously situated on the banks of a lake, or by
the sea ; but the grace and seduction of this pleasance
are all its own.
The Italians have always loved gardens. Pliny
speaks to us so often and so lovingly of his that we could
almost draw a plan of them ; their decoration can have
differed very little from that of to-day ; in a letter to
Apollinaris, he lauds his " alleys planted with green
trees, leafy and well pruned, his planes on which the ivy
climbs, hanging its supple wreaths from trunk to trunk."
It was not until the time of the Renaissance that the
lovers of gardens were no longer content with natural
beauty, and supplemented it by complicated ornament,
porticoes, architectural fantasies, artificial waters and
all that Barres so aptly describes as " the art of arranging
realities for the delight of the soul . ' ' However, unlike the
English (and, on occasion, the French) the Italians did
not attempt to imitate nature artificially ; they only
sought to embellish it according to the rules of art.
155
156 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
At Verona even more than elsewhere, perhaps, gardens
were always held in honour. From time immemorial
the shores of the Brenta were covered with parks and
country houses. One of the most ancient documents on
the villas 6i the Middle Ages was written as long ago as
the 14th century for the Veronese family of the Cerruti,
and it was also a Veronese, Leonardo Grasso, who bore
the cost of the famous Dream of Poliphilus, in which
several flowery groves are described and engraved. This
morning, too, in the Museo Civico, I noticed a fine
fountain and a garden background in the S. Catherine by
the Veronese painter, Vittore Pisanello.
A little courtyard with battlemented walls precedes
the Giusti Garden ; but the walls are of pink bricks, the
battlements are draped with Virginian creeper, and
through the iron gates the garden smiles so invitingly
that a friendly face seems to greet you on the threshold
and beg you to enter.
" Nature," says De Brosses, " has treated the Giusti
Palace handsomely by giving it in its very garden rocks
and numbers of prodigiously tall, pointed cypresses,
which make it look like one of those places where
sorcerers hold their Sabbaths." The park has changed
very little since the visit of the intelligent Dijonnais
magistrate, to whom Verona recalled Lyons and the
hill of the Fourviere. Valery, the ICing's Librarian at
Versailles, found it in 1827 occupied by an Austrian
battalion, and the only thought suggested to him by the
cypress avenue — -one of the most beautiful in the world — •
was that " its successive terraces once used for the purpose
of drying cloth, recall the time when the preparation of
wool was a noble craft which entailed no loss of
caste.'*
The characteristic feature of the gardens of Verona
and Florence, Bellagio, Genoa, and Rome, is that they
THE CYPRESS AVENUE 157
are placed on hill-sides and laid out in terraces. Our
footsteps like our dreams rise ever higher. The parks of
the Ile-de-France and Touraine, on the other hand, extend
on vast surfaces, flat, or sHghtly undulating ; their lines
develop majestically and produce a harmony somewhat
cold and severe, like the fine periods of Racine or Bossuet.
Here, the villas have the uneasy aspect of the souls that
created them, and those whose sensibility is not excited
by surroundings will not appreciate their charm to the
full. The vistas of Versailles are never seen to better
advantage than in calm and solitude. The ItaUan
avenues with their abrupt windings, their corners of
sunshine, or shadow, their heavy scents, are attuned to
the moods of passionate and restless hearts.
The perfume of the flowers flows out as day declines.
The lawns are studded with beds of pinks. Clumps of
crimson salvias blaze fiercely in the slanting rays of the
sun. Great red and yellow cannas and pink gladioli
bend from the tops of their long stalks as if exhausted.
Lichens eat into the statues which rise among the
foliage, the only figures in this dream-landscape. The
marble is scaling. The trunks of old trees are drying
up and dying under the embrace of the stout ivy branches.
A moss-grown fountain weeps for the days that are no
more. But a gardener's cottage covered with roses and
wisteria speaks of realities. It adjoins a wall overgrown
with jasmine ; the foliage is starred with white flakes,
as after a snow-shower in April. On the first terraces in
the most sunny corners oleanders, orange-trees and
palms strike a warmer note. And on every side blossom-
ing tuberoses send out heavy waves of perfume, subtly
intoxicating on this September afternoon.
But the glory of the garden is the cypress-avenue,
which climbs the hill, mounting from terrace to terrace.
You enter it gravely. Mystery hovers round you. I
158 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
know not what solemn influence is at work, checking
all inclination to jest and laugh. When you climb the
red brick stair, your companion's arm presses yours
more closely. You read the inscriptions on the trees :
300, 400, 500 years, and your heart sinks. Three, four,
five centuries and more have gone by before the immov-
able serenity of these venerable cypresses ! And you
gaze almost fearfully at these trees, dark as night,
rigid, impenetrable to the light and even to the wind
which bends them without loosening their leaves,
insensible to the seasons, proud and unchanging, rising
heavenward stiff and hostile, indifferent to all around
them. And yet, from above the palace walls they saw
Verona quivering in the joy of triumph, or writhing under
the heel of the conqueror. Unheeding sentinels, they
remember none of these things. They merely play
their decorative part. Their only function is to live,
lonely and sterile. We admire them, but we do not
love them.
As we mount higher we get a wider view of the town
and the famous plain where Constantine defeated the
army of Maxentius, where Theodoric vanquished Odoacer,
where Charlemagne led his victorious march. From the
topmost terrace, the guide points out with emotion the
battle-field of Custozza and the tower of Solferino, the
Spia deir Italia, whence the Austrian soldiers watched
the enemy ; useless now, it looks down only on liberated
lands. There are few places in the world where there has
been more fighting than on the banks of this Adige,
which we can see rushing impetuously out of the long
valley where it has been pent, and, as if tired of having
followed a straight line so long, doubling back in an
elegant and supple curve. Here we note the admirable
position of Verona ; situated at the foot of the Alps,
encircled and defended by its wide torrential moat, it
VIEW OF VERONA 159
commands the Venetian plain and guards the entrance
to Lombardy.
The view is almost the same as from the castle of San
Pietro. Verona spreads out below with its towers and
belfries. The high wall of the amphitheatre casts an
immensely elongated shadow. The cupola of San
Giorgio in Braida glitters in the last rays of the sun.
The bricks of the ancient bridge of the Scaligers seem to
be stained with clotted blood. The quays of the Adige
show the dark red tones of the sunburnt beggars of
Naples. The rushing river is divined rather than seen ;
in places it gleams like a damascened shield, as Carducci
has described it :
Tal mormoravi possente o rapido
sotto i roraani ponti, o verde Adige,
brillando dal limpido gorgo,
la tua scorrente canzone al sole.^
To the right are the Brescian Alps, the sharp peak of
the Pizzocolo and the mountains that overhang Lake
Garda. In front lies the immense plain with its culti-
vated undulations, whence little towns, beKries and
villages emerge. The towers of Mantua are clearly
visible on the horizon, and sometimes in bright
weather even the line of the Apennines appears. To
the east, the hills are so near that they hide Vicenza
and Padua ; but the plain stretches away as far as the
eye can reach, to the lagoons and the sea which we
divine on the horizon.
A whole section of Italy is there under my eyes, with
the glorious town reclining in graceful majesty in the
foreground. The Veronese are very proud of their
city, which they often call the Florence of the North.
1 Thus, O green Adige, thou murmuredst strong and rapid,
under the Roman bridges, sending up to the sun thy rippling
song, and gleaming from limpid depths.
160 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
A 17th century engraving represents it with a Latin
inscription which may be rendered thus : " If he who
beholds thee does not at once love thee desperately,
he has neither a sense of art nor a sense of love. ' ' Charle-
magne thought it so beautiful that he adjudged it the
only city worthy of his son Pepin, who reigned there
forty years. It is pleasant to encounter here memories
of a Frank adored by his people and long lamented,
who still lives in a statue of the Cathedral porch, and in
a fresco of the exquisite Church of San Zeno, whose
campanile rises through the clear evening air near the
ramparts.
We can only really love and understand a city we have
looked on from a height. We cannot get an idea of it
as a whole from a tower set in the midst of it ; all this
can give us is a series of views necessarily restricted and
incomplete. The most perfect visions of the cities of
Italy are obtained on the heights that overlook them.
From these, each one seems to be concentrating all its
powers to please us, and marshalling all its notes for a
deliberate and definitive harmony. Seen from this
spot, Verona reveals a design we can never forget. The
labyrinth of streets and squares which seemed so
complicated co-ordinates itseK, the tangle of roofs,
churches and palaces, takes its true significance, becomes
simple and famiUar. Teacher of beauty, the city con-
tracts so harmoniously that we feel as if we could
almost seize it in our hands and lift it to our lips.
As the sun sinks, the bricks redden and burn, the
painted windows gleam. Strong purple tints float in
the air, a warm glow bathes the plain, and rosy mists
cling to the cypresses. It is a Poussin evening, grave
and noble, a fairy scene in which a city rises trium-
phantly in the glory of the setting sun. One by one the
church bells begin to clang and peal. It is the eve of
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the 8th of September, the feast of the Nativity of the
Virgin. The vibrations clash, mingle, and melt into an
uninterrupted booming which seems to be raising a
sonorous vault over the city, between us and the
houses.
Often, seated in the lower part of the garden, near an
ancient Venus, I have seen day fading, and darkness
gradually creeping over successive terraces. And, as
the west grows golden, the tops of the cypresses stand
out more darkly, like motionless spindles stiffening in a
bath of gold.
To-day I wanted to see Verona falling to sleep from
the upper terraces. An impalpable mist, growing
denser each moment, like a winding sheet spread out
by invisible hands, is drawn over the roofs, drowning
all details. Public buildings, churches, squares, the
quays of the Adige are still distinct. Darkness simplifies
even more than altitude. Only the essential things
remain. Our eyes are filled with a vision which will be
lasting, because it finds a refuge in the depths of our
being, because at this solemn hour before nightfall
we behold with all our faculties, with our minds and
hearts.
CHAPTER II
VICENZA
It is the city of palaces ; this is literally true ; I
think no city can boast finer buildings, or greater
architects. It is, indeed, interesting to note that even
M
162 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
without Palladio, Vicenza would play a part in the
history of architecture. Long before him, superb
Gothic houses were built in the town, and a fagade still
standing here and there attests their splendour. The
three Formentons were famous artists, and Trissino,
whose name has survived, wrote a didactic treatise to
which Palladio paid homage.
There is a whole series of interesting buildings at
Vicenza forming a kind of prelude to the work of the
Master. The splendour of his achievements makes us
over-forgetful of his predecessors during the first
Renaissance, and yet, by revealing to us the taste of the
Vicenzans for fine architecture, they explain his vocation
and his brilliant career in his native place. Palladio,
indeed, in spite of his taste for travel (he studied most of
the monuments of antiquity in situ, at Rome, Ancona,
Pola, Spalato, Ravenna, Susa and even at Nimes)
reserved the efforts of his genius almost exclusively for
a city so apt to appreciate them. Outside Vicenza,
Venice — -which owes to him the Church of the Redentore,
San Giorgio Maggiore and the fa9ade of San Francesco
della Vigna — -and Venetia, where he built a few villas,
it may be said that there is no important work by
Palladio. Vicenza was a sufficient field for his activity ;
never was a city better prepared to understand an
artist, nor an artist better fitted to be understood
thereby. His death was lamented unanimously. The
poetess Isicratea Monti composed a sonnet in which she
declared that Palladio had been summoned to Paradise
" to make it more beautiful." The gossip repeated by
President de Brosses is absolutely baseless. " Palladio,"
he says, " having been slighted by the nobility of his
birthplace avenged himself by introducing a taste for
fa9ades so magnificent, that those for whom he made
designs were all ruined by their execution."
PALLADIO'S INFLUENCE 163
The taste for architecture persisted in Vicenza after
Palladio, whose teaching was the best guarantee against
Baroque excesses. Thanks to him that sense of propor-
tion which is so characteristic of most of the buildings
of Upper Italy was preserved. The disastrous influence
of Bernini, the Borromini, and the Vanvitelli is scarcely-
perceptible in this region. After the Master's pupils,
of whom Scamozzi was the most distinguished, there was
a period of ecUpse ; but as early as 1700, Palladio once
more became the accepted oracle ; Ottone Calderari
revived his tradition and gave new lustre to Vincenzan
architecture.
Thus the streets of the city are a veritable museum,
open to all. To walk about in them is to contemplate
masterpieces. In this town, which has little more than
40,000 inhabitants, we shall find a hundred palaces or
buildings of great interest. We can understand the
enthusiasm it has excited among art-critics and men of
letters. If some have exaggerated, saying that it was
at once the Athens and the Corinth of Italy, Ranalli
might well exclaim in his History of the Fine Arts : " O
veramente aventurosa Vicenza ! Altre potranno vincerti
di grandezza e potenza, niuna di leggiadria et di
beUezza ! i "
Not having known the splendours of Court life,
Vicenza has none of that air of melancholy and decay
characteristic of certain towns which were capitals and
nothing else, like Parma, or Mantua. Its splendour,
which was less dazzling, was more durable. And
though its streets are bordered with palaces, it does not
impress one as do those Italian cities described by
Madame de Stael, " which look as if they had been pre-
pared for the reception of great lords who were to have
^ " O truly fortunate Vicenza ! Others may surpass thee in
size and power, but none in grace and beauty."
M 2
164 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
arrived, but who have been preceded by a few persons of
their suite only."
Moreover, the situation of Vicenza is charming, at
the confluence of the Retrone and the Bacchiglione, in
a fresh valley, between the last spurs of the Alps and the
verdant slopes of the Berici mountains. It is, indeed,
to quote Courajod, " a spot blessed by Heaven, one of
those nests prepared by Nature for the hatching of
Italian Art, which did not fail to take possession of it in
the spring -tide of the Renaissance.
When Palladio appeared, that spring-tide was long
past. The Renaissance had triumphed everywhere.
And yet a new era was beginning for architecture.
After the golden age, after the great builders, among
whom Bramante is conspicuous, we find during the
second half of the 16th century a pleiad of architects,
the most distinguished of whom is the master of Vicenza.
They were primarily theorists. They curbed the bold
and sometimes fantastic imagination of their predecessors
by canons which fixed the proportions, the dimensions
and the ornament of each Order. They were not equal
to these predecessors in richness of invention, original
inspirations, charming audacities, and above all, a
faculty for adapting profuse and elaborate decoration
to grandiose lines. With them, detail was a secondary
matter, and their great preoccupation was the general
. effect. Even their columns are merely facings which
might be suppressed without robbing the structure
of its character. Their art is a little cold, perhaps, but
it is never mean, nor does it ever fall into the excesses of
the Baroque Style, which abuses detail, diminishing
or multiplying it solely with a view to the arbitrary
effects at which it aims.
Palladio 's only exemplars were the ancients ; but he
did not copy them slavishly. No artist ever showed
PALLADIO'S ART 165
a more ardent devotion to antiquity, ever penetrated
more deeply into the very essence of its monuments
while preserving an absolute independence of manner,
and adapting the old rules with perfect dexterity to
modern requirements and a more highly developed
sense of comfort. The powerful impression produced by
his works comes from their severe simplicity and the
constant subordination of parts to the whole. The
secret of his radiantly intelligent art is the extreme
propriety of its terms. In spite of the formulas he
propounded, he never repeated himself. No artist is
more varied in his apparent unity ; each of his buildings,
each of his facades even, has its individual character. He
reduced the exuberant decoration which was in favour
at the beginning of the Renaissance to its proper limits,
and was careful never to disturb the rhythm of lines by
fancifulness of ornament. He is, perhaps, the only
architect who never sought an effect of decorative
detail, whose sole aims were logical arrangement and
perfect proportions. Hence no teaching has been more
productive than his. When Michelangelo exclaimed with
all the divination of genius : " My learning will create
a nation of ignoramuses ! " he felt that the audacities
upon which he ventured were only permissible to himself,
and that his masterpieces bore within them the germs
of dissolution and death for lesser artists who should
try to imitate them. Palladio, who sacrificed only to
logic, could ^vrite his great work / quattro Libri delV
Architettura with perfect assurance, and establish laws
he knew to be eternal.
Not the least of his titles to fame is the fact that he
was the first to give Goethe a concrete image of classic
art. No master could have been better fitted to instruct
the great German, who, seeking antique beauty, was
primarily susceptible to architecture. At Verona, which
166 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
he visited before Vicenza, the amphitheatre alone
aroused his enthusiasm. The painters had no great
interest for the man who at Assisi noticed nothing but
the ruins of the temple of Minerva ; he, himself, admits
this quite frankly : "I confess that I know Httle of the
art and craft of the painter ; so my observations will be
confined to the practical part, that is to say, subjects,
and the manner in which they are treated."
I have made many sojourns at Vincenza in the past, and
this year I proposed to study more especially those
buildings by Palladio which had appealed most strongly
to Goethe, and to trace their influence on his genius.
On his arrival at Vicenza on 19th September, 1786,
Goethe went at once to the Teatro Olimpico. He thought
it " inexpressibly beautiful," and at once pronounced
its author " essentially a great man." Few buildings,
indeed, produce such a strong effect as this, the last
jewel bequeathed by Palladio to his native city. Who,
that has seen it, can forget the grace of the elliptical
interior, the colonnade above the seats with its entabla-
ture of statues, and, above all, the superb fa9ade of the
proscenium, in which the master sought to give a sum-
mary of his genius, enriching it with all his science and
all his art. He had the happiness of seeing its comple-
tion before he closed his eyes. The two super-posed
Orders and the attic are supremely elegant. Three
magnificent bays open on to the stage, carrying out a
formula dear to the architect, i.e., a large central door,
high and wide, with an arch, and two lower and narrower
lateral doors. The building was finished by Scamozzi
from Palladio 's plans ; he completed it by designing the
scenery, which represents, it is said, the road to Thebes.
The success of the undertaking was immense. All
Italy envied this theatre, in which the works of the
most famous authors were acted. When one of
THE TEATRO OLIMPICO 167
the last of the Gonzagas, the strange Vespasiano,
wanted a theatre for his capital, Sabbioneta, which he
had built in exact imitation of Athens, he asked Scamozzi
to reproduce that of Vicenza for him. Nor has admira-
tion waned with the lapse of years. When Napoleon
entered the theatre, some years later than Goethe, he
turned to the Queen of Bavaria, who was with him, and
said : " Madame, we are in Greece." It was, in fact,
the love of Greece and of antiquity which had inspired
the work. An " Olympic Academy " of which Palladio
was one of the promoters, had been founded at Vincenza
in 1556, with the object of reviving interest in master-
pieces. The architect was invited to build a wooden
theatre in the Basilica for the representation of a
Sophonisba by his friend and protector, Trissino. The
success was so great that the members of the Academy
determined to build at their own expense the actual
theatre on a site generously given to them by the
Commune of Vicenza. It was inaugurated in 1585
with the representation of an CEdipus, translated by
Orsata Justiniani, a Venetian noble. Among the actors
was that Verato for whom Tasso wrote one of his finest
sonnets ; and in the last act, the part of (Edipus was
played by Luigi Grotto, the dramatic author, who had
been blind from his birth. Justiniani's verses were,
no doubt, mediocre, but this mattered little. The
Vicenzans had thrilled to antique beauty.
The Basilica, which next claimed Goethe's admiration,
is perhaps the architectural masterpiece of the 16th
century. Burckhardt declares that at Venice it would
have wholly eclipsed Sansovino's Libreria, one of the
gems of the Piazza di San Marco. It is, in any case,
the marvel of that Piazza dei Signori which is so pictur-
esquely completed by the Loggia del Capitanio, the
Church of San Vicente, the Bertoliana Library, the great
168 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
red brick tower, and the two white marble columns,
on one of which the Venetian lion still asserts the ancient
might of the City of. the Doges. Vicenza, whose passion
for fine buildings was so pronounced, had, of course,
long dreamed of restoring its old communal palace.
Many plans had been submitted. All the architects
of the region, those who had adorned Venice : Sansovino,
the creator of the Libreria ; Riccio, who had built the
inner fagade of the Doge's Palace and the Giant's Stair-
case ; Spaventa, the author of the Procuratie ;
Sanmicheli and Giulio Romano urged the adoption of
their designs. Palladio himself sent in four, and it
was one of these which was accepted. The architect
was barely thirty years old at the time ; no career ever
began more gloriously. This gigantic work occupied
three-quarters of a century and the master did not live
to finish it ; but it was so far advanced before his death
that he had no doubts as to its beauty. Never was his
genius more fully displayed. He was not called upon
to build a palace from a conception of his own brain ;
he had to make use of the old walls, consolidate and
extend them, and yet to produce an entirely new,
sumptuous and original whole. Intelligence, science,
invention, skill and flexibility of the highest order were
necessary for such a task ; Palladio possessed them all
to a degree nothing short of astounding in view of the
difficulties he had to overcome. We are dazzled by
so much splendour and majesty ; we ask ourselves
above all how such a result could have been obtained by
lines so simple, and relatively so bare of ornament.
The two-storeyed porticoes of his design solve the prob-
lem involved to perfection. It is impossible to imagine
more complete harmony between the new facing and
the internal pillars which support the original structure.
No one ignorant of the history of the building could
THE ROTUNDA 169
imagine that the actual fagades were not the faces it
once presented to the world. The arches rest on slender
coupled columns, which enlarge the openings and give
lightness to the general effect; they are Doric in the
lower storey and Ionic in the upper, with entablatures
to correspond, in accordance with Palladio's favourite
formula, a formula to which he has given his name ; for
a long time no other was admitted ; it was universal
at that period, even in buildings imagined by painters,
as for instance in Veronese's Feast in the House of Levi,
where architecture plays such an important part.
The Rotunda delighted Goethe even more than the
Teatro Olimpico and the Basilica. It is approached
by the walk which is one of the chief attractions of
Vicenza, a wide avenue shaded by fine chestnuts and
flanked by a portico over 2,000 feet long, which rises
on the slope of Monte Berico and ends at the culminating
point, the Church of the Madonna del Monte. There
are windows in the walls at intervals, with unexpected
glimpses of the town and of the hills on which the heroic
comrades of Daniele Manini fell in 1848. The country
people ascend on donkeys, or in odd little carts with
seats fixed in the middle. As we mount, the view
extends over the plain towards Bassano and Padua, a
vast green expanse covered with vines, punctuated by
the black spears of cypresses and the campaniles of the
nearest villages. Half way up the incline, at the inter-
section of another road, the avenue makes a bend,
curving into a sort of terrace, whence there is a magni-
ficent panorama of Vicenza with its sea of red roofs
dominated by the cupola of the cathedral, the imposing
mass of the Basilica, the upper arcades of which are
clearly visible, and the graceful silhouette of the tower,
which seems to be watching over the city like the bel-
fries of Flemish towns.
170 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
To get to the Rotunda we must quit the portico and
take a strange little path paved with cobble stones
which runs between walls, first high and bare as those
of a prison, and then gay with draperies of Virginian
creeper. We skirt the ViUa Fogazzaro, where the
famous writer pursues his noble meditations, and the
Villa Valmarana, where Tieopolo's frescoes slumber.
The walls are crowned by the grotesque grimacing
figures which abound in the villas of the district, notably
those on the banks of the Brenta. It was an odd fancy
of the people of the 1 8th century to set up these deformed
guardians of their homes along their walls. The stone
crumbles away from day to day, and sometimes it is
difficult to make out the oddly dressed and contorted
mannikins. Then the path becomes rural. The pave-
ment makes way for grass, dappled with aromatic mint.
Pines and cypresses shoot up from behind the walls.
We cross a road and we are before the Rotunda.
Alas I visitors are no longer admitted. The Signora
madre to whom it belonged died, they tell me, a month
or two ago, and her son and successor will not allow it
to be shown. However, we may go into the gardens.
We shall not be able to see the rooms, but this is unim-
portant. The masterpiece is the building itself and the
exquisite site it adorns, the most agreeable spot imagin-
able, amenissimo, as Palladio himseK declared. These
Renaissance houses were, indeed, built primarily for
the delight of the eye. In fact, this has always been the
case in Italy. Read the letter in which Pliny the
Younger described his beloved Laurentum, you will
see that the question of a spacious and comfortable
lodging was quite a secondary one. The desideratum
was not a French chateau, nor one of the comfortable
structures of Northern countries, but merely a villa, that
is to say, a place of repose and enjoyment, where life
THE ROTUNDA 171
would be gay and full of sunshine. Paolo Almerico,
who had this Rotunda built, was a simple churchman,
the Referendary of Popes Pius V. and Pius VI. The
domain passed later to the Marchese di Capra, whose
name is still legible above the main entrance.
The building is a square, each side of which is faced
by a peristyle of six Ionic columns supporting a triangular
pediment adorned with statues. Within this square is
a circular hall on the ground level, entered by four doors
corresponding to the peristyles, which form so many
little terraces ojffering views in every direction. And
this is the secret of the incomparable charm of this
Hotunda ; the prospect on every side is admirable.
On the north, the undulating plain of Vicenza, the line
of the Alps forming a majestic background ; on the
west, the slopes dominated by the Madonna del Monte ;
on the south, the green flanks of the Berici hills ; but
the finest view of all is from the terrace on the east
guarded by three ancient eagles and a swan in stone ;
we see the entire valley of the Brenta as far as Padua
and the Euganean Hills, which are distinguishable on a
clear day. In the foreground all around the Rotunda
are gardens, fields, meadows, clumps of flowers and
thickets of lilacs which form a scented girdle in spring-
time.
The melancholy thought of the flight of time and the
fragility of joy was nowhere and at no period more in
evidence than in Italy at the time of the Renaissance.
Di doman non c'e certezza (there is no certainty of to-
morrow) said Lorenzo de' Medici in his poem. And, so,
in the midst of the gravest events and the direst catas-
trophes the rich and cultured thought only of enjoying
themselves in peace. This morning at this villa, I
think of that Luigi Comaro, who had witnessed the most
terrible warfare and the sack of Padua, and, who, in his
172 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
treatise, DellaVita Sobria, drew up what may be described
as the code of the perfect dilettante. How lovingly he
describes his " fair house at Padua, so marvellously
situated, so skilfully protected from the heat of summer
and the rigour of winter, with its gardens watered by
running streams." In spring and autumn he knew
no greater pleasure than a few weeks in his villa, on a
hill *' whence there is an exquisite view of the Euganean
HiUs." Nearly all the Italian poets — 'except Dante
and Leopardi, whose widely divergent pessimisms are
to be explained by very personal causes — 'have sung the
joy of life. The appetite for pleasure in this country
often becomes a kind of delirium, a frenzy which made
Goethe say one Shrove Tuesday evening : "I seem to
have spent this day with madmen." In no country
were public festivities of greater importance, and the
greatest artists rivalled each other in contributing to
such displays. Palladio himself designed the triumphal
arch erected at Venice in 1574 for the reception of Henry
III. The Carnival, torchlight processions, and fireworks
are Italian inventions. Here at Vicenza itself, a chroni-
cler of the 14th century speaks of a fete given by the
College of Notaries, when " a firework composition went
off with such a din that most of those present fell back-
wards, overcome by terror ; it represented in fiery
outline the Holy Spirit, the Prophets, and a flaming
dove descending upon the altar."
Moreover, in spite of war and piUage, these Lombardo-
Venetian provinces were always rich. Even in the hard
years of the 14th and 15th centuries the Communes
found it necessary to pass sumptuary laws. The indus-
try of precious stuffs developed so greatly that towns
like Vicenza sent annually to Venice over a hundred
pieces of gold and silver brocade. It is comprehensible
enough that nobles and citizens so well-to-pass should
GOETHE AT VICENZA 173
have commissioned Palladio to build them the palaces
of Vicenza, and the sumptuous country houses of which
only the ruins now remain. For, alas ! here everything
is perishing ! The statues, the columns, the staircases,
the walls are crumbHng. Grass grows between the
disjointed stones and bricks. I remember that long
ago I used to wish some rich purchaser would restore
the Rotunda. But now I no longer venture on such a
wish. It would perhaps be the worst thing that could
befall it, the surest death sentence of all this beauty.
Better that this villa should not be repaired, renewed,
modernised, lighted by electricity . . . The utmost
we should wish is that its decay should be arrested,
that this vestige of a bygone splendour and period
should be preserved as long as possible without any
modification of its character.
There is a majesty in the structure which explains
Goethe's enthusiasm. "I do not think," he says,
" that it would be possible to carry the luxury of archi-
tecture farther. The four peristyles and the stairs
occupy more space than the palace itself. Each of the
fa9ades would make an imposing entrance to a temple.
.... The proportions of the circular hall are admirable"
He also praises the art with which the site was chosen.
" Not only is the building to be seen in all its magni-
ficence from every point of the surrounding country,
but the view from the Rotunda itself is most defighful.
One sees the Bacchiglione flowing onward, carrying
boats to the Brenta."
I think that on this 21st September, 1786, the path
that leads to the Rotunda was perhaps Goethe's road to
Damascus. The Privy Councillor and Prime Minister
of Duke Charles Augustus of Saxe-Weimar, travelling
under the name of Johann Philipp MoUer, had left
Germany without informing his friends, consumed by
174 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
a burning, almost a morbid desire to see Italy. He
confesses this in one of the first letters he wrote after
crossing the frontier. " For several years, " he writes
from Venice on the 12th of October, " I could not bear
to see a Latin author, or to look at anything which re-
minded me of Italy. When this happened by accident, I
suffered horribly. Herder sometimes laughed at me for
learning all my Latin from Spinoza ; he had noticed
that this was the only Latin book I read ; he did not
know how I was obUged to be on my guard against the
ancients, and that I took refuge in these abstruse
generalities with anguish in my heart. . . If I had
not made the decision I am now carrying out, I should
have been utterly undone, so passionately was my
soul possessed by the desire to see Italy with my own
eyes." For ten years, absorbed in political, and adminis-
trative affairs, he had pubUshed scarcely anything. At
most he had sketched out one or two great works. He
felt that these skeletons could not take on flesh and live
in the German surroundings which were stifling him,
in the gossiping Court illuminated only by the clear
eyes of Charlotte von Stein ; they needed Italian sun.
He felt that he must see the spots where the immortal
masterpieces were bom, know classic beauty, not merely
in the spirit and in books, but in itself, and stand face
to face with the buildings it had inspired. Among the
papers he took away with him were some fragments of
dramas and poems, a few scenes of his Tasso, which
had been laid aside for years. But the most voluminous
of the bundles was the manuscript of Iphigenia. She,
the Greek maiden whom he called " the child of my
sufferings," was only to come to life on classic ground.
And, indeed, three months later, at the beginning of
January, 1787, the piece was finished, and he read it
to his friends in Borne. He tells us himself that crossing
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o
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o
o
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GOETHE AT PALLADIO 175
the Brenner, he had taken it out from his luggage so
as to have it constantly under his hand. A few days later
the maiden awoke to life herself, far from Northern mists,
in the magnolia thickets of Lake Gar da. " On these
shores," he writes, " where I felt as lonely as my heroine
on the shores of Tauris, I marked out the plan."
But it was here at Vicenza that he had his revelation of
Latin genius, here that his wondering eyes opened to
Beauty and to Reason as those of Faust opened to
recovered youth, and here that he had the first clear
and luminous vision of the tragedy he meant to write.
Palladio worked the miracle.
Goethe's enthusiasm for the great architect was such
that he was greatly interested in seeing at old Ottavio
Scamozzi's house, the original woodcuts for the Works
of Palladio which Scamozzi had just published. And a
little later, at Padua, he bought a new edition of these
Works with copperplate engravings, due to the pious
care of an English Consul at Venice, named Smith,
whom he pronounced, "a man of great merit, too early
taken away from the friends of art," and to whom he
paid further homage in the cemetery of the Lido. The
citizen of Frankfort was much astonished to note the
reverence in which Palladio was held by all. When he
entered the shop there were five or six persons who at
once began to compliment him on his acquisition.
" Taking me for an architect," he says, " they congratu-
lated me on my desire to study Palladio, who, in their
opinion, ranked far higher than Vitruvius, because he
had penetrated more deeply into antiquity, and had
succeeded in making it applicable to modern times."
To penetrate antiquity and apply it to the needs of
modem times was surely first the secret desire and then
the sole endeavour of Goethe himself. To maintain
tradition, to enlarge the laws of antique wisdom by
176 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
modern science were in short the identical aims of
Goethe and of Palladio. Both, in common with all
true artists and all true writers, sought to solve the
eternal problem of reconciling immutable law and
mutable life, to conquer the eternal difficulty, which is,
says Barres " to have a style and yet remain true and
natural." Was it not of himself that the author of
Dichtung und Wahrheit was thinking when he said of
Palladio : " His conceptions have a touch of the divine,
akin to the creative power of the poet, who from a
mixture of truth and falsehood, brings forth a new work
whose borrowed life enchants us."
And this was why Iphigenia became the drama of
Goethe himself, the drama of a mind in quest of order
and beauty, at first obscured by Germanic chaos, then
calmed by the Greco-Latin genius and its supreme
equilibrium. Confronting Orestes and his romantic fury,
he set the radiant figure of Iphigenia, the type of antique
Wisdom and Reason. Thus, when he read the work to
German artists they were astonished. " They were
expecting something like Goetz von Berlichingen," says
Goethe, " and they found it difficult to accustom them-
selves to the calm and regular march of Iphigenia .''
Goethe came to Italy to deliver himself from Weimar ;
in less than a year, the evolution was accomplished.
Begun at Vicenza, it was completed in Rome. '* It is
a year to-day," he writes, " since I left Carlsbad. What
a memorable day ! It is the anniversary of my birth to
a new life. I cannot reckon up all I have gained in the
course of this year ; and, yet, I have only begun to
understand." His joy overflows perpetually in his
letters and in those Roman Elegies in which he put so
much of himself. " How happy I am, " he exclaims at
the beginning of the seventh of these, " when I think
of the time in the North when a gray daylight wrapped
CONEGLIANO 177
me round, and a heavy, sullen sky pressed on my neck."
He had found internal peace and joy. The scales,
as he said, had fallen from his eyes. He had bathed
in the very well-springs of Beauty. Thenceforth his
work was to have a deeper meaning ; it was to become,
as Nietzsche has said, the only classic work of Germany.
Is it not moving to think that it was here that he saw
clearly for the first time, under the light of Latin skies,
and before the buildings of Palladio 1
CHAPTER III
CONEGLIANO
Few cities present themselves so gaily and seductively
to the traveller as does ConegUano. Standing where
the Vittorio road debouches, on the last spur of the Pre-
Alps, whence it dominates the valley of the Piave, its
outskirts are extraordinarily attractive ; it seems to
hold out its arms and invite the visitor to enter. It is
not unusual in Italy to find towns which have pre-
served their ramparts, while relieving them of their
martial aspect by planting them with trees and trans-
forming them into shady walks. Conegliano has
done better still ; on the side that overlooks the plain
it has built its houses on the foundations of the old walls,
and transformed the moats into smiling gardens which
form a half circle of flowers and greenery. On the other
side the village climbs the hill side in terraces, overlooked
by a battlemented castle whose pink bricks appear
between the cypress spears.
N
178 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
It is rather difficult to find the entrance to the cathe-
dral, and, I am obliged to ask my way. I light upon the
most charming of men who at once lays aside his own
occupations to guide me, and is lavish of attentions.
I recall Musset's pretty definition of Italy in Bettine,
as " that country of charming, kindly, honest, hospitable
freedom, under the splendid sun where one man's
shadow has never been in the way of another, and where
one makes a friend by asking the way." The door of
the Cathedral opens from a kind of portico adjoining
private houses and shops. The church itself is small
and of little interest ; but it contains a masterpiece,
one of the best pictures of Conegliano's most famous
son, the good painter Cima. I love those towns and
buildings to which one journeys to see a single work,
especially when that work is still in the very place for
which it was conceived and executed ; the fact that it
is unique and that you have been put to some trouble
to see it gives it a special charm which it would not
have had in a museum among many others, I find
the picture on a temporary altar, pending certain
repairs that are being made in the choir, which it had
not quitted since the day that Cima painted it. The
light is very good, especially in the morning, and shows
the magnificient composition and the warm colour to
advantage. I can think of no Madonna with a nobler
face. The six Saints are also full of dignity and majesty ;
if they have a fault it is perhaps that they are a little
stiff, a little wanting in vitality. Two Uttle angel
musicians at the foot of the throne are exquisite in their
simplicity and gravity of attitude ; their flesh is of a
beautiful olive tint. The picture is entirely filled up
with figures, which is unusual for Cima, who habitually
painted delightful landscape backgrounds, notably
views of the hill of Conegliano. There is no smiling
CIMA DA CONEGLTANO 179
grace in this work ; he seems to have put all the gravity
of his soul into this altarpiece for the church of his native
place. The Madonna and Saints in the Accademia at
Venice reproduces practically the same subject, with the
addition of a landscape, but, as it seems to me, with
less emotion. In both canvases we note the somewhat
childish symmetry which makes Perugino's works so
cold ; the equilibrium is the result less of the adjustment
of the masses of colour than of the similarity of the
personages on either side of the principal group.
The Conegliano picture dates from the end of the
fifteenth century ; it is only a few years earlier than the
first masterpieces of Giorgione and Titian. Cima
remained the pupil of Vivarini. True, he was influenced
by Giovanni Bellini, but he never sought to surpass him,
as did his illustrious rivals, disciples like himself of the
Venetian master. Cima was always a Primitive. He
is perhaps the only Venetian in whom we divine some-
thing of Tuscan or Umbrian fervour. He has been
called the Masaccio of Venice, which is an exaggeration,
for were it true he would be in the forefront of the
Quattrocento painters. He did not go so far as Masaccio ;
he was no innovator ; but no one surpassed him in ten-
derness and religious poetry. He was a moderate, a
discreet dreamer, a calm spirit. He belonged to that
category of artists who are faithful all their lives to the
ideal of their youth, and thus very soon seem to be
behind the times.
Leaving the church, I climbed up to the Castle, all
rosy in the warm light. The way is through narrow
tortuous streets without side-walk, paved with sharp
cobbles, under arcades and vaults that seem ready to
fall on one, up flights of ruined steps. Heavy doors
open on to tiny gardens. Faces are enframed in windows
gay with geraniums. Here and there a few modern
N 2
180 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
shop-fronts, in spite of their miserable appearance, have
an alien look in the solitary streets where one is startled
by the noise of one's own footsteps. The soul of the
past hovers round these ancient buildings. And there
is something intensely poignant about these homes
of an ancient city where nothing has changed ; the con-
trast is the more striking when, leaving the new quarters
sunning themselves joyously, we enter the city of the past
which suffocated for centuries between mountain and
ramparts. There the fa9ades have grave faces like those
of old men, in which we read the melancholy bom of
having seen too much, and of thoughts turned ever
upon death. After the last houses, the path skirts
old rusty walls which the warm sunshine consoles for
their abandonment. Between the disjointed stones
spring the fine grasses and mosses that grow only in
solitude.
From the terrace in front of the Castle there is a mag-
nificent view of the Trevisan plain and the valley of
the Piave ; the course of the stream slackens as it
approaches the lagoons which on very clear days may
be seen in the distance. Above the fields the delicate
Venetian mist is already floating. To the North, the
view extends to the first buttresses of the Alps, over a
series of verdant hill-sides and wooded mountains,
studded with villas and little towns grouped round a
bell-tower. The slopes are covered with famous vine-
yards which produce a sparkling, perfumed wine ;
nowhere are the vines better cultivated than at
ConegHano, which is very proud of its Royal School of
Viticulture. In the distance, the dying sun gilds one of
those big white clouds in which the Greeks believed that
the immortals concealed themselves when travelling
through the ether, and which afterwards served painters
of all schools for the scenes in which God comes down to
THE CASTELLO GARDEN 181
earth. The rays of sunlight slip between the battle-
ments and the trees like airy scarves. The tops of the
tall cypresses sway very slightly in the breeze ; against
the dazzling sky they look like the masts of a ship
gently rocked by a calm sea. It is the unreal hour when
things are decked in all the varjdng shades of pink,
that fugitive and passing pink which is not a true colour,
and recalls the uncertain tint of those wan blossoms
which, in a bouquet of red and white flowers, look like
softened reflections of the two.
Through the iron gates, the inner courtyard of the
Castle smiles so invitingly that I want to go in. A
small huonamano overcomes the custodian's scruples.
We may stay till nightfall in this old garden, so eloquent
of the past with its cjrpresses, its oleanders, its walls of
red brick burning in the last rays of light. The walks
are narrow and ill-kept, but, gradually, the garden
widens out. A soft haze rises from the warm earth,
blurs all forms and spreads mystery round us.. As the
shadow grows denser, love takes on a sudden gravity.
We cease talking, hushed by the silence of things. Ah !
the languor of those Italian evenings among the perfumes,
the delight of a dear companionship when everything
fades and seems about to die. Without another heart
beside me, I could not await night in this old garden.
I remember the words of Dumas the Elder, when, after
his travels in Switzerland, he arrived at Lake Maggiore,
felt all the horrors of solitude on the very first evening,
and expressed his thoughts in this charming formula :
" To hope or to fear for another is the only thing which
gives man a complete sense of his own existence." In
the turmoil and agitation of the day, we do not feel
loneliness ; but in the peace of evening, we cannot
bear it.
The wind has dropped completely. The spray of
182 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
the cypresses hangs congealed against the dark sky.
In the distance a fountain murmurs its eternal, mono-
tonous song. Suddenly, a note breaks the silence. It is
a belated nightingale that has lingered, beguiled no doubt
by the tranquil charm of this summer garden. We do
not see it ; it must be in that oleander thicket, on that
branch that is stirring. It preludes timidly at first,
repeats the same note softly, as if murmuring. It
questions the darkness and listens to the silence. Then,
believing itself alone, and intoxicated by the nocturnal
sweetness around it, it bursts into full song. The
trills follow one another, ever stronger ; they become
cries of joy and of desire. It throws out piercing notes
at intervals, the love-call becomes ever more clamant.
And each time we tremble as did the lovers of Verona
when they heard the nightingale singing on a pomegra-
nate-tree in the garden of the Capulets.
CHAPTER IV
BASSANO
Less elevated and less hemmed in by mountains
than Belluno, yet higher above the Venetian plain than
Gonegliano, Bassano is admirably placed on the outlet
of the Brenta. It has a very imposing appearance
with its ruined ivy-grown ramparts, its promenade with
enormous lime-trees, its red brick castle with square
towers which evokes a most agitated and warlike past.
Claimed and fought for successively by powerful neigh-
bours, Vicenza, Padua, Verona and Milan, it only knew
BRIDGE OF BASSANO 188
peace during the four centuries of the Venetian domina-
tion ; and it paid dearly for this term of tranquillity
during the wars of the French Revolution and of the
Empire. As it was necessary to hold it in order to secure
passage or retreat, all the campaigns of the French
army were marked by an episode here. In a few years
the town was taken and retaken ten times. Ardently
patriotic, it fought in the forefront together with Pieve
and Belluno during the struggle for independence, and
like them offered itself with spontaneous enthusiasm to
the House of Savoy.
Bassano's greatest pride is its old covered bridge, the
history of which would require a chapter to itself. In
the course of the last four centuries it has been necessary
to rebuild it more than ten times, sometimes in stone,
more often in wood ; it has been carried away by torrents,
burnt or destroyed in warfare. The present bridge
replaced that which Eugene Beauhamais burnt in
1813 ; there are French bullets still imbedded in the
stones of the piers. Shorter, but wider than that of
Pavia over the Ticino, it has a good deal of character,
especially as seen from the bed of the river. It com-
pletes most picturesquely the picture formed by the
city with its terraced houses and gardens, their founda-
tions descending to the river which at times shakes
them somewhat roughly. Above, the ancient fortress
rises over the roofs and trees. The whole hill is reflected
in the pure water, ruffled only by the darting flight of
swallows hawking invisible insects.
As at Pieve di Cadore, at Bassano we might look in vain
for a straight, level street. The roads rise and wind
and intersect in the most amusing entanglement. Some
of them are, as it were, suspended over the valley. Gates
open upon the country and seem to enframe the horizon.
The little squares and terraces with glimpses of scenery
184 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
which the inhabitants reserved for the delight of the eye,
add greatly to the charm of the town. One of the most
happily placed is the Piazza del Terraglio, whence
Napoleon is said to have made his plan for the battle.
But no panorama equals that to be seen from the
famous Balcone dell' Arciprete, in the presbytery of
the Cathedral, which occupies a part of the buildings of
the ancient citadel. The view extends in every direction.
To the east the hills of Asolo slope gently towards the
plain ; it was in the midst of them, at Possagno, that
Canova was bom ; a white marble building on the
model of the Pantheon of Rome, contains works and
copies of works by the sculptor, and also the perishable
body of him whom his admirers ventured to compare
to Michelangelo. To the north, behind a foreground
of houses and gardens, the valley, studded with villas
and little towns, is closed by an amphitheatre of moun-
tains, which just leave room for the river to pass. To
the left, the heights fringe the plateau of the Seven
Communes, that strange country the inhabitants of
which lived for centuries almost isolated from the rest
of the world, forming a German island in ItaHan terri-
tory like that still existing to the north of Verona in
the region of the Thirteen Communes. Further to the
west, at the foot of the hills of Marostica, the plain
stretches away towards Vicenza, as far as the Berici
Mountains.
The Museum of Bassano is of some importance. It
contains notably a rich collection of the engravings of
all countries, and a room devoted to the works of Canova,
either originals or reproductions. But faithful to my
habits, I intend to study the works of the Bassani only
in this, their city. It is not surprising that they should
be numerous, as there were no fewer than six painters
bearing the name of Da Ponte. They were one of those
THE DA PONTE FAMILY 185
curious Italian families whose members from father to
son, devoted themselves to the magic calling, la mirahile
e clarissima arte di pittura. And I recall the charming
picture in the Uffizi, where Jacopo has represented
himself with all his sons united in the worship of art.
The six Da Pontes include the grandfather, Francesco,
the father Jacopo, and the four sons, Francesco, Giam-
battista, Leandro and Girolamo. Among these the
only one who really counts is Jacopo ; he is the Bassano ;
it is to him that a grateful city has raised a statue. His
very numerous works are scattered throughout the
galleries of Europe. The Museum of Bassano possesses
a dozen, among them the S. Valentine baptising a young
Girl, very warm in colour, and his masterpiece, the
Nativity, a work of extraordinary freshness and richness ;
the light is very skilfully concentrated on the Virgin,
and the scene is set in a fine bluish landscape. It was
in these compositions, at once devotional and rustic, that
he excelled. Unfortunately nearly all his pictures have
darkened very much, and so have become monotonous.
No painter has excelled him as a craftsman, or in know-
ledge of the secrets of his calling. He was an accom-
plished practitioner, a virtuoso of the palette ; but this
is the extent of his art. His figures do not live, and have
no character ; their faces and gestures are always heavy
and insignificant. What is remarkable, however, is
that Bassano is the most realistic of the 16th century
Venetian painters ; it was he who introduced genre into
Italian art, that is to say, the rendering of scenes from
actual life. Hitherto, painting had been only religious
or historical; it rarely condescended to the observation
of Nature and of familiar scenes. Bassano studied
animals carefully, seeking to accentuate the character
of each beast. Sometimes even, he tried to carry truth
as far as illusion, and, in some forgotten book, I once
186 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
read an anecdote telling how Annibale Carracci came
into his room and put out his hand to take a book
Jacopo had painted on the table.
A perfect technician, Bassano was an excellent teacher.
Veronese did not hesitate to choose him among the ten
to whom he entrusted the artistic education of his son,
Carletto. He had the gift of teaching. He wished to
make four painters of his four sons. But two never
rose above the rank of copjdsts, or studio assistants.
The other two have left a few works not without merit :
Francesco, pictures of ceremonial, or history, notably in
the Doge's Palace in Venice ; Leandro, religious com-
positions and some good portraits, the best of which,
a sober and vigorous work, is that of the Podest^
Lorenzo Capello, in the Museum of Bassano.
But how wearisome it is to look at these dark canvases,
on which time has laid a sort of opaque varnish. And
how delightful it is to come back to the light ! Let us
stroll along the splendid promenades that encircle the
town. The views from these are magnificent over the
spurs of the Alps and the valley of the Brenta. The
various panoramas we saw as a whole from the terrace
of the presbytery present themselves one by one. These
views, declares George Sand in her Lettres d'un Voyageur,
" are among the most welcome changes that can befall
a traveller weary of the classic masterpieces of Italy."
I could not find that Cafe des Fosses described by the
author of Lelia in one of those curious letters she wrote
in the spring of 1834 " to a poet," as the contents table
of the book says, in which she speaks to him with superb
irresponsibility of the " doctor," and of the breakfast
she had shared with him at this inn at Bassano " on a
carpet of grass, starred with primroses, a breakfast of
excellent coffee, mountain butter and bread flavoured
with aniseed." She invites Musset to a similar breakfast
GEORGE SAND AT BASSANO 187
in the same place later on ; *' when you will know all ;
life will hold no further secrets for you. Your hair will
be turning gray, and mine will be already white ; but
the valley of Bassano will be no less beautiful." Then
she went off to the Tyrol ; she proposed to climb inacces-
sible rocks and pass over unexplored peaks. But, as
a fact, she only got as far as Oliero, a few miles from
Bassano ; and by way of Possagno, which gave her a
pretext for tirades about Canova, she came back to
Treviso, in a cart drawn by she-asses, seated among kids
which a peasant was taking to market. She declares
that she slept fraternally with the innocent beasts
destined for the butcher's knife on the morrow. " This
thought," she adds, " inspired me with an invincible
horror of their master, and I did not exchange a word
with him the whole way."
I have always had a weakness for those Venetian
letters of George Sand's, written when she was thirty
years old, the outpourings of a suffering spirit tortured
by doubt. In the midst of innumerable dissertations
on the most various subjects, we note the constant
struggles of a passionate soul against the fetters of
society and the bondage of opinion, in all their moving
sincerity. We already find in them that voluptuous
ideality which underlies all her work and all her life,
and, above all, her ardent love of nature. She invariably
prefers the emotion prompted by the beauty of things
to that induced by art. "The creations of art," she
says, " speak only to the mind, and the spectacle of
nature speaks to all our faculties. The beauty of land-
scape adds a sensuous pleasure to the purely intellectual
pleasure of admiration. The coolness of water, the
perfume of flowers, the harmonies of the wind circulate
in the blood and in the nerves at the moment when
the splendour of colours and the beauty of forms stir
188 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
the imagination." No writer has more successfully
associated psychological states with natural surroundings.
How many lyrical passages one might select from her
works for a book to be called Landscapes of Passion, a
title I chose for a volume of my own in which I too tried
my hand at wedding picturesque description to action.
This evening it is pleasant to evoke the memory of the
too ardent pilgrim of love here under the lime-trees of
Bassano, and to think that she once breathed this same
south wind that blows so warmly on me, full of the
perfumes of the gardens of the Brenta.
CHAPTER V
MASER
Finding myself close to Maser and Fanzolo, I decided
to revisit the famous villas built there by Palladio.
There is no more delightful experience for a traveller
than to return to the beautiful places that formerly
enchanted him. He knows that his earlier impressions
will be revived, but he is also eager to know how far they
will be enriched. Moreover, I had seen the villas in
spring-time embowered in lilacs and flowering shrubs ;
what new charm would autumn lend them ? In one of
his recent lectures on Moli^re, M. Maurice Donnay
wittily compared Don Juan to those hasty tourists who
visit the towns of Italy between two trains, who arrive,
rush to church or museum, and set off again. " They
have seen the town one morning, one afternoon of spring
or autumn ; they will never see it again under other skies,
THE BARBARO BROTHERS 189
with other tints ; they never lean on a balustrade whence
there is a view of the landscape, they never dream by the
riverside, they never wander in the little crooked streets,
they never pass through the iron gates of gardens. They
pass ; it was for them that Baedeker conceived that
admirable chapter-heading : Venice in four days.'*
Do not let us follow their example ; let us enter the iron
gates of fair gardens and Palladian villas.
The characteristically Italian desire for a pleasure-
house was always strongly developed among the Venetians,
Cut off from pastoral scenery, and even to a great extent
from verdure, they had a longing to get away from the
canals and the little paved streets where the air never
changes, to walk on real earth, to see trees and grass.
The little islands of the lagoon and the banks of the
Brenta were first covered with houses and gardens.
Then the rich families went farther afield ; they bought
land on the Euganean Hills, and even on those moun-
tains of Bassano, the blue outUne of which they saw
on the horizon each time their gondolas, emerging from
the Rio San Fehce or the Kio dei Mendicanti, made for
San Miphele or Murano.
It was natural enough that the Barbaro brothers,
Daniele, Patriarch of Aquilea, one of the highest digni-
taries of the church, and Marc-Antonio, Ambassador
of the Republic to Catherine de' Medici and Sixtus V.,
Procurator of S. Marco and the negotiator of the peace
after Lepanto, should have desired a rural palace worthy
of themselves and of their rank. They appUed to the
greatest artists of their day, to Andrea Palladio for the
architecture, to Alessandro Vittoria for the sculptural
decoration, and to Veronese for the frescoes. The
result of this triple collaboration was the lordly dwelling
which passed at the end of the 18th century from the
Barbaro family to Lodovico Manin, the last Doge of
190 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
Venice, and after long years of neglect became the Villa
Giacomelli, the name of the amiable owner who has
restored it, and was good enough to do the honours of
it to me.
The villa, in accordance with the plan generally
adopted by Palladio, is set against the slope of a hill,
whence it rises slightly above the plain ; it consists of
a central palazzo in the form of a temple with four Ionic
columns supporting a triangular pediment, and lateral
buildings somewhat lower, preceded by arcades and
terminated by two pavilions suggestive of dove-cotes,
the ground-floors of which 'the architect designed to
be respectively the wine-press and the coach-house.
Behind, a courtyard communicates with the first storey
of the central building, and is on a level with it. *' This
court," says Palladio, " is on a level with the soil of the
hill-side, which was lowered and cut on purpose to serve
as the site of a fountain richly decorated with stuccoes
and paintings." Alessandro Vittoria, Sanso vino's part-
ner, carried out this decoration, as well as the general
ornamentation of the palazzo and the gardens. In it
he displays all his manipulative skill and his ardent
temperament ; but as always, he shows a lack of restraint
and aims too obviously at effect. There is excess in the
profusion of statues and vases that crowd round the
house ; these sumptuous accessories and this over-
emphatic splendour are out of harmony with the extreme
simplicity of the villa itself.
Veronese undertook the frescoes, and no work could
have been better suited to his taste and to his powers.
They were the freest fantasies of an artist who never
painted but to delight the eye. All that could enliven a
dwelling, and distract the minds of persons who came to
the country to rest, this prince of decorators, untram-
melled by any set programme, scattered broadcast.
VERONESE'S FRESCOES 191
Heathen divinities, heroes, ephebi, virtues, vices, loves,
garlands of fruit and flowers, landscapes, animals, illusory
portraits and statues, simulated columns, Veronese repre-
sented as fancy suggested, thinking only of our amuse-
ment and of his own. Restrained from the representa-
tion of the nude in his official compositions, he took
advantage of his freedom here. All the mythological
and allegorical figures appear as beautiful women with
blooming carnations ; if they have a fault it is that they
are a little inexpressive, and all very much alike ; their
opulent forms are too uniformly superb. Moreover,
some passages are lax and languid in handling ; the
subjects, often puerile, have no connection one with the
other. But what matters it ? Veronese had been
asked to decorate, not to paint pictures. He had
merely to beautify surfaces, to hang the walls with
brilliant frescoes as with tapestries. What task could
have been more congenial to him who was the most
delightful of story-tellers, the most skilful stage-manager
of Venetian festivities ? But we must not look for any
thought, any expression of moral or intellectual life.
Veronese was a hand and not a brain. Never was a
dazzling palette at the service of a less erudite artist ;
for him, aesthetic rules were limited, as he said in his
famous reply to the tribunal of the Holy Office, to putting
into a picture " things that look well in it." He declared
further that " the painter may claim the licence allowed
to poets and madmen, and that he should continue to
paint in accordance with his understanding of things."
In the city of caprice and fantasy there was no one who
made less effort to submit to other rules. He concerned
himself very little with historical or chronological
exactitude of place, type, or costume, with the laws of
perspective and architecture. Nor did he shrink from
being absurd, as long as he was charming. Now
192 Wx\NDERINGS IN ITALY
he is always charming, and nowhere more so than here,
in this Villa Barbaro, where we can so well reahse what
the sumptuous summer residences of the rich Venetians
were in the 16th century. Undoubtedly, there was a
certain amount of bad taste and ostentation. These
merchant princes were all the more eager to display their
wealth because it was newly acquired. To these
parvenu traders art was an external manifestation, a
visible sign of their wealth. I do not propose in this
connection to draw once more the facile, and, too often,
exaggerated parallel between the sensuality of Venetian
and the idealism of Florentine art ; but it is obvious that
in the city of the lagoons, the city of perpetual festivals,
painters and sculptors were intent, not on elevating the
soul, but on delighting the senses, and making daily
life lovelier and pleasanter. Though it has become com-
monplace, the comparison is apt : Venice, an indolent
courtesan, has the languors and the love of gUtter of
Eastern women. Living in isolation upon her islands,
she was not infected by the mystical crisis which agitated
the whole peninsula. Dealing always with practical
things, her uninterrupted commerce with Byzantium
and Islam had made her sceptical and voluptuous.
Hence, in comparison with the other Italian schools,
she is poor in religious pictures ; and too often in those
she has given us faith is conspicuously absent. Sacred
subjects are mere pretexts for exuberant fancy. In the
Gospel Veronese found mainly opportunities for painting
banquets. But what was religion to the city of pleasure,
of all the pleasures ? Merely a factor which gave
intensity to the joy of living by evoking the fragihty
of life, inflicting a slight agitation, a fleeting emotion
which barely ruffled the soul, leaving less trace on it
than the passage of a gondola on the rippling waters.
CHAPTER VI
FANZOLO
The Villa Maser is too magnificent and pretentious
for my taste. I prefer the Villa Emo, which is further
South at Fanzolo, in the Trevisan plain. I like it
because it is less well known and little visited, and above
all, because it has always belonged to the same family,
by whom it has been piously and intelligently kept up.
The fact that it has never changed the name of its owner,
from the time of Leonardo Emo, a patrician of the
Republic in the middle of the 16th century, to that of the
present Count Emo, who welcomes you with the exquisite
grace of the great noble, gives it a special intimacy
and amenity. There is no solemnity about this dwelling,
set in bowers of the freshest greenery, and I cannot
imagine any country house where the inhabitants could
live in more artistic surroundings and at the same time
so close to nature. There is neither trim garden nor
park around the house, but a belt of woods, fields and
lawns, the tall grasses of which breathe perfumes.
Palladio was the architect here as at Maser. The
great Vicenzan scattered his works throughout the whole
region ; if they could all be brought together, they would,
as Vasari said, make a veritable city. The plan is the
same as at Maser : a square central building, flanked by
two long lower wings, faced with colonnaded porticoes,
which, according to the architect, " would permit the
owner to move about on his business under shelter,
undeterred by the heat of the sun or the rain, while at
the same time they would also add to the appearance of
the building." The arrangement of the palazzo is
193 0
194 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
extremely simple ; in the middle there is a loggia on the
f a9ade, and behind it, a vestibule leading to the reception-
room ; on each side, left and right, are rooms corres-
ponding to the four angles. The decoration consists of
simulated architecture and paintings which, here again,
are a curious medley of reUgious subjects and pagan
scenes ; hence the rooms are called those of Venus, the
Holy F,amily, Hercules and the Ecce Homo, in reference to
the principal fresco in each. The central part is the most
perfect : the fine loggia, where a dignified Ceres receives
you, as is fitting in this rural retreat ; the vestibule,
the ceiling of which is adorned with the foliage of a
magnificent vine ; and above all, the great saloon, a
room of most harmonious proportions, decorated through-
out with simulated columns, niches and statues. Here
are the two best works : the Death of Virginia and the
Continence of Scipio Africanus. They are undoubtedly
by Zelotti ; but may not Veronese have collaborated
with him to a certain extent ? Did he merely
give general directions or did he himself paint
some fragments ? The question will be debated indefi-
nitely, no doubt. I myself think that Veronese had
something to do with these frescoes. The argument
that they are not equal to those in the Villa Barbaro
proves nothing, for they were painted fifteen years
earlier, at a time when the youthful Paolo Caliari,
under the direct influence of the masters of Verona, was
still seeking his way, before Titian and the great Vene-
tians had been revealed to him. It seems to me probable
that he composed and designed the most important
subjects, leaving Zelotti to finish the work alone ;
Zelotti was, indeed, a colourist of repute, whom Vasari
pronounced superior to Veronese in the art of fresco.
The majority of these paintings are careless and look as
if they had been hurriedly executed ; the draperies
VIEWS FROM VILLA EMO 195
are heavy and the faces inexpressive. The little reli-
gious scenes alone are more finished ; I remember an
Ecce Homo and a Jesus as the Gardener very admirably
composed. On the other hand, the mythological subjects
are nearly all treated carelessly and as simple sketches.
But why insist on details when the general effect is
charming in its exquisite blond tones ? How futile these
questions of attribution and criticism seem in these
rooms, the supreme decoration of which is the exquisite
landscape which enters them by wide bays ! The view
extends over vast meadows gemmed with flowers,
interrupted only by groves of trees and the long lines
of poplars marking out splendid avenues, which lose
themselves in the plain. The rooms are full of the
pleasant smell of grass and ripe fruit. In the distance,
in the dusty golden air, lie the blue mountains, the hills
of Asolo, and the Alps of Cadore. Nowhere is this
constant intermingling of art and nature more delightful.
Truly, the Venetians were the most voluptuous of men.
And little given as I am to envy, I envied the happy
owner of this dwelling, who, without quitting his treasure-
house, may live among all the graces of Virgilian poetry
throughout the year, witnessing the life of the fields,
seed-time, harvest and vintage. I went away regret-
fully at dusk from this villa where the nights must be
so beautiful, and where, closing one's eyes on the pearly
carnations of Venus, one may fall asleep amidst the
scents of new-mown hay.
0 2
196 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
CHAPTER VII
FUSINA
Shores of the Brenta, Euganean HiUs, how long I
have been dreaming of you and hoping to know you !
So great is the magic of words to me that I loved to
evoke you, merely for the pleasure of repeating the
liquid syllables of your beautiful names ! Often,
returning from the islands of the lagoon and re-entering
Venice as it lay ablaze in the September sunset, I
regretted that I could not make my way further along the
river, to those blue mountains standing out in the light,
softly rounded as young breasts.
Literary memories sharpened my desire rather than
Baedeker, who devotes but a few lines to this region. I
thought of Petrarch ending his days in the little house at
Arqua, of Byron riding along the banks of the Brenta or
on the hillsides of Este, of the heroes of II Fuoco pursuing
each other in the labyrinth of Stra. I remembered
Barres' advice : " Do not miss an opportunity of going
up the Brenta on one of those slow vessels which are the
only ones that stiU ply between Fusina and Padua.
In warm brilliant autumn weather, how delightful it
is on this old deserted waterway, where no letter from
France can reach us ! " And, moreover, whenever I
went through Padua, I was haunted by these verses
of Musset's, which are far from being among his best : — ■
Padoue est un fort bel endroit
Oti de tres grands docteurs en droit
Ont fait merveille.
SHORES OF THE BRENTA 197
Mais j'aime mieux la polenta
Qu'on mange aux bords de la Brenta
Sous une treille.^
This year I have at last been able to realise my dream.
I did not eat polenta under a vine-arbour, but I followed
the course of the Brenta at my ease, sometimes in boats,
sometimes sauntering along the banks on foot. And,
at first, I was disappointed.
It is at Fusina that those shores begin, the fame of which
was so extraordinary that their scenery has been
compared to the greatest wonders of the world. " I
do not believe," says Lalande, " that the beauties of
Tempe, so lauded by the ancient poets, or the suburbs
of Daphne (to the South of Antioch), of which we have
heard so much, can have beeti more beautiful than the
Bay of Naples and the shores of the Brenta." Such
praises seem strangely exaggerated to-day, for what we
see is but a pale reflection of the ancient splendour of
these shores at the time when they were visited in a
burchiello. This, says Lalande, " was a large bark,
the cabin generally adorned with paintings, carpets,
mirrors and glass doors ; it was towed by one or two
four-oared boats from Venice to Fusina, along the lagoons
where the course is marked out by posts, that the vessels
may not lose their way or ground upon sand-banks.
It takes about an hour to go from Venice to the mainland,
that is to say, a distance of five miles ; then two horses
draw the boat along the canal of the Brenta. After
entering this canal, one passes a double file of villages
and houses following each other uninterruptedly,
splendid palaces, gay Uttle cots, endless gardens, luxu-
riant verdure ; I have never seen shores so radiant or
^ Padua is a fine city, where very learned doctors of the law
have worked marvels ; but more to my taste is the polenta one eats
on the banks of the Brenta under a vine- arbour.
198 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
so populous." Some twenty years later, President de
Brosses also extolled his burchiello, which was called the
Bucentaur. "As you may suppose," he says, "it is
but a very little child of the great Bucentaur ; but then
it is the prettiest child in the world, a very handsome
likeness of our water diUgences, and much cleaner. It
contains a Uttle ante-room for servants giving access to
a room hung with Venetian brocatelle, with a table, and
two seats covered with Morocco leather, eight practicable
windows and two glazed doors. We found our lodging
so comfortable and so pleasant that, contrary to our
habit, we were in no haste to reach our destination, the
less so as we were well provided with food, Canary wine,
etc., and as the banks are bordered by many beautiful
houses belonging to the Venetian nobles." Naturally,
under such conditions, the way cannot have seemed very
long. How delightful it must have been to travel thus
slowly and comfortably in one of the loveliest countries
in the world and with the most charming boon compan-
ions imaginable: As soon as night fell, the vessel was
moored ; the company dined at a villa, or, failing this,
improvised a feast on board. They danced and sang
and gambled till morning. Intrigues began and were
broken off. The smallest incident had a delicious
picturesqueness.
At no period was the delight of life greater or more
passionately cultivated than during the Venetian 18th
century. We must read the memoirs of the day to get
an idea of the incessant festivities that followed one
upon the other on these shores where over a hundred and
fifty villas had been built. Life in these was as luxurious
and even freer than in Venice. The Venetians did not
go to the country to rest and enjoy rural pleasures,
but to amuse themselves, to pass from diversion to
diversion, from folly to folly, and also to dazzle their
DECAY OF FUSINA 199
neighbours. Their mentality was not unlike that of
the Parisians of to-day, who can devise no better form of
amusement than to reassemble at Cabourg or Trouville,
on the same boards and in the same casinos. Snobbery
is of all time ; only the word is modern. It was essential
to have a villa on the banks of the Brenta, just as it is
now to have one on the unattractive, characterless
coast of Calvados.
Since the beginning of last century the calm waters
of the river no longer reflect the lights of boats, or echo
the songs of Pergolesi and Cimarosa. Mournful Fusina
no longer sees the gaily beflagged burchielli ; only
barges laden with fruit make their way every morning
to the Venetian markets. Candide would seek the
Signor Pococurante in vain on these deserted shores, and
Corinne W^ould not retire to a villa here on the departure
of Oswald. It was Napoleon who dealt the first blow at
the prosperity of the Republic ; the Austrian occupation
completed its ruin. Even in 1833, when Chateaubriand
revisited them, the shores were no longer so inviting, and
many villas had disappeared ; however, in spite of this
partial disappointment, he was delighted with the
" mulberry, orange and fig-trees and the sweetness of
the air " ; it is true that he had come back from " the
pine forests of Germany and from the Czech mountains,
where the sun has an evil face."
The decadence has contiaued. When, after passing
the pink walls of San Giorgio in Alga, where a little
marble Madonna watches over the lagoon, I landed on
the shores of flat, marshy Fusina, a haunt of fever and
mosquitoes, I had a sense of mortal depression. It was
formerly an important village. Deep wells had been
sunk here whence came the drinking-water which was
carried every day to Venice in specially constructed
barges. A curious mechanism, the Carro, by the help
200 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
of ropes and pulley, used to hoist boats over the bar
which closed the mouth of the Brenta, before its course
had been partially deflected towards the South. Now
there is nothing but the custom-house, the Httle electric-
tramway station, and a few miserable houses half
imbedded in the mud. The melancholy of it all might
move one to tears. Where is the old Fusina whose
charm was praised by travellers, the Fusina set between
ponds and the lagoon, in the midst of flowers and verdure,
of water lihes and irises ? Around me I see nothing but
the mournful fields invaded by an immense vegetable
decomposition. On this autumn morning the low plain,
almost liquid and steaming with the decay of plants,
looks like an ill-drained marsh. Little pools twinkle in
the sun. But the scene changes quickly enough. A
few farms give a touch of animation to the roadside.
Boats sHp along the canal, drawn by horses, or propelled
by rowers ; others are moored against the banks, laden
with brilliant fruits and ripe grapes. In the meadows
flexible vines throw their garlands from one pioppo to
another, swaying in the wind like golden and purple
hammocks. Bright yellow houses are reflected in the
turbid waters of the river which are barely stirred by the
passing of the boats.
Once these waters ran freely, when the Brenta fol-
lowed its natural course and fell into the sea at Fusina.
But from the day when Venice subdued Padua, the
constant care of the Republic was to deflect the course of
the river, which silted up sand in the lagoon, and by means
of canals to carry off the water and the earth it brought
down with it to a considerable distance, towards Brondolo
and Chioggia. The old bed, now canaHsed and controlled
by locks, is at present a kind of long, narrow pool in
which innumerable ducks dabble ; in certain comers
it seems asleep under the vegetation that covers it.
THE VILLA FOSCARI 201
Fortunately, the engineers did not attempt to rectify
its incessant windings. At every bend the view changes.
Often a double colonnade of tall golden poplars lines the
banks. A premature autumn has followed a rainy
summer, and the mulberry-trees are already yellow in
the yellowing plain. Near the bams flames the vivid
foliage of cherry-trees.
CHAPTER VIII
MALCONTENTA
At a bend of the Brenta, the lofty mass of the Villa
Foscari rises behind the roofs of Malcontenta, and we
are surprised not to have seen it before, so majestically
does it stand out above the motionless plain. The
walls built by Palladio have preserved their air of digni-
fied serenity so perfectly that the traveller who sees
them as he passes pn the opposite bank of the canal little
suspects the ruins they shelter. The downfall of the
Republic was followed by pillage of the most shameless
kind. When its palaces were not entirely demolished,
as they often were, all the artistic objects they contained
were offered for sale ; furniture, frescoes, woodwork
and stuffs ; then contractors for the breaking up of
buildings bought wholesale at very low prices everything
that still possessed any kind of value ; stones, lead,
ironwork, and decorative motives. It was a veritable
razzia. Rarely has vandalism been carried so far.
The ground floor of the Villa Foscari is at present
occupied by a cartwright's workshop. When I asked
202 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
one of the workmen if I could see the villa, he seemed
surprised at my request, and declared there was nothing
to see ; then, as I insisted, he showed me a little door
and a tumbledown spiral staircase, which now gives
access to the first floor. He did not condescend to
accompany me. What, indeed, could a visitor carry
off, seeing that the rooms are empty ?
Here, even more than in the Rotunda at Vicenza,
or in any of the ruined palaces of Venice, one is struck
with consternation by the impression of sudden, inex-
plicable decay. Standing in the large, cheerful, sunny
rooms, with fine views of the surrounding country, it
is difficult to understand their abandonment. Here and
there on the walls it is possible to distinguish vestiges
of the frescoes with which they were decorated by
Battista Zelotti, perhaps under the direction of Veronese,
as at Maser and Fanzolo. I come upon a simulated
statue of a woman closely akin to one in the Villa
Giacomelli. I look in vain for that Fall of the Titans
which President de Brosses so greatly admired. What
has become of these paintings ? Have they been
removed piecemeal, or simply destroyed by time ?
They have probably been destroyed, since a good many
fragments still exist, and there is no trace in museums
or private collections of the missing portions.
The entrance saloon must have been of noble propor-
tions ; following the plan dear to Palladio, it occupied
the entire depth of the building, extending from the main
front on the Brenta to the fa9ade overlooking the
gardens. The present owner is planning its restoration,
and certain works have in fact been begun ; but the
ravages that will have to be repaired are very great.
Among the other rooms two cabinets only have pre-
served their original decoration in fairly good condition ;
and it is charming. Nowhere did the artists who
HENRI III ON THE BRENTA 203
specialised in stucco and fresco acquire greater skill
than in Venice. They had everything essential to such
work : richness of invention, grace, variety, elegance,
freshness of inspiration, and, above all, exquisite taste.
Their fecundity was almost miraculous. Festoons and
garlands, vine-branches, foliage and flowers, butter-
flies and ribbons run round doors and windows, undulate
along the walls, and enframe alcoves. Putti and Cupids,
charmingly modelled, enliven these motives with their
thousand attitudes, unexpected, but always natural.
Memories of the East and even of the Far East with
which Venice was in constant intercourse add pictur-
esque touches. Sometimes the walls were adorned with
real landscapes. In one of the little cabinets, especially,
there is a perfectly preserved ceiling ; a Fame with out-
spread wings flies surrounded by chubby children,
animals, grotesques and emblems. The general effect
is delightful. Anxious to take back a souvenir of my
visit, I laid my Kodak upside down on the floor in more
or less haphazard fashion, and as sometimes happens in
photography, this picture, perhaps unique, and on which
I had not reckoned, has proved the best I got during my
journey.
The principal entrance was under the colonnade,
which gives so much dignity to the fa9ade. An inscrip-
tion records the visit of Henri III of France, who, on
receiving the news of the death of his brother, Charles
IX, had quitted Cracow surreptitiously, eager to exchange
a foreign crown for that of his fathers. Venice gave him
a magnificent reception ; the chronicles that have come
down to us bear witness to the splendour of the festivi-
ties which took place at the end of July, 1574, and are so
detailed that we can follow the course of these from day
to day, and almost from hour to hour ; this, in fact, lias
been done by M. Pierre de Nolhac and M. Angelo Solerti
204 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
in a very interesting Italian publication. An old
friendship and mutual esteem united the Republic and
the Most Christian Kling. At Venice, as at Vienna, the
French Ambassador followed immediately after the
Pope's Envoy, and the term Amhasciatore, without any
affix, was used to designate the representative of France,
as if there were no other. We can imagine the excite-
ment caused by the arrival of Henri III ; the incident
of his flight from Cracow — -the somewhat ridiculous
circumstances of which were unknown — had invested
him with a kind of halo of courage and audacity. All
classes of society vied with each other in enthusiasm ;
the Ambassador Du Perrier was able to write to the
King as follows : "In truth, Sire, I must tell you that
there is not a man or woman in the town, of whatever
condition they be, who is not anxious to honour you.
Octogenarians and centenarians dread to die before
seeing you." The Senate passed a series of exceptional
measures ; it decided to erect a triumphal arch at* the
Lido, where the King was to land, and commissioned
Palladio to construct it, which he did in less than a
month. Fortunately, two reproductions of the great
architect's work have come down to us ; one in the picture
by Vicentino, which still adorns the HaU of the Four
Doors in the Doge's Palace, the other in an engraving
by Zenone at Padua University ; the latter is of the
highest value, for it enables us to distinguish the details
and inscriptions on the arch. We even find noted on it
the exact spot occupied by the magistrates and digni-
taries of the Republic, on the arrival of the French
Monarch.
Henri left Venice after ten days of festivity. The
royal procession entered the Brenta, and stopped at the
Foscari Palace, where dinner had been prepared. The
last of the Valois admired, we are told, the loggia, the
BANKS OF THE BRENTA 205
double staircase leading up to it, and the shady groves
surrounding the villa. Alas ! those groves have dis-
appeared. The park of the ancient domain has been
transformed into fields and farms. There are neither
gardens nor hornbeam avenues. The palace itself is
now a mere annexe of the adjoining barn. The exterior
of the building alone has remained almost intact. The
high walls, to which the fine colonnade of the fa9ade
gives the aspect of an antique temple, seem to feel shame
that they are still so noble only to shelter work shops
and lofts ; the air of death and melancholy would be
less pronounced, I think, if their lines were half effaced
by moss and vegetation, and not so clearly marked
against the sky ; if their silhouette had become vague
and indefinite, like the inverted image we see in the
turbid waters of the river.
CHAPTER IX
MIRA
After Malcontenta, and almost as far as Mira, the
majority of the villas are in ruins, and merely serve, like
the Foscari palazzo, as agricultural depots. It cannot
cost much nowadays to have a palace on the Brenta !
The gardens still exist round many of the buildings, with
their alleys of tall box-bushes and aged trees of race
species which bear witness to past splendour. On what
were once the lawns — -now ragged grass-plots, or vege-
table patches — 'Stand mutilated statues and columns
surmounted by crumbling vases. Baskets of carved
206 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
fruit, glinting in the sunshine, are perched on tottering
pedestals. Mosses, Virginian creeper and ivy have
annexed the territory and bind the marbles in their
flexible tendrils at will. Old age and solitude, so
disastrous in their action on dwellings, give an appealing
grace to these gardens ; the beginning of their death-
agony is more evident to us than the patina of time, or
the majesty of spreading boughs. We make their
acquaintance at a moment when decay lends them a
supreme attraction. Their dilapidation makes them
doubly dear to us. We gaze at them tenderly as, by
the bedside of one who is about to leave us, we look back
with a bitter satisfaction on the joys we have shared with
him, all the fairer because they are dead for ever.
These banks are peopled with statues. D'Annunzio's
ardent imagination has hardly exaggerated their number
in that page of II Fuoco, where he sees them everywhere,
in the midst of orchards, vines and silvery cabbages,
vegetables and pastures, on dung-hiUs and on heaps of
wine-lees, under stacks of straw and on the thresholds
of cottages, " still white, or gray, or yellow with lichens,
or green with mosses, or stained and speckled, in every
attitude, with every gesture. Goddesses, Heroes, Nymphs,
Seasons, Hours, with their bows, their arrows, their
garlands, their torches, with all the emblems of power,
wealth and pleasure, exiles from fountain, grotto,
labyrinth, arbour and portico, comrades of evergreen,
box and myrtle, protectors of fugitive loves, witnesses
of eternal vows, figures of a dream far older than the
hands that fashioned them and the eyes that rested on
them in the devastated gardens."
What changes a century has wrought ! What irony
there is in the wide avenues where no one walks, in the
festal halls where no one dances. How hospitable is the
sweep of those grand steps and entries ! Pax intrantihvs
VILLA CONTARINI 207
(Peace to all who enter) we still read on a f a9ade as we
approach Mira, where there are a few villas in better
preservation. Two at least among them deserve a
visit, were it only for the memories they evoke.
The jQrst is the villa built for Federigo Contarini,
Procurator of San Marco. It is often called the Palace
of the Lions, because two stone lions guard the entrance,
on either side of the avenue of plane-trees. Henri III
made a second and last halt on the banks of the Brenta
at this point. The inscription which records the event
sums up the unanimous welcome he received in a happy
formula: tota fere Italia comitante. Frescoes by Tiepolo,
now in the Andre Collection, once adorned the reception-
room ; the commission for them had been given to the
painter by the Pisani, the heirs of the Contarini. The
most important commemorates the visit of the King of
France ; but the painter was not deeply concerned with
accuracy in his record. It is evident that he was content
to copy Vicentino's portrait of the Valois ; and it seems
curious that for the background he should not even have
troubled to reproduce the landscape and the palace
from nature. But from the decorative point of view
the work is admirable, and the scene imagined by the
painter is full of dash and gallantry. Henri III ascends
the steps to a terrace, followed by a long train of French
and Polish gentlemen, pages, guards and dwarfs ; the
aged Contarini, robed in a toga and surrounded by sena-
tors and patricians, bows low before the youthful
sovereign.
The other villa at Mira which I wanted to see was the
Ferrigli palace, formerly the property of the Foscarini.
It is not very remarkable in appearance, and no longer
can one even evoke the amorous figure of that
Antonio Foscarini, who is said to have suffered capital
punishment rather than compromise the honour of a
208 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
woman. The law of the Republic punished by death any
citizen who should enter the house of a foreign diplo-
matist by night, and the story goes that one evening the
son of the Doge, surprised in the chamber of a Venetian
lady, had been obliged to leap from the window on to a
neighbouring balcony, which happened to be that of the
Spanish Embassy. It has since been proved that love
had nothing to do with the affair. The condemnation of
Antonio Foscarini for secret negotiations is none the less
painful, for, after the .execution of the sentence, his
innocence was recognised, and solemnly proclaimed by
the Council of Ten.
Though we must abandon this legend, the palace has
authentic memories of Byron, who rented it in 1817 for
his mistress, Marianna, when she was suffering from
fever. It was at Mira, too, that he made the acquain-
tance of a daughter of the people, Margarita Cogni,
whom he christened La Fornarina, And it was to this
same villa that he returned a few weeks later with the
Countess Guiccioli, for whom the doctors had recom-
mended country air. This is the room where he wrote
the admirable Fourth Canto of Childe Harold's Pilgrim-
age. Perhaps these months at Mira were among the
happiest and calmest of his life ! Poor Byron ! His
existence was an alternation of noble desires and vile
realities, of cynicism and tenderness, of enthusiasm and
disgust. Like that vessel of Murano enclosed in a glass
bubble which seems to lack the strength to break the
frail barrier that holds it motionless, the least obstacle
seemed to paralyse his audacious energies. It was
after his most ardent efforts to free himself from the mud
into which he was sinking that he fell most lamentably,
and into excesses unworthy of his genius. I know not
why, but I thought of him the other day, when reading
over the Lettre a Fontanes in which Chateaubriand speaks
MEMORIES OF BYRON 209
of the Tiber, which owes its yellow colour to the rains
that fall in the mountains whence it descends : " Often,'*
he says, " watching its discoloured waters, in the serenest
weather, I thought of a life begun in the midst of
tempest ; it is in vain that the rest of its course is under
a clear sky ; the river will always be stained with the
waters of the storm that troubled it at its source."
Nearly the whole of Byron's life was spent in agitation,
and I can understand the deep impression made on
him by an inscription he read on a tomb in the Certosa
of Ferrara : Implora pace. " Here we have everything,"
he writes in a letter, *' impotence, contrite hope, humility.
... I hope that he who survives me, whoever he may be,
and sees me carried to the foreign corner in the cemetery
of the Lido, will have those words and no others
graven on my stone." Byron's wish was not
granted. He does not slumber on the shores of the
lagoon, by the sea that had so often bathed his beautiful
body. And neither his memory nor his works inspire
that peace he implored. His verses still breathe
heroism. Merely from evoking his memory one day in
Venice, Mickiewicz felt a revival of those noble ardours
which had been for a while dulled by the calm of Weimar,
the counsellor of egotism. No personality is more
exciting than that of Byron. But can we evoke him to-
day on the crowded shores of the Lido, for ever German-
ised and disfigured ? It is on the lonely banks of the
Brenta, on autumn evenings ablaze with blood and gold,
and, above all, in that villa where the phantoms of some
of his loves still linger, that we may encounter the sorrow-
ful shade of the poet of Don Juan.
210 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
CHAPTER X
stbI
From Mira to Str^, the palaces follow one after the
other almost uninterruptedly along the Brenta, which
flows at the foot of their walls, or under the trees of their
parks. The persistent scent of box, at once harsh and
honeyed, floats over the tranquil water. Above the
gateways, statues keep their indifferent watch. And if
decay is less apparent here, there is also a falling off in
picturesqueness. The faults of taste are numerous, both
in the restorations and in the modern buildings that have
been stuck on to the old ones. A few of the villas still
belong to the descendants of old families of the Republic ;
but a great many have passed into the hands of the rich
traders of Venice, or Padua. Both, however, have
renounced the luxury of former days ; the nobles who
turn out of their palaces on the Grand Canal to let them
to foreigners, and the merchants who are piling up
fortunes alike live quietly and try to turn the adjacent
lands to account.
Very soon after passing Dolo and the red walls of the
Villa Barbariga, we see the dense thickets and the lofty
silhouette of the palace of Stra, the most modem, the
most important and the best preserved of all those which
were raised upon these shores. It was built for the
Pisani, who wanted a splendid dwelling which should
attest their wealth. As they could not procure sufficient
space in Venice, they had it built on the site of their
country-house at Str^. They appUed to Frigimelica,
who had restored their palace on the Grand Canal,
but his plans were modified by Francesco Maria Preti,
PALACE OF THE PISANI 211
who directed the works. The building was completed
in 1735, just when Alvise Pisani was elected Doge.
The size and splendour of Stra made it a fit abode for
sovereigns only. In 1807, Napoleon I bought it for
nearly a million francs for Eugene de Beauhamais,
Viceroy of Italy. At the fall of the French Empire
it became the property of the Austrian Hapsburgs,
who often inhabited it, and kept it up carefully. The
Empress Maria-Anna was especially fond of it, as was
also the unfortunate Maximilian, the young blue-eyed
Archduke, to whom Napoleon III wanted to give
Venetia at Villafranca, and whose life ended so tragi-
cally in Mexico. In the long inscription on a marble
tablet at the entrance of the vestibule, which gives the
history of the villa in detail, I notice how skilfully the
memories of from 1815 to 1865 have been veiled in a
vague formula ; ahitata da sovrani e da principi.^
And yet this half- century was the most brilliant
period of Strk. After the reunion of Venetia to the
Kingdom of Italy, Vittorio Emanuele II spent very
little time there. To-day the palace, stripped of some
of its works of art, and of its furniture, which was
taken to Monza, is merely an expensive national monu-
ment, of which the Italian Government has often
tried to dispose. But, fortunately, a clause in the sale
contract forbids the cutting up of the estate. In spite
of the absurd price at which it has been offered (less
than 200,000 francs, I have been told) Str^ still belongs
to the State. Strange that this princely dwelling has
not tempted some American millionaire with a taste for
historic memories !
A vast ill-kept meadow lies in front of the palace and
shows up the imposing fa9ade. We feel that Alvise
Pisani had brought back a taste for sumptuous buildings
^ Inhabited by sovereigns and princes.
p 2
212 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
from his embassy to the Court of France. The spectator
cannot but recall Versailles in the presence of such an
accumulation of colonnades, pilasters and caryatides.
The whole is somewhat composite as architecture, but
powerful in effect ; the ampUtude of the lines masks
the heterogeneous style very skilfully. The solemnity of
the entrance harmonises with the majesty of the
fa9ade. The immense vestibule extends to the further
end of the palace, intersected by the massive columns
which support the ball-room. There is consequently
no room of any interest on the ground floor. In
short, this huge building has only a single storey.
But this is perfectly arranged. The place is remarkably
simple. In the centre is the reception-room, and the
two inner courts which light it from the sides ; all
around is a wide corridor into which open the rooms that
are lighted from without on the four sides of the palace ;
I do not know the exact number of these, but there are
over a hundred. Seeing them is rather a wearisome
business, as the visitor is shepherded by a custodian — •
amusing enough for the first quarter of an hour — who
is still awe-struck at the thought of all the crowned heads
who have sojourned here. He points out, with great
respect, the billiard-table on which the sovereigns of
three countries played. The bed in which Napoleon
slept is the object of his special veneration. On the
other hand, the worthy fellow is less deferential in the
rooms that sheltered the secret amours of II Be Galan-
tuomo, or of Maria Luisa Teresa of Parma, the old
Queen of Spain, and mistress of Godoy. There are few
works of art, and I saw only one really interesting room,
that in which the Council of Ten used to meet in the
time of Alvise Pisani. The walls are decorated with
marble medallions representing the members of the
Doge's family and his suite. The place of honour was
CEILING BY TIEPOLO 213
given to a very fine bust of a woman, Pisani's nurse ;
this old peasant's head is admirably realistic with its
strongly marked features and the high cheek bones under
the wrinkled skin.
The central saloon is one of the most magnificent I
have ever seen. The ceiling is irradiated by a Tiepolo,
the date of which is fixed by a letter of December, 1761.
In it the artist speaks of finishing " the great hall of the
Pisani palace " before setting out for Spain. The work
was therefore one of the last executed by Tiepolo in
Italy, at the very zenith of his powers. Commissioned
to glorify the most illustrious of the Pisani, the artist
has painted them surrounded by the attributes of Peace
and Abundance. Venice, in the guise of a queen wearing
a battlemented crown and holding a sceptre surmounted
by a cross, advances towards them. Above hovers the
Virgin in a circle formed by Faith, Hope, Wisdom and
Charity. In the centre of the ceiling a Fame, audaciously
foreshortened, flies through the free spaces of the air.
I was unable to make out the exact significance of the
other figures. But the general effect is prodigious, and,
in the words of Signor Molmenti, " it is one of the happiest
visions of art that ever enchanted the senses."
Nature alone can charm the eye after such radiance as
this, and the park is worthy of the villa. Here, again,
there are echoes of Versailles. A long central avenue
with lawns and ornamental waters leads to the former
stables, an imposing building, almost a palace, now
allocated to an institute of hydrology. On every side
alleys branch off in various directions, leading either to a
gate, an archway, or a belvedere ; and each of these is
remarkable for its architectural decoration. Under
the trees, too, there are innumerable statues, porticoes,
vases and pavilions. Here, as in the fields around the
Brenta, all the gods and goddesses of mythology are
214 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
represented. A little more simplicity would be a relief ;
there is a certain bad taste in all this decorative luxuri-
ance. In thickets of box and hornbeam a labjrrinth
circles in bewildering curves round a little tower sur-
mounted by the figure of a warrior. I pushed open the
rusty gate between two pilasters supporting Cupids astride
dolphins which gives access to it. And it amused me
to wander in the treacherous alleys which d'Annunzio
made the scene of Stelio d' Effrena's cruel pranks.
CHAPTER XI
MONSELICE
After leaving the villages of Str^ and Ponte di
Brenta, where we cross the muddy river, we enter the
rich Paduan plain. The road is shaded by a double
row of plane-trees, the russet leaves of which bum in the
sunshine. Scented vapours float in the light air.
Virginian creeper, heavy clusters of wisteria, and red
roses hang over the walls. Never have I felt the poignant
sweetness of autumn more keenly, and Le Cardonnel's
verses rise to my lips :—
Dans sa limpidity la lumidre d'octobre
S'^pandant de I'azur, emplit I'air all%6 ;
EUe baigne d'un or harmonieux at sobre
Les champs oil Ton a vendang6.^
The environs of Padua are delightful. " If we did
not know," said the Emperor Constantine Palseologus,
^ The limpid light of October, spreading from the azure, fills
the clear air, and floods the fields where the grapes have been
gathered with sober, hannonious gold.
ENVIRONS OF PADUA 215
" that the earthly Paradise was in Asia, I should believe
that it must have been in the territory of Padua." I
am struck more especially by the change in the aspect
of everything only a few leagues from Venice. Climate,
landscape, sky and inhabitants are all quite different.
The light, above all, is of another quality. It is not full
of colour and vapour as on the lagoon, but vivid and
piercing. Forms stand out in strong relief. The lines
of the Euganean Hills, so soft and blurred as seen from
Venice, are so precise and definite here that they almost
hurt the eyes. And merely walking along this road
enables me to realise why the vision of the Paduan
painters differs so essentially from that of the Venetians
with whom they were long classed. The School of
Padua is far more akin to that of Florence, whence,
indeed, came the two great masters of the 14th
and 15th centuries whose influence was to be so
decisive here. Giotto and Donatello did not feel them-
selves strangers on the banks of the Bacchiglione, and
they were at once understood and imitated. Nothing
could be more alien to the art of Titian than the somewhat
hard dry manner of Squar clone and Mantegna.
On leaving Padua, the Ferrara road runs parallel with
the BattagUa canal. To the left is a vast plain, formerly
marshy, but now drained and watered by an elaborate
system of canals, a veritable garden of riotous fertility,
where the roads disappear under verdure. To the right
are the Euganean Hills, a little volcanic chain rising
abruptly from the plain, and quite independent both of
the spurs of the Veronese Alps and of the Apennines.
Their extinct craters are fantastically shaped, but
always harmonious, as Chateaubriand, who deUghted in
this region, has noted. '*This road to MonseUce," he
says, " is charming : hills most graceful in outline,
orchards of fig and mulberry, and willows festooned with
216 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
vines . . . The Euganean Mountains shone golden in the
setting sun with an agreeable variety of forms and great
purity of lines ; one of these hills is like the chief pyramid
of Sakkarah, when it stands out against the Libyan
horizon at sunset." He is fired by the thought that he
is passing through one of the places of the earth, richest
in poets and men of letters. He quotes Livy, Virgil,
Catullus, Ariosto, Tasso, Petrarch and others pell-mell.
As a fact, I can think of but two literary incidents which
are truly local : the birth of Livy at Abano, and the
death of Petrarch in the little village of Arqua.
The whole country is rich in thermal springs. The
Euganean craters no longer pour out lava ; but the
waters that flow so abundantly from the trachyte bear
witness to the continued activity of subterranean
fires. The meadows are intersected by streams of hot
water that give off heavy vapours. One of the amuse-
ments of those who come to take the waters is to boil
eggs in the springs where the temperature of the water
is very high. The springs of Abano, moreover, boast of
an almost fabulous past, for Hercules is said to have
rested here from his labours, whence the origin of Abano,
a place of rest, otTrovo?. Here too Cornelius had the
prophetic vision which enabled him to predict the victory
of Pharsalia. What is at least certain is that in the 4th
century Claudian wrote an enthusiastic and pompous
eulogy of the baths.
After Battaglia, embowered in verdure, the road again
skirts the hills dominated by Monte Verda, which is over
1,800 feet high ; and very soon we are at MonseUce.
The town lies between the canal, the Rocca rising steeply
above, and the old battlemented walls still in fair
preservation here and there. It looks so constricted
the spectator feels he might almost grasp it in his hand
as S. Barbara grasps her tower. It is a little old town
LA ROCCA 217
which was of some importance before the Roman domina-
tion ; relics of the Stone Age have been discovered here,
and many flint objects have been found at La Rocca,
whence the name : Mons Silicis. On this precipitous
rock there are still vestiges of the fortifications raised
by Ezzelino, the famous tyrant of Padua. The view of
the hill is most picturesque, especially when one comes on
it by the Padua road. A line of cypresses towers sky-
ward, barring the horizon, and a single parasol pine
among them has an extraordinary value against the deep
blue of the atmosphere. At Monselice there are several
churches, a mediaeval castle with red ivy-clad walls, and
above all, on the flank of the Rocca, a famous shrine
consisting of seven chapels. The general effect of the
constructions with their terraces, flights of steps, and
trees, is very curious. The chapels are said to have been
designed by Scamozzi, and decorated by Palma the
Younger ; unfortunately, the dilapidation of the paint-
ings makes it impossible to form an opinion. Moreover,
I did not come here in search of artistic impressions. On
this fine autumn afternoon I prefer to climb up to the
wood which crowns the hill. The delicate foliage of the
pines filters the rays of the sinking sun, and between the
resinous trunks there are views in every direction. To
the north, behind the thickets of BattagHa and Abano,
the towers and domes of Padua are outlined ; to the south,
the great valleys of the Po and the Adige, striped with
a multitude of roads and canals, faint into the vapour
that rises from the damp earth. To the west the eye
takes in a portion of the Euganean Hills, studded with
villages, " rosy as the shells one finds by myriads on their
soil," to quote d'Annunzio. To the east the Venetian
plain stretches away as far as Chioggia, which is visible
Jn clear weather.
218 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
CHAPTER XII
ESTE
Fra I'Adige e la Brenta a pie' de' colli
ch'al troiano Antenor piacqiiero tanto
con le stilfuree vene e rivi molli,
con lieti solchi e prati ameni accanto. . . .1
Thus did Ariosto sing the happy position of Este, at
the foot of the last of the Euganean HiUs, between the
Adige and the Brenta. Why is this city, which seems
to keep something of the glory of its past greatness, so
neglected by travellers ? The Guides scarcely mention
it, and Burckhardt would not go out of his way to see
its art-treasures. Almost on the road between Padua
and Ferrara, tourists pass it by, although it offers them
some noble memories, a most attractive aspect, a few
good pictures, and a collection of antiquities perfectly
arranged in a very modern museum. Older than Rome,
it claims to have been founded by Ateste after the taking
of Troy, the while his comrade Antenor was founding
Padua. One of its historians declares it to be so ancient
and so famous that it need envy no other city in the
world. He exaggerates ; but we must admit that in
the Roman period it had an importance due to the artistic
wealth hidden beneath its soil, and that in more modern
times it was the cradle of one of the most illustrious
^ Between the Adige and the Brenta at the foot of those hills
which delighted the Trojan Antenor with their veias of sulphur
and gentle slopes; with joyous furrow and pleasant meadows
beside them.
HOUSE OF ESTE 219
families of Italy, whose blood still flows in the veins
of the royal houses of England and Austria-Hungary.
The Estes reached the summit of their glory in the 13th
century, in the person of the terrible Obizzo, the tyrant
whom Dante shows us strangled by his own son :
Ch' e biondo
e Obizzo da Esti, il qual per vero
fu spenta dal figliastro su nel mondo.^
Although it has long declined from its former state,
Este has retained its grand air. Its avenues are wide
and well kept, and bordered by arcaded houses nearly all
differing in arrangement and decoration. Its central
square has a dignified appearance with its palaces, the
town-hall, the law-courts, and the state pawn-shop. In
the centre there is a taU flagstaff supported by four
lions in the Venetian manner. Gates flanked by turrets
command the entrances to the town. At the end of the
streets the horizon is shut off, here by the green slopes of
sunny hills, studded with villas, gardens, vineyards and
oHve-yards, there by the walls of the castle built in the
14th century by Ubertino of Carrara. Few ruins are
more evocative than these fragmentary structures of
red brick overgrown with ivy. Stacks of straw lean
against the old towers on which in spring-time the almond-
trees drop a litter of rosy petals. Flowers grow in the
cracks of the masonry, adding their poetry to the melan-
choly of things ; an exiled poppy or a rose-bush against
a rampart is often lovelier than a skilfully arranged
flower-bed.
The basilica of Santa Tecla stands close beside the
castle. Its origin is lost in the mists of antiquity,
and the history of its Chapter is one of the most glorious
1 . . . that fair one is Obizzo of Este, he who was destroyed
by his evil step -son in the world above.
220 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
of Italian chronicles. The present building dates only
from the 18th century ; that which preceded it was
destroyed by an earthquake on a certain Palm Sunday
at the very moment, says tradition, when the priest was
reading the Gospel words ; terra mota est. It seems that
the church and its clergy still enjoy special honours and
privileges ; but to me, its chief title to glory is the Tiepolo
in the choir, where it was placed in 1757, and has
remained to this day. It is one of the painter's master-
pieces, and, perhaps, his best picture in oils. With the
splendours of the ceihng at Stra fresh in my mind, I
cannot but admire once more the variety of the marvel-
lous decorator. Just as the fresco is brilliant and lumi-
nous, so here the canvas has the gray, subdued tonality
suitable to the subject : S. Thecla delivering Este
from the plague. This large canvas — about 21 feet by
12 feet — suggests certain modern works in its dramatic
intensity. Against the background of clouds which
lower ominously over the stricken city, the saint stands
out in vigorous relief. God appears in the sky and drives
away the demon of Plague, a boldly foreshortened
apparition. In the foreground, among a group of
the dying, a weeping child clasps the body of his expiring
mother. Behind, Este appears with its towers and the
two pointed mountains which close the horizon so
picturesquely. Here, again, I agree with Signor
Molmenti's opinion : " Everything is admirable in this
composition : the grandeur of the design, the wonderful
effect of relief, the variety of the attitudes, the expression
of the faces, and the science of the foreshortening."
Not far from the ruins of the Castle and the church, on
the hill against which Este leans, is the villa B3rron took
in 1817, and lent the following year to his friend Shelley.
An inscription records the double memory : Giorgio,
Lord Byron, nel 1817 e 1818 dimord in questa villa ;
SHELLEY AT ESTE 221
ehhe hosjnte Shelley e qui scriveva spaziando per la natura
e il castello con ala immen^a di fantasia?-
The view is most beautiful, and I can understand how
it must have enchanted romantic eyes. " Behind us,"
writes Shelley in a letter, " are the Euganean Hills . . .
At the end of our garden is an extensive Gothic castle,
now the habitation of owls and bats. . . . We see before
us the wide flat plain of Lombardy, in which we see the
sun and moon rise and set, and the evening star, and
all the golden magnificence of autumnal clouds. . . .'*
I, too, wandered dreaming in these gardens, where the
passionate hearts of those young Englishmen once
throbbed. The light is failing, and I have not seen
Cima's Madonna, nor the fine Medusa in the Museum.
But what of that ! It was here that Shelley wrote the
Lines loritten in the Euganean Hills. The panorama
is unchanged, save that the railway now cuts across the
plain. But the outline of the old walls is the same, and
already the bats are beginning their blundering flight.
This is the hour dear to lovers, the twilight hour when
hand seeks hand. Ah ! let us drink in its sweetness
a little longer ! Before descending to the town, let us
watch the golden splendour of the autumn clouds
dying on the horizon, as on so many bygone evenings.
^ George, Lord Byron, lived in this villa in 1817 and 1818;
here Shelley was his guest, and here he wrote, with vast flights of
imagination, wandering between the castle and nature.
222 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
CHAPTER XIII
ARQUl
If I had not long been accustomed to Italian vetturini,
I should never have embarked at Este in the strange
landau which must have come out of the museum of
antiquities. I know, of course, that these gaunt horses,
which seem already tired before they start, end by
covering considerable distances ; but really, to-day,
my driver carries his system rather too far. We fall
into a walk when the ground rises, of course ; then,
again, when it is level, to let the horse get his wind ; and,
thirdly, when it descends, that he may not slip. But
I accept all this with a good grace. In the first place,
I know that the road is bad, and cut out of the rock in
rather primitive fashion. And then, the day promises to
be so fine, the air is so pure and luminous, the sun so
pleasant that I am in no sort of hurry to arrive. Once
more I am rejoicing in those ItaHan hours when, free
from care, and far frotn the too frequented roads, I am
able to taste the delight of life. Everylihing is smiling
around me, the fertile country, the golden vines, the
people at the farm-doors, the children playing in the
ditches. And dipping into a local guide-book, I read a
page of Luigi Cornaro, who, as long ago as the 15th
century, celebrated the joy of this district which he
called the land deW allegrezza e del riso (of joy and
laughter).
At Baone the road makes a great dUour and offers
a splendid view of Este ; then at the intersection of the
MonseUce road, it turns sharply towards the north
and makes for Arqu^, the houses of which now become
ROAD TO ARQUA 223
visible. An old belfry stands out against the sky in a
nest of verdure. Above rises the amphitheatre of the
Euganean Hills, now rounded like the balloon-like Vosges,
now pointed and regular as pyramids. Certain truncated
cones recalling the mountains of Auvergne, explain the
comparison which came naturally to M. Pierre de
Nolhac's mind when he made this same pilgrimage :—
Ma Liinagne courbe des lignes
Pareilles sur ses horizons ;
Les collines sont moins^insignes,
Mais elle y mele aussi les vignes
Et les profondes frondaisons . . J
Strange and mighty magic of Italy, whose hold on
our beauty-loving souls is so strong that we deUght to
discover some of its aspects in the comers of France
dearest to us !
Before reaching Arqu^ we cross a marshy plain,
no doubt the bed of a dried up lake. White oxen, yoked
in six, eight and even ten pairs, as I saw them in the
neighbourhood of Ferrara, are ploughing a rich soil,
which turns over in clods of intense black under the
ploughshare, making a violent contrast with the light
green of the willows that fringe the road. Then the
blue mountains draw nearer. The road rises in a sunny
circus, where luxuriant vines mingle with figs and olives.
In the gardens laurels, magnoUas, camellias and pome-
granates grow strongly and vigorously in the open air.
At the foot of Monte Ventolone, which protects them
against the cold winds, the hills open out in the shape of
a bow ; perhaps this is the origin of the name Arquli.
The rise is so steep that I get out of the carriage, just by
^ My Limagne curves in lines like these on its horizons ; the
hills are less notable, but vines and dense foliage mingle there
as here.
224 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
the fountain Petrarch caused to be built, as the inscrip-
tion tells us :
Fonti Numen adest ; lymphas, pius hospes, adora
Unde bibens cecinit digna Petrarcha Deo.^
The village on the hill-top does not possess a spring,
and even to-day depends upon this one fountain. The
peasant-women come to draw water in buckets of every
shape which they carry hanging from the two ends of a
long curved branch, after the ancient custom which
still prevails nearly everywhere in Italy.
I must confess that I was not unmoved on entering the
poet's village ; but I did not expect to be with him so
quickly. A few paces brought me to the tomb in which,
six years after his death, he was laid by his son-in-law,
Francesco di Brossano. How impressive is this space
in front of the poor flat facade of the church, with the
simple sarcophagus of red marble resting on four
columns ! From the edge of the terrace the view extends
over the houses of the village and the landscape. From
a garden below the level of the square two huge cypresses
shoot aloft to watch, silent and motionless, over the tomb.
Below the bronze bust, which was let into the stone in the
16th century, there is an epitaph which states that this
tomb contains the bones of Petrarch. However, they
are not complete, for on May 27th, 1630, a Dominican
of Portogruaro broke off an angle of the tomb, and
succeeded in abstracting an arm. Was it in order to
present it to Florence, as has been said ? Perhaps, for
it is quite certain that all Italy envied the glory of
Arqua. Boccaccio praised the viUage for having pre-
served the bones of the illustrious old man, and blamed
Florence who had been unable to retain her son. *' As
1 The Spirit is present at the fountain. O pious guest ! adore
the waters whence drinking, Petrarch sang songs worthy of God.
PETRARCH'S HOUSE 225
a Florentine I envy Arqu^, which, hitherto obscure, will
become famous among the nations. The sailor returning
from distant shores will gaze with emotion at the
Euganean Hills, and will say to his companions : ' At
the foot of those hills Petrarch is sleeping.' "
Did it possess this tomb only, Arqu^ would indeed
be immortal. But it jealously guards another relic,
the house where Laura's lover spent his last years.
The road to this is very steep ; it cannot have changed
much since the day when the glorious coffin was borne
down in the midst of the kneeling people between these
same walls and over these same stones.
In front of the house is a little garden, modern unfortu-
nately, for it does not appear in the engravings of last
century ; but there must have been one like it in the
time of Petrarch. He loved his trees and flowers
almost as much as his books, which is saying a good deal
when we remember what a bibliophile he was. He was
one of the first to appreciate natural scenery, and his
surname, Silvanus, indicates his tastes. He compiled
a very elaborate journal of gardening. One of his
letters is headed : " From the shade of a chestnut-tree."
In his old age his taste for the country increased, as is
often the case ; towards the end of life we draw nearer
to the earth, as if to make a friend of that which will
soon receive us. The splendour of noisy cities no longer
charms eyes that are about to close ; there is nothing so
pleasant to the old as the warmth and radiance of
sunshine. This is what Byron expresses in the fine
verses of Childe Harold in which he evokes Petrarch :
*' If from society we learn to live, 'tis solitude should
teach us how to die." In several of his last letters, the
poet speaks of his garden, and notably of the tree that
was so dear to him, the laurel with whose leaves he had
been crowned in the Capitol, and whose name was
Q
226 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
associated with that of his unforgotten love. Symbol
of love and glory — that glory which was even more to
him than love — to the end he sang the charm
Del dolce lauro e sua vista fiorita.^
Tradition says that all the laurels were killed by frost
in the course of the hard winter after Petrarch's death ;
those in his garden cannot have escaped. And yet it is
not impossible that the one which is still growing against
the wall of the house may be a distant off-shoot of those
he planted. This thought makes me hesitate a moment
before taking the spray a hand holds out to me ... .
O poet, I have no claim to it save my pious admiration
of thee ! But T know thou wouldst not blame an impulse
dictated by love.
A narrow staircase leads to a little loggia upheld by
three columns. Everything is on a small scale in the
garden and the house, as was necessary for the old man
who was in constant need of a support within reach of
his hand. The lover of solitude had not hesitated between
the palace offered to him by the city of Venice in exchange
for the gift of his books, and the quiet retreat among the
Euganean Hills proposed by Francesco da Carrara,
" Oh 1 "he wrote to a friend at Parma, '* I am sure that
were you to see my new Helicon you would never want
to leave it." The house, which is very simple, has a
vestibule into which the different rooms open ; nearly
all of them have balconies whence there are views
either of the terraced hUls sheltering each other from the
winds, or, across the roofs of the village, of the wide
plain of Battaglia.
The house in which a great writer has lived always
appeals to our sensibilities, especially when it is in a
village, or, better stiU, in the midst of fields. This is
^ Of the sweet laurel and its flowery aspect.
PETRARCH'S CAT 227
because nature does not change, and that after many
centuries wo find the same mountains and the same
rivers, very often the same forests and the same meadows.
On the other hand, a very few years suffice to change the
appearance of a town ; and even when the house of the
poet is intact, all around it may be modified. We cannot
recall the aspect and atmosphere of the Florence in
which Dante lived. But in this little village of Arqua,
nothing has stirred. Things have remained so essenti-
ally the same that, thinking of him, I cannot look at
them without emotion. From this loggia, I see what
Petrarch used to see. In its precision and intimacy,
after a lapse of more than six centuries, it is one of the
most moving of literary souvenirs. I can so readily
imagine the poet contemplating the village and the vine-
clad hillsides, and exchanging courteous greetings with
the passing peasants, who could only dimly understand
how this bent, white-haired old man, so like other old
men, could be at once so simple and so glorious. How
pathetic is this house in which he spent his last days,
while Death was coming to meet him ! But it is a pity
that its guardians have not preserved it intact, or even
empty, instead of filling it with a number of incongruous
accessories. The bare walls would have been so infinitely
more thrilling than the indifferent frescoes of hooded
Petrarchs and flower-crowned Lauras. I do not know
whether the armchair and the cupboard belonged to the
poet. The only well attested relic— 0 irony of fate ! —
is the mummy of his cat, which is exhibited in a niche,
behind glass. The exhibition is as doubtful in taste as
the verses of a certain Quarengo written below, which
I transcribe as a curiosity. The cat is supposed to speak :
" The Tuscan poet burned with a double flame ; I was
his greatest, Laura his second love. Why do you laugh ?
If Laura was worthy of him by her divine beauty, so
Q 2
228 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
was I by my fidelity. If she excited his poetic genius,
it was owing to my vigils that his writings did not become
the prey of the terrible rodents. Living, I kept the rats
away ; dead, I still frighten them, and in my inanimate
body my ancient fidelity survives." Would it ndt
have been more appropriate to have inscribed the
famous and beautiful sonnet written by Alfieri on the
occasion of a visit to Arqua :
O cameretta, che gi^ in te chiudesti
Quel grande, alia cui fama angnsto d il mondo ;
Quel si gentil d'amor mastro profondo
Per cui Laura ebbe in terra onor celesti.^
The collection of old registers signed by visitors is
interesting. I looked for the name of Byron, which
appears twice, in 1817 and 1821. I forget in which of
his works it is that he scoffs at Petrarch as an " old
dotard," and " lachrymose metaphysician." One of
his impulsive and passionate temperament had, of
course, little sympathy for fidelity in love, and, no
doubt, preferred husbands of the type of Guiccioli to
Laura's spouse. However, this was probably a mere
flippant sally, for which the noble verses in Ghilde Harold
make ample amends. I did not find in these entries the
name of Stendhal, who tells us that he spent four days
at Arqua and who must certainly have visited the house
of the poet, though he does not mention it. Yet he
did not lack time to note his impressions, for he wrote
here a long dissertation upon the difference in the con-
ception of happiness as understood by Italians and by
Frenchmen. Perhaps he agreed with Chateaubriand,
who rallied those who seek to prolong their memory by
1 O little room which formerly enclosed that great man, for
whose fame the world is all too narrow ; that gracious one, the
profound master of love, through whom Laura enjoyed celestial
honours while still on earth.
DEATH OF PETRARCH 229
attaching a souvenir of their passage to famous places.
One day, when the author of the Mimoires d'outre
Tomhe was trying to read a name he thought he recog-
nised on the walls of Hadrian's villa, a bird flew out of
a tuft of ivy and shook down a few drops of rain :
the name had disappeared.
The only place in the house which has been scrupulously
respected is the little library adjoining his bedroom,
to which Petrarch loved to retreat. There he was alone
and quiet. He escaped from the importunate, from
visitors, from all who interrupted his work. " Reading
writing, and meditating are still," he says, '* as in my
youth, my life and my delight. I am only surprised that
after so much labour, I know so little." He feels that
the hours are doubly precious and urge him on. " I
hasten. I can sleep when I am under the earth."
Going to rest very early, like the peasants of Arqu^,
he rose before them, in the middle of the night, lighted
the little lamp hanging above his desk, and worked till
dawn. It was thus his servants found him one July
morning bending over a book. As they had often seen
him in this attitude, they paid no particular attention.
Petrarch had died in the night. M. Pierre de Nolhac
believes that he discovered the very manuscript on
which the poet's trembling hand ceased to write, in a
reference to Cicero's works. He supposes that Petrarch
made an effort to go and verify the reference and that
he fainted as he sat down again. I prefer the older
version, according to which his head had fallen inert on
the pages of his beloved Virgil. True, Cicero and Virgil
were almost equally the objects of his worship, and to
the end of his life he offered them a joint homage :
Questi son gli occhi della lingua nostra.^
1 These are the eyes of our tongue.
230 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
But he reserved his greatest tenderness for the poet. He
had sought for memories of him at Mantua. Virgil's
works were always with him, even when he was travel-
ling. All bibliophiles know the manuscript on vellum,
annotated by him, which is the glory of the Ambrosiana
Library, and was for a time the pride of the BibUo-
theque Nationale under Napoleon I. I like to think
that this was the volume he took up to distract himself
for a moment from liis erudite labours. He read a few
verses of the poet who was born on the other side of the
Euganean Hills ; he heard the larks sending up their
joyous greeting to the new day ; and he went out gently
with the night, as a lamp without oil goes out in the
freshness of morning. Thus the last breath of Laura's
poet would have been breathed on the verses of the swan
of Mantua. And if it be true that those in whom the
pure flame of poetry has burned gather together in the
sacred wood of the Muses, he who had already guided
Dante in his immortal journey must have received
Petrarch on the threshold of the temple of Apollo, and
invited him to sit by his side, under the recovered shade
of unfading laurel.
TITIAtN'S ** annunciation " 231
CHAPTER XIV
TREVISO
Treviso is situated on the Sile, and in the centre of
the town itself receives a little stream, the Botteniga,
formerly called the Cagnan, as is recorded in a verse of
the ParadisOf where Dante indicates Treviso as
, . . Dove Sile e Cagnan s'accompagna.^
The two rivers divide into numerous arms which feed
a series of canals and ditches. Many gardens overhang
the waters with verdure ; certain vistas recall comers
of Venice and even of Bruges.
I have been to Treviso so often that this year, untram-
melled by the need to learn and to know, I can give
myself up to the pleasures of a return to familiar scenes,
and the mere delight of the eye. How often I have
sauntered beneath the arcades of its tortuous streets,
in its Piazza dei Signori surrounded by battlemented
palaces, and above all, along the ancient ramparts, now
transformed into wide promenades shaded by enormous
trees, whence there is such a fine view of the snowy Alps
in early spring. How pleasant it is to hear once more the
lisping, supple, liquid Venetian dialect ; it was of this
Byron must have been thinking rather than of Italian
in general, when, in his little poem Beppo he praises that
tongue, " which melts like kisses from a female mouth,
and sounds as if it should be writ on satin."
Treviso is justly proud of a few good pictures, notably
^ Where Sile and Cagnan join company.
232 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
the Annunciation by Titian. It was ordered by Canon
Malchiostro for his chapel in the Cathedral, and still
hangs there in its original splendid columned frame.
It is not, indeed, equal to the Annunciation of the
Scuola di San Rocco, painted eight years later ; but it
has a kind of joyous ardour which has always charmed
me. The youthful Virgin, dressed in a red gown and
a magnificent dark blue mantle, kneels in a reverential
attitude ; she is one of the simplest and noblest figures
Titian ever painted. The Angel has none of the senti-
mentality given him by certain painters ; he seems to
have arrived in breathless flight, and the stormy sky
behind him is full of great white clouds irradiated by
rays of fire. There are some frescoes by Pordenone in
this same Malchiostro Chapel which are not at all to my
taste ; the artist was never more declamatory, I think,
than when he tried to imitate the Michelangelo of the
Sistine Chapel ; I recall a man T\'hose enormous muscles
have a deplorable effect in the foreground of the Adora-
tion of the Magi, and in the dome, an interlacement of
arms and legs which suggests a wrestling match rather
than a religious scene. In the little Museum, the poverty
of which is accentuated by the pompous title of
Pinacoteca, there is nothing remarkable but a good
portrait by Lotto, who, according to the latest experts,
was not born at Treviso, but in Venice. It represents
a Dominican monk, a Prior or Bursar ; his keys are in
front of him and some pieces of money ; he is about to
make up an account, and raising his head, he seems to
be trying to remember some forgotten item. Lotto's
manner is very evident in the serious, melancholy face.
I must confess that I have never succeeded in dis-
tinguishing the innumerable local painters, Dario da
Treviso, Pier Maria Pennacchi, Girolamo da Treviso,
Girolamo Pennacchi, Vincenzo da Treviso, etc. Only
PARIS BORDONE 233
a connoisseur would be able to differentiate amongst so
many kindred names and almost identical works. But I
looked again with pleasure at two little pictures by
Girolamo da Treviso in the gallery leading to the
Malchiostro Chapel, and I remember that one year,
when I had come from Brescia, their silvery tones
reminded me of Moretto.
Though one of the two most famous of Trevisan
painters, Rocco Marconi, is not to be seen at all in his
native town, the other, Paris Bordone, is represented by
a masterpiece, the Adoration of the Shepherds, in the
Cathedral. Although it has been damaged by restora-
tions, and is badly lighted and imperfectly displayed in a
rectangular frame which is ill adapted to the oval of the
upper part of the picture, we are still able to appreciate
the glowing colour and the skilful grouping of the figures.
It is one of the finest achievements of this unequal
painter, who imitated all the Venetian masters in turn,
and had a great reputation in his day. " I do not think, ' '
wrote Aretino in a letter to him, " that Raphael ever gave
his divine figures a more angelic expression, so much
grace, spirit and novelty [vaghezza, aria e novitade)."
Aretino, it is true, was never remarkable for moderation
either in praise or blame, and it is not only the critics
of to-day who sometimes overwhelm artists with exag-
gerated eulogy ; but this may explain why Titian
disliked this pupil, who was putting himself forward as
a rival. Time has allotted his due place to each. Paris
Bordone would hardly be remembered were he not
the author of A Fisherman restoring the ring of St. Mark
to the Doge, the charming anecdotic page of local history
which Burckhardt considers the best ceremonial picture
ever painted. Paris Bordone was an excellent artist
of the second rank among that pleiad of painters which
shone almost simultaneously in the sky of the Republic.
234 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
CHAPTER XV
CASTELFEANCO
Of all the cities of the rich Venetian plain I know none
more picturesque than the two neighbours and sometime
rivals, Cittadella and Castelfranco. Still enclosed in
their mediaeval walls, they are like stone baskets draped
with ivy and filled with flowers : in spring wisteria, in
June the perfumed tassels of the acacia, and again in
autumn the late flowering wisterias.
The Italians have preserved the exquisite Renaissance
sense of beauty, and, save for a few faults of taste,
nearly all very recent, they have instinctively applied
it to their cities. Their adaptation of the castelli,
citadels, wells and moats of their decadent towns has
always been most happy from the decorative point of
view. I have already often noted the skilful use they
have made of those ancient structures which could not
hold out against modern artillery for an hour. Instead
of demoUshing and levelling a'& we have too often done in
France, they respected the useless ramparts and trans-
formed them into splendid shady promenades, whence the
eye may range unwearied over prospects and horizons.
Here they have done better still. They left the fortified
enceinte of the 12th and I3th centuries untouched, and,
at the foot of the walls and on the verges of the moat,
they planned gardens, planted trees, and sowed grass
and flowers, so that the two Uttle towns have now a
triple girdle of stone, of verdure and of water. They
are like those mummies swathed in bandages which still
retain their living form after thousands of years.
A visit to Castelfranco is to me typical of one of those
GIORGIONE'S "MADONNA" 285
full and joyous Italian days when, in exquisite surround-
ings and undisturbed by intruders, one may contem-
plate a masterpiece at one's ease. There is nothing to
disturb my wanderings under the plane-trees that are
mirrored in the Musone, where the tall water-plants
writhe like serpents. It is true that the Castle and the
12th century waUs are partly in ruins ; but a thick
drapery of ivy, moss and Virginian creeper covers them
as with a richly coloured mantle. The bricks show
different tints in the changeful light, from pale pink to
the dark red of clotted blood. The flowers that star
the verdure add to the romantic air of these ruins. I
know a corner where the grass plots are planted with Olea
fragrans, whose incense fills the air when the clouds are
fringed with purple and gold at sunset.
The gate under the square tower before which a draw-
bridge was once in use still gives access to the old town.
One passes under a low dark porch dominated by the lion
of S. Mark and a few steps brings one to the little square
at the end of which is the Cathedral containing one of the
most beautiful, if not the mostJ;beautiful of all Giorgiones,
and, in any case, the most fully authenticated. My
first sight of it many years ago late in the afternoon when
the descending sun shed a soft radiance on the canvas,
gave me one of the strongest aesthetic emotions of my
life. And each time I return, the feeling is almost as
violent. Is this due to the composition, so curious in
its geometrical precision ? Or to the three figures that
hold themselves erect in rigid serenity 1 Or to the
exquisite landscape ? Or to the harmonious splendour
of the colour ? I know not. But a poetry at once tender
and severe breathes from the picture and moves me
deeply. The Virgin, draped in a blue robe and an ample
red mantle, is seated on a massive throne at the top of
the canvas, as if to carry our eyes upwards to her, and
236 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
from her to God. S. Francis and S. Liberale stand at
her feet. The former may have been inspired by a
figure of Bellini's, but the San Liberale is entirely
original in conception and execution ; I know nothing
but Mantegna's S. George at all comparable to it. The
warrior wears a suit of burnished steel armour and a
helmet ; with an air of martial gallantry he holds a tall
standard with a white cross on a red ground, like the
lance of a French dragoon. Stationed on either side of
the throne, the two Saints form with the Virgin an almost
perfect triangle ; the three figures confront the spectator
and bear no relation to each other. I have too often found
fault with this cold symmetry in the works of artists
such as Perugino to be able to approve it here ; but, as
a fact, the general effect is so majestic that it is easy to
overlook the somewhat childish awkwardness of such
an arrangement. The Virgin above all is unforgettable.
To me there is no other so beautiful. There is a tradi-
tion that, on the occasion of an ancient restoration, an
appeal to the model written by Giorgione's own hand
was found on the back of the canvas :
Cara Cecilia
Vieni; t'affretta;
II tuo t'aspetta
Giorgio.^
We must forgive Cecilia her unpunctuaUty, if it was she
who enabled the painter to trace the immortal features
of his Virgin. But Giorgione must have idealised her,
unlike most of his contemporaries who were content
merely to reproduce the beautiful women of street or
countryside for their Madonnas and Saints. He gave
her an expression of lofty nobiUty, and under his brush
the humble maiden of Castelfranco became one of the
most perfect creations of Italian art.
^ Dear Cecilia come, hasten. Giorgio is waiting for thee.
INFLUENCE OF GIORGIONE 237
After several days spent in studying the painters of
this Venetian School, one is able to appreciate the
importance of the revolution effected by Giorgione.
True, the Bellini had already broken with mediaeval
methods to some extent ; nevertheless, they remained
masters of the 15th century by their artistic education,
their choice of subject, and their somewhat dry precision.
They felt vaguely that there were other horizons ; but
for the discovery of these what was needed was a more
spontaneous genius, an initiator, a kind of Fire-bearer, as
d'Annunzio calls Giorgione in pages where he shows
him less as a man than as a myth. " No poet's destiny
on earth was comparable to his. We know nothing of
him ; some have even gone so far as to deny his existence.
His name is written on no authentic work. And yet
all Venetian art was fired by his revelation ; it was from
him that Titian learned to infuse warm blood into the
veins of his creatures. Indeed, what Giorgione repre-
sents in art is an Epiphany of Fire. He deserves the
title of Fire-bearer no less than Prometheus." This
analogy of fire seems to suggest itself naturally to the
pens of those who write of him. " Lo spirito di Bellini,"
declares Venturi, " ma scaldato da un' anima di fuoco." ^
And when Italians speak of the Giorgionesque fire,
they mean not only that warmth of colour characteristic
of him, but also that spiritual flame, that poetry which
burns and devours. This explains the fascination of
Giorgione for the poets of all times and all countries,
a fascination due not only to the mystery of his life and
death, but to his work itself. It was a copy of the
Concert ChampUre which Musset bought on credit, in
the face of his housekeeper's objections, telling her that
she could lay his place at table opposite the picture, and
cut down the meal by one dish daily.
* *' The spirit of Bellini, but warmed by a soul of fire."
238 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
Another of Giorgione's merits is that he definitely
directed Venetian painting towards landscape. Of
course, he was still far from the modern conception, by
which the artist paints Nature for itself, seeking only
to render the impression he receives from it ; but he
was equally remote from the antique conception. For
centuries no one had dreamt of rebelling against the rule
formulated by Plato in his Critias : " If an artist has
to paint the earth, mountains, rivers, a forest, or the
sky ... he need only represent them in a fairly credible
manner ... a vague, illusory sketch will satisfy us."
Was not this, indeed, the theory of Botticelli, who main-
tained that one had only to throw a sponge soaked in
colours against a wall in order to obtain an effect com-
parable to that of the finest landscapes ? I know of
certain ultra-modern schools which seem to be inspired by
the same principles. But, fundamentally, we must see in
Plato's pronouncement as in Botticelli's gibe the thesis
that the artist must confine himself to the study of man,
and the portrayal of the complexities of the soul. Even
in the works of Botticelli — as in those of most Tuscan
and Umbrian painters — there are charming landscapes
which were obtained not with " a sponge soaked in
colours," but with a very skilful and precise brush ;
but they are mainly imaginary, and are quite indifferent
to truth ; they serve merely to fill in the background
of the picture. The Venetians, on the other hand,
sought to paint real landscapes ; as Stendhal has very
justly pointed out : " The Venetian School seems to have
been born merely from the attentive contemplation of
the effects of Nature, and the almost mechanical and
instinctive imitation of the pictures with which it delights
our eyes." More than any of his colleagues, Giorgione
had the soul of the landscape-painter, and was deeply
interested in the problems of light and of chiaroscuro.
GIORGIONE'S *' DAPHNE" 239
We know from a letter of Isabella d'Este's that he had
painted a night-scene which the princess wished to
possess. True, he never copied a tree, a hill, or a stream
in the same manner as the Dutchmen, or some of our
modern painters ; he sought inspiration from his native
land for the scenes in which he placed the action of his
pictures, and idealised it, as he idealised Cecilia. Thus
he transports us to a land which is at once Venetia and
the Elysian Fields, a sort of fatherland of the ideal,
as Yriarte says : "a lovely dream-world which belongs
only to poets, painters, musicians, inspired artists, to
those whose brows Heaven has marked with a divine
ray, and which it has given to man to lull his pain and
charm his hasty passage on earth."
■H- -X- -K- -x- ^
It is this fusion of the real and the ideal that delights
me in the Giorgione of the Patriarchal Seminary at
Venice, where I have come to spend my last afternoon.
The Daphne pursued by Apollo is a little picture on wood
which was formerly the panel of a marriage-chest.
Figures and landscapes combine in a suave harmony,
a warm red tonality throws Daphne's creamy carnations
and white tunic into strong relief. It is the gem of this
tiny museum, a haunt of peace, although it adjoins the
port of San Marco. I love its delicious little garden,
crowded with trees and flowers. Pines raise their
delicate foliage against the blue sky. Tall cypresses,
magnolias with polished leaves, clumps of oleanders, ivy
and wisteria climbing ever3rwhere, on the balustrades,
on the stair-rails, on the trunks of the trees, form a
regular entanglement of verdure. Above the walls
one sees the turrets of the Salute, and on the side towards
the port, the gently swaying masts of vessels. Like
the invisible music of the old palaces on the Grand
Canal, where the performers played concealed behind
240 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
the hangings, the occasional noises of the town arrive
here so precise and yet so muffled that they seem at
once very distant and very near. Here there are none
of those hurrying tourists who spoil the most beautiful
things. And how well this scene harmonises with my
melancholy ! To-morrow I shall be far away. " I
must go, alas ! " wrote Gebhart on leaving Athens. " I
am about to turn over another page of my youth, and
to turn my back on the East. If it should be for the last
time . . . ! " But what is the use of analysing anew
the laments bom of the sadness of farewells ? At the
close of these Italian hours I should be ungrateful were
I to forget that not one of them leaves me a memory of
anything but happiness. They might all be marked
by the old Venetian sundial on which I read long ago,
during my first visit : Horas non numero nisi serenas
(I only count the sunny hours).
PART V
TYROL, FRIULI, AND NEW ITALY
R
CHAPTER I
THE DOLOMITES
I HAD such -pleasant memories of Bolzano as I had seen
it each time I had entered Italy from the Brenner Pass,
that this year I determined to spend a few days there
and enter Venetia by way of the Dolomites, and the
Italian Tyrol. Bolzano has all the Latin grace. It
smiles amidst sunshine and flowers. On the slopes of
its hills, figs and pomegranates ripen at the foot of black
cypresses and evergreen laurels. The rich and fertile
country, the luxuriant vines, the houses, the farms, some
of which have gaily painted f a9ades, the open air markets,
the booths, the faces, the flexible patois, which recalls
the lisping Venetian dialect, and, above all, the blue
vault of a sky at once profound and ethereal, all proclaim
the joy of life. The descent into Italy on the Italian
slopes is always intoxicating, and I love the hospitable
air of the little towns that present themselves after,
and occasionally before, one crosses the frontier, spots
where Alpine dignity has met and mingled with Southern
sweetness. There can be nothing more exquisite than
this first easy contact which announces the approach of
the fair enchantresses of the South, and never is this
sense of warm well-being more pleasurable than after a
sojourn in Switzerland, or Bavaria. To leave Lausanne,
Lucerne, or Munich on a dull, damp morning, to pass
through landscapes grandiose but lacking colour, then
gradually to see the sky becoming bluer and brighter,
«43 H 2
244 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
the sun piercing the clouds and spreading in golden pools
over the festal country, to feel one's numbed limbs
relax and one's eyes open more widely to the light —
these are the most perfect physical joys I know, and I
understand the exaltation of all those who experience
them. Sweet Italy, I, for one, will never ridicule thy
lovers, even when passion carries them away, for how
often I have longed to clasp thee as Paolo clasped
Francesca :
la bocca mi baci6, tutto tremante . . .^
On the contrary, their extravagance delights me. I was
charmed the other day when reading the elder Dumas'
Voyage en Suisse to find him becoming almost incoherent
as soon as he felt the first breath of Lombard air in the
Simplon Pass, and saw the flat-roofed white houses
warming themselves in the sun like swans. His romanti-
cism brims over as he salutes Italy, the ancient Queen,
the eternal coquette, the Armida of all the ages, who
sends her women and her flowers to greet you. " Instead
of the goitrous peasants of the Valais one meets at every
step beautiful vintagers with pale skins, velvety eyes
and soft, swift speech. The sky is pure, the air warm,
and one recognises, as Plutarch says, the land beloved
of the gods, the holy land, the happy land which neither
barbarian invasion nor civil disorder has been able to
rob of the gifts bestowed on it by Heaven." In con-
nection with Bolzano I have already spoken of Goethe's
enthusiasm, which to some has seemed rather childish.
In the quiet atmosphere of a study the calm of Montaigne,
who, on his way from Augsburg to Venice, declared that
Bolzano, *' a town about the size of Liboume, is an
unpleasant place," and praised only the wine and the
bread, may seem more natural. But on this day of
* And kissed me on the mouth, all tremulous. . . .
DOLOMITES ROAD 245
late summer, when I had left Munich in rain and cold,
I was inclined, like the poet, to salute the very dust of
the sunlit landscape. With what joy I greeted the valley
of the Adige with its barriers of red porphyry, and smiling
Bolzano, whose horizon is closed by the bright walls of
the Rosengarten, its mountain with the flowery name !
At Bolzano the new road of the Dolomites, opened to
motor traffic some ten years ago, begins. There is no
mountain road to be compared with it. There are others
more remarkable, it is true, for their altitude and their
views of snow-capped peaks and glaciers, although this
climbs three peaks over 6,000 feet high ; but none can
surpass it in magnificence and picturesqueness. The
majestic landscapes it traverses change and vary inces-
santly. There is none of that obsession which, in the
presence of Mont Blanc, the Meije, or the Jungfrau
produces that sense of suffocation which many are
unable to bear. At each turn, at each loop, peaks arise
with their fantastic rocks, clear-cut against the deep
blue sky. They suggest the strange battlements of
I know not what bombarded and dismantled citadel,
and ruined towers shattered by shells. Their yellow and
red calcareous walls, combining with the white of the
snow, the blue of the sky, the green of the meadows and
pine-trees, produce the most amazing colour-contrasts.
No Alpine region can give any idea of these purious
heights ; the only thing I know at all comparable to
Dolomite crests, on a smaller scale and in a grayer aspect,
is the almost unknown amphitheatre of Archiane, in
the Diois Mountains. Their special charm is the addi-
tion of sunshine and colour to the grandeur of lofty
mountain scenery. It would take long months to become
familiar with the varied and prodigious effects of light
produced among these peaks by dawn, noon, twilight
,and moonlight ; and to witness one of those storms
246 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
which are said to be unimaginable in their splendour.
Lightnings flash almost continuously on the rocks, the
iron ore in which attracts the electricity ; the innumer-
able peaks form so many turrets provided with lightning
conductors. Sometimes great round clouds are driven
by the south winds against these walls saturated with
fluid, and explode into incessant sparks ; seen from
below they look like huge Japanese lanterns, enormous
globes constantly illuminated by internal lights. The
sunsets, more especially, have a splendour unknown
elsewhere and not to be rendered by pen or brush ; the
water-colours of Jeanes, who lived several years in the
district, are the only pictures which succeed in suggesting
this incandescence of the peaks, this Alpenglut in all its
magnificence. It sometimes happens that by an unex-
plained phenomenon, certain summits become suddenly
luminous an hour or two after sunset, and take on a crim-
son glow like molten steel ; the effect of these mountains
flaming out suddenly in the darkness is extraordinary.
This road through the Dolomites, which is closed in the
winter months and the strategic importance of which the
Austrians tried to mask by a show of Alpine climbing,
is a marvel of audacity both in conception and execution.
Nowhere, indeed, are travelling facilities better under-
stood and better organised than in Tyrol ; the character
of the country has nearly always been respected ; there
are few hotels on mountain peaks, funicular railways,
waterfalls skilfully kept up, or grottoes artificially
lighted. In one day, powerful motor-cars do the ninety
miles that divide Bolzano from Cortina. They take
the mountains by assault, climbing the interminable
loops without a pause, rushing past forests, meadows,
bridges and scattered villages, punctuating the vast
silence with their panting breath, and halting on the
summits, exhausted but proud of having overcome all
ASCENT OF FALZAREGO 247
obstacles. It really seems as if they felt like us the
intoxication of speed ; a sort of communicative emotion
makes us regulate the very pulsations of our hearts by
their movement.
The larger cars which cannot yet pass by the Karersee
descend the valley of the Adige as far as the Auer,
skirt the Latemar and rejoin the direct road from
Bolzano to Cortina at Vigo di Fassa. After Canazei,
which is dominated by sharp peaks like giants' fingers
stretched threateningly heavenward, a series of loops,
in the midst of pine-woods and pasture-lands, climb the
Val Fassa between the enormous rocks of the Sella and
the cloven sides of the Marmolata, placed like a sovereign
in the centre of the chain it dominates. A tiny lake,
intensely blue, is so well situated in a frame-work of
pines and rocks that it looks as if it had been expressly
designed to complete the picture. After the peak of
Pordoi is crossed, the road runs down rapidly towards
Arabba, in the green valley of the nascent Cordevole.
It is an idyllic comer where the meadows in spring are
sprinkled with lilies, coloured primroses, orchis and
rampion — a vast, gaily-coloured carpet. Now, at the
end of August, the grass is already brown and the
autumn crocuses, the last flowers of the year, open their
pale pink calices. The horizon is bounded by the
Tofana, towards which the car rushes forward with a
renewal of effort. This ascent of Falzarego at full speed
is one of the grandest and most poignant experiences
imaginable. Nature becomes savage ; the loops in the
road run over masses of fallen rock with astonishing
audacity, and sometimes through tunnels. You cross
the summit between the jagged rocks of the Croce da
Lago and the Cinque Torri which seem indeed to be the
ruins of an ancient feudal enceinte. Then comes the
giddy rushing descent. A cry of admiration escapes
248 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
one's lips : suddenly, at a bend of the road, the whole
valley of Ampezzo is revealed, that marvellous amphi-
theatre where, in the golden light of declining day,
Cortina is enshrined, Cortina the unrivalled, the gem of
the Tyrol, set in the emerald of its fields and encircled
by the rubies and topazes of its rocks.
Is it not one of the greatest joys of travel to come upon
places which are at once so dear to us that we long to
remain and spend the rest of our lives in them ? These
are not always the most beautiful, and I know some mag-
nificent spots which dazzle the eyes without touching
the heart. Others, more reticent in their charm, attract
us as if mysterious bonds were linking us to them.
But there are some especially favoured, at once splendid
and appealing, which win us so quickly that at a first
glance we feel tears in our eyes, and stretch out our arms
instinctively as if to draw them to our breast.
In spite of all I had heard of Cortina, I did not expect
to find it so lovely. No sight could be more superb than
the sunset view from the Crepa, a sort of rocky headland
thrusting out above the circus of Ampezzo. From this
moderate eminence the valley is seen in its entirety,
without that reduction of the landscape to a kind of
relief map which occurs from many famous points of
"view. Cortina lies at the bottom of a green goblet
filled with the perfume of its mjrriad-blossomed meadows.
The sturdy mass of La Tofana, the long chain of the
Pomagagnon dominated by Monte Cristallo, the Sorapiss,
the Rochetta and the Cinque Torri encircle it on every
side. Above the forests that cover their feet, the bare,
jagged walls rise into the limpid atmosphere, taking on a
greater intensity of light and colour as the shadow creeps
over the valley. The light clouds driven towards them
by the south wind (the sea-breeze, as it is called in the
district) are caught between the sharp points, like
VALLEYS OF THE BOITE 249
stiands of hair between the teeth of a yellow tortoise-
sheil comb. Gradually the reds and golds become
stronger. The rocks seem to be on fire. The impres-
sion is strange, unique. I understand why d'Annunzio
when he wanted to suggest the illumination which occa-
sionally lights up a face, " till it surpasses reality and
stands out against the sky of destiny itself," could find
no more vivid simile than the glow on these Dolomites,
"when their crests alone are ablaze in the twilight,
graven upon the gloom."
But for the sudden freshness of the evening air as
soon as the sun has disappeared, it would be difficult
to realise that one is in the mountains, and one might
suppose the atmosphere to be that of a plateau of the
Apermines. The blue is as deep as above the Tuscan^
valleys ; when a cloud passes across it, it is so suffused
with light that it looks more buoyant and transparent
than a soap-bubble. The whole of this region is, more-
over, Italian geographically and ethnographically. The
valleys of the Boite and its affluents are in fact merely
a canton of Cadore. Whereas on the other side of the
peaks that bound the valley of Ampezzo the names have
all the German harshness (Schluderbach, Toblach,
Diirrenstein, etc.), here the names of towns, rivers, and
mountains sing in the softest language of the world,
the only one where every word ends in a vowel. The
race, the costume, the affable manners no less than the
speech reveal an evident community of origin. But
after belonging to Venice, which gave it the title of
Magnifica Comunita, it became Austrian in . 1518,
by virtue of the treaty between the Most Serene Republic
and the Emperor Maximilian. In 1866, when Venetia
was restored to Italy, the Val d'Ampezzo was detached
from Cadore and remained under Hapsburg domination.
One spot, however, in the region has always been left
r
250 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
to the Southern rival : this is Misurina, whose musical
name is as harmonious as the shores of its little lake.
The road which leads to it from Cortina is one of the
most enchanting imaginable ; a writer has called it the
passeggio romantico del Cadore (the romantic promenade
of Cadore). It ascends along the Bigontina, now under
the feathery foliage of larches, now through flower-
enamelled meadows. Here and there, the air is sweet
with the scent of new-mown hay. From the top of the
Tre Croci, at the very foot of the pale rocks of the
Cristallo, we overlook the whole amphitheatre of Am-
pezzo, like a vast green scaUop-shell covered with forests,
meadows, cultivated fields and scattered houses. Then
we go down into a fresh valley, where the grass is studded
with tall blue gentians, and almost immediately we see
the wide opening at the end of which the lake is sparkling
in the sun. The scene is at once grandiose and gay.
Above the water, greenly transparent as a fine emerald,
woods and meadows, terraced on the hill-sides, form a
first dark girdle, behind which rise some of the finest
of the Dolomites : Cadini, the spurs of CristaUo, the
imposing rocks of the Tre Cimi di Lavaredo, sharply
cut as geometrical figures, Cyclopean pjrramids, built
by giants, and lofty Sorapiss stretching out its mighty
snow-draped flanks.
The lake is slumbering peacefully in the radiance of
dying day. We are alone upon these banks which the
approach of autumn has already left to solitude. There
is not a ripple on the water ; when we lean over it, it
sends back our moving figures set against the eternal
background of peaks and forests reflected in its depths.
But why has civilisation intruded, to tarnish this mirror
by building two huge hotels, so riotous in the season,
so melancholy when their factitious life has been
extinguished by the first touch of winter in the air ?
CHAPTER II
FEOM CORTINA TO PIEVE DI CADORE
Because we have seen the birth of the automobile,
and almost that of railways, we imagine that we are the
inventors of travel. Nothing could be falser. The
desire to see unknown countries existed in antiquity.
Seneca, struck by this innate love of change in man,
explains it by the divine essence within us, for, says he,
" the nature of heavenly things is to be always in motion."
Impelled by duty or necessity, by neurasthenia or
snobbery — only the words are modem — by the love
of pleasure, or the thirst for information, the ancients
moved about a great deal, and Socrates, who never left
Athens, because " he loved learning, and the trees and
fields could teach him nothing," must have been an
exception. In the Middle Ages and during the Renais-
sance the longing for new horizons developed steadily.
And never was the delight of going from town to town
more keenly felt. To-day, even when we leave the rail-
way for a motor-car, we do not come into real contact
with the country. It is in a leisurely carriage, travel-
ling a few leagues in a day, or, better still, with staff
in hand, that one learns to know a land. It was the
tourists of bygone centuries who tasted the pure joys
of travel. Happy were the days described by Ruskin
when one could pass slowly along the highways between
woods and meadows, stopping to gather a flower at will ;
when one could note the gradual changes of soil, trees,
light, sky and faces ; when one submitted quietly to
those natural conditions which, by distributing life in
vaUeys and on mountains, give character to landscape
and fashion its very soul.
251
252 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
Just as the easiest pleasures are not the highest,
so the most comfortable journeys are not the most
delightful. It is impossible to appreciate the charm
of a region without transitions. A preparation, an
initiation and a certain contemplative calm are necessary.
In former times distance, difficulties and expectation
invested the longed-for goal with mystery. Every day
the traveller became worthier of the emotions he was
going so far to experience. And I cannot believe that
Italy can ever be so enchanting to us as to those artists
of the past, who set off for it without means, but full
of inspiration, stopping at Dijon, Lyons, or Avignon to
earn the money necessary for the continuation of the
journey, and gradually approaching the promised land
with a fervour all the greater for their delays and
sufferings.
Let us for once do as they did, and take the eighteen
miles between Cortina and Pieve on foot. We shall
hardly* find a more favourable opportunity. The day
has risen fresh and luminous ; the road, which follows
the course of the Boite, is shady and full of variety.
What a primitive joy it is to walk thus in the early morn-
ing, now along meadows so smoothly green that they
lie like a velvet cloak on the soil, now in the middle
of forests where larch and pine alternate. The inhabi-
tants live out of doors, on the roads ; we feel they are
rejoicing in the warm sunshine before the rigours of
winter come upon them. The fruit-trees begin. Fields
of clover and lucerne gleam rosily in the light. Houses
and villages are more frequent. And yet we are still
among lofty mountains, over 3,000 feet above the plain.
The contrast between this valley and the stern mountains
that surround it is exquisite. Who could be insensible
to its seduction ? I remember how a few months
before his death, Courajod loved to express his admira-
BATTLE OF CADORE 253
tion for these regions. " Love and delight in this incom-
parable landscape, which that pedant Winckelmann
could not appreciate. One of my greatest grievances
against him and his sectarian band is his depreciation
of Tyrol and the frontiers of Italy."
The road, especially at San Vito and Venas, where it
is constricted by the spurs of the Pelmo and the Antelao,
runs through narrow defiles rich in heroic memories.
All this Cadore region was admirable in its proud
independence. Its unity of language, custom and senti-
ment made it at all times a little Alpine republic. It was
at first attached to the Patriarchate of Aquileia. When
the latter submitted to Venice, the Republic summoned
Cadore to do likewise. Interest and sympathy alike
impelled the Cadorians to acquiesce, but first they in-
sisted on being absolved from their oath of fealty by the
Patriarch himself ; after which they made certain con-
ditions which were all accepted by Venice. It was
then they gave themselves up to Venice with cries of
Eamus ad bonos Venetos (Let us go to the good
Venetians). For four centuries they lived governed
by their own laws, under the protection of the lion of
S. Mark ; and this had no more valiant defenders than
they, as was seen in the famous Battle of Cadore, when
the burghers of Pieve, aided by the peasants, surprised
and routed Maximilian's Reiters. This was the battle
Titian painted for the Doge's Palace ; unfortunately
the work was destroyed in a fire ; we know it only by
the fragmentary sketch in the Uffizi, and by Giulio
Fontana's engraving. Later, in the middle of last
century, during the wars of independence, the little
towns of Cadore, true sentinels of the fatherland,
struggled with the same ardour. The representatives
of all the communes assembled in the old town-hall of
Pieve and, like their forefathers, proclaimed their
254 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
devotion to Venice : Votiamoci a San Marco (we
vow ourselves to S. Mark), It was this heroism and this
glorious past that Carducci sang in the splendid hymn
he composed to the glory of Cadore, on the shores of
Misurina, a veritable war-song in which there is, as it
were, a roar of savage hatred against the barbarians of the
North :
Nati su Fossa nostra, ferite, figliuoli, ferite
sopra reterno barbaro :
da nevai che di sangue tingemmo crosciate, macigni,
valanghe, stritolatelo ! ^
But to-day, on this radiant morning, sunshine and per-
fume incline us rather to reverie than to battle. After
lunching in an inn at Borca, we set off again under a
sun which makes our next stage rather more strenuous.
As we descend, the road, bordered with houses, becomes
like a long village street. Peasant women pass on their
way to the fountain, their copper pails shining at the
ends of a long bow which they carry gracefully on their
shoulders. At the turn of Tai, we see the houses of
Pieve perched on the height ; we leave the road which
continues on the right, to Belluno ; and after a short
climb we enter the town of Titian.
* Bom upon otir bones, strike, sons, strike the eternal barbarian ;
from the snows which we dyed with our blood rain down rooks,
avalanches, grind him to pieces !
CHAPTER in
PIEVE DI CADOEE
It is strange that a spot so picturesque and interesting
should be so neglected by tourists as is Pieve di Cadore.
It is barely mentioned by Baedeker, and the majority
of travellers avoid it, and at Tai set their faces towards
Venice, fascinated by its vicinity. True, the inn is not
first-rate and there are no artistic treasures ; but few
of the smaller Italian towns are more charmingly
situated. Pieve is built on a kind of slope with green
mamelons gay with gardens, in the midst of lawns
and woods. There is not a street, not a road which does
not mount and descend, twist and turn. The one little
square is aslope and awry ; it was only just possible to
find a tiny plateau for the statue of Titian on the level
of the town-hall, which is itself all awry in relation to
the buildings that surround the square. These have
retained their original simple fa9ades. Pieve is unspoilt
by modernism. In certain coiiiers of Italy there are
still to be found spots which have been imdisturbed
since the 15th century, and whose inhabitants, as M.
Paul Bourget says, have an instinct for duration and
preservation which the execrable mania for being up-to-
date will not easily destroy.
Slightly below .the square, on the Piazzetta dell'
Arsenale is the house where the greatest and most
famous of Venetian painters was bom. No surround-
ings could have been better adapted to train and charm
the eye of him who was to be the first of landscape-
painters, and the unrivalled master of colour. Built
on heights which rise pyramidally from the hollow of a
valley surrounded on all sides by hills and peaks, Pieve
255
256 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
commands an incomparable variety of panoramas,
where planes succeed each other in every direction, and
at every distance. The play of light and shade changes
every moment ; the eye learns freely and easily to
seize all its variations. How Titian must have longed
for these mountains, these forests, these restful meadows
so grateful to the tired eye, each hot July, when the
canals of Venice were breathing out their miasmas and
sulphureous odours ! Like the prisoner spoken of by
Milton, who escaped one summer morning and noticed
in the country a thousand lovely things he had never
remarked before, he felt a childlike joy when, leaving his
house, he struck into the path of the hill which overlooks
the amphitheatre of Pieve and is crowned by the ancient
citadel, the guardian of Cadore. From the roads that run
round it, there is a series of glimpses of the valleys below
the town which, as far as the eye can reach, are seen
stretching away between lofty green walls ; the most
important is that of the Piave, the silvery track of which
may be followed a very long way. Numerous villages
are dotted like coral beads along the white ribbon of the
roads which lead to Cortina, Belluno, or Auronzo.
All the slopes are hung with woods and meadows. The
country is not divided into fields of various crops ; it
is like a great park which a rich owner has laid out, or,
rather, which he has kept intact as Nature made it.
Behind the first slopes the mountains rise, climbing one
above the other. And towards the North, dominating
all, stand the dolomite peaks of the Marmarole Chain :
Le Marmorole care al Vecellio.^
as Carducci calls them, a gigantic barrier of 9,000 feet
which protects Pieve from cold winds.
From the windows of his house Titian could' see these
^ The Marmarole dear to Vecellio.
STATUE OF TITIAN 257
Marmarole mountains. Above the roof of the villages
and the first wooded heights, their sharp ridges stand
out against the luminous sky. He saw them clothed
with pale opalescent tints at dawn, and in the evening
flaming through the gathering dusk. But it was not
only these jagged peaks that haunted his imagination.
All the Cadorine landscape lives again in his works. If
we were to study them carefully from this point of view
we could see that he has reproduced nearly every aspect
of the scene : the pointed rocks where a few meagre
pines have found foothold, the smiling, flower-starred
meadows, the dark woods, the villages on the heights
or along the Piave, and, above all, the hardy, muscular
types of beauty proper to mountaineers and woodmen.
The peasants I encounter in the streets have not changed
since he painted them ; they move, as it were, in the
eternal, following a secular rhythm. They have the
powerful heads and thick beards of his Apostles. At the
inn, a notable of the town, who is having a discussion
with one of his farmers, has the noble features, the wide
forehead, the harsh hair and the keen eyes which
Titian gave to himself in his own portraits at Florence
and in Berlin. Ah ! how true a son he is of that race,
which, on the road from Venice to Augsburg, unites the
vigour of the North with the subtlety of the South ;
how true a son of that country\ where the keen air and
habits of toil and sobriety ensure robust health. He
is a typical son of Cadore, and his compatriots have a
right to honour him. On the humble house which was
the birthplace of him " who by his art prepared his
country for independence," they have placed a memorial
tablet, and in the little square they have given him a
sober monument in excellent taste — one of the best
modern statues I have seen — with this simple inscrip-
tion : "To Titian, from Cadore."
S
258 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
The district is not rich in the master's works ; the
Holy Family in the church of Pieve is the only picture
that can be plausibly ascribed to him. Local tradition
identifies several of the figures with members of his
family ; the Madonna is said to be Lavinia, whose face
and form are known to us from other works ; tlie S.
Joseph is supposed to be his father ; the Bishop his son
Pomponio and the clerk Titian himself ; on this last
point there can be no doubt ; it is obviously a portrait
of the master closely akin to that in the Madrid Gallery.
Crowe and Cavalcaselle think his son Orazio was pro-
bably the painter of this Holy Family. It is quite
possible, for it is a mediocre work as a whole. But it
seems a pity to destroy the tradition. And after all,
what does it matter ? I did not come to Pieve to study
Titian's pictures, but to see his native place, the land-
scape where his eyes were opened to the beauty of the
world, and where his artist soul awoke. It was here he
lived in the woods and fields which are, for those who
understand them, the best school of truth and simplicity.
Nature has always taught love of sincerity, hatred of
the artificial, the recondite, the affected, and here I
evoke, not the illustrious portrait-painter of crowned
heads, but him who was one of the first to love and paint
Nature with all the faith and ardour of the peasant.
No artist before him studied mountains and their
various aspects. I do not say that he was a painter
of mountains, or that he painted these for their own
sakes ; but no artist of his day contemplated them more
lovingly, or derived more picturesque motives from them.
True, in certain Quattrocento pictures, the horizon is
bounded by heights, and in the works of the Florentine
masters we often recognise the o\itline of the Tuscan
hills. The Venetians, who put landscapes in nearly
all their works, were inspired by the scenery most f ami-
MOUNTAINS IN ANTIQUITY 259
liar to them, and reproduced the mountain-slopes that
fringe the Trevisan plain, or the silhouette of the Friulian
Mountains. In several of the canvases of Leonardo
da Vinci, who never forgot the Dolomite Peaks, we
recognise their craggy outlines as a background. But
by all these masters, mountains are used merely as a
decorative line.
In this connection it is interesting to note how tardy
was the awakening of artists and writers to the beauty
of mountains. For a very long time, the only emotions
inspired by Alpine and Apennine heights were distaste
and terror. To the Latins the most perfect of panoramas
was the cultivated plain. Lucretius knew no pleasure
comparable to that of " lying beside a running stream,
under the shade of a lofty tree," and Virgil loved nothing
so much as " cultivated fields and the rivers that flow
through valleys." The Alps were only crossed as a
matter of necessity after a vow to Jupiter pro itu et
reditu (for going and returning) and Claudian compares
the sight of glaciers to that of the Gorgon, so great was
his alarm thereat. The lofty summits were looked upon
as the dread abodes of storm and inundation ; legend
made them the homes of the maleficent gods. I can
recall but two exceptions ; the Emperor Hadrian, one
of the most fervent of Nature-worshippers — as he showed
by his construction of his villa at Tivoh — who climbed
Mount Casius to see a sunrise, and Lucilius the Younger,
that first-century poet who wrote a poem upon Etna.
He was probably the only Latin writer who was sur-
prised at the indifference of his contemporaries to natural
spectacles ; he could not understand why they should
exert themselves to go and see pictures and statues,
and yet should not deign to take a journey in order
to contemplate the works of Nature, " who is a much
greater artist than man." This almost superstitious
8 2
260 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
feeling about mountains persisted through the Middle
Ages. It is very curious to read Petrarch's account to
Cardinal Giovanni Colonna of his ascent of Mont Ven-
toux. He hesitated for a long time before undertaking
it, and only made up his mind after seeing in Livy that
King Philip went up Hemus. An old shepherd adjured
him to turn back, predicting all sorts of misfortunes . . .
He continued his ascent, but on reaching the top, his
fear and agitation were so great that he was obliged to
sit down. He opened the Confessions of S. Augustine,
and lighted upon this passage, which alarmed him, and
seemed to him to have been chosen by God Himself :
" Men go to admire lofty mountains, and the sea raging
afar off, and foaming torrents, and they forget them-
selves in this contemplation." Until the 18th century
and Jean Jacques Rousseau, no one was concerned with
the beauty of Alpine scenery, and the whole group of
Mont Blanc was designated vaguely as glaciers. Not
before Calame and Ruskin do we find an artist and a
writer who truly and passionately felt and loved the
mountains. It is evident that they are ill-adapted to
painting ; they lack uncertainty, infinity ; they have
too many precise details which arrest the eye ; they
limit vision and reverie. Their colours, too, are crude
and uniform. But here we must make exception of the
Dolomites, so various in outline, so luminous, so richly
and diversely coloured at every hour of the day, so
transparent at times ; along their smooth vertical walls
the eye and the mind mount easily to the azure.
Among the Venetian painters who were nearly all
natives of the mainland and often of the districts among
the first spurs of the Alps, Titian was the most Northern.
He was born on the confines of Tyrol in a lofty and very
uneven country. An English writer, Mr. Gilbert,
declares that while exploring Cadore, he identified all
DEATH OF PETER MARTYR 261
the mountains in Titian's works. I think this is an
exaggerated claim ; but there is no doubt that in his
drawings and pictures we shall find, if not exact repro-
ductions, at least many reminiscences and more or less
faithful adaptations of the scenery he loved. Not
long ago, looking at the portrait of Dona Isabella of
Portugal in the Prado at Madrid, I recognised the
panorama of Pieve, with its green hill in the foreground
and its background of jagged peaks. In the Presenta-
tion of the Virgin of the Accademia at Venice, the
mountain that rises behind the group of participants is
a fairly exact rendering of a part of the Marmarole
Chain as Titian saw it from his window. No other painter
of the period has left studies of landscape made on the
spot. Titian loved heights, the precision and majesty
their outlines give to a composition, their boldness, the
rich colour of their rocks. Whenever the subject
allowed of it, he introduced the familiar aspects of his
native place and associated them with his work, notably
in the famous Death of Peter Martyr, which I know only
from Cigoli's copy in the Church of SS. Giovanni and
Paolo, substituted for the original after its destruction
by fire in 1867. Vasari considered it the painter's
masterpiece, and the Republic of Venice forbade its
sale under pain of death. Constable, the great English
landscape painter, also expressed the most enthusiastic
admiration for it. And, indeed, Titian never showed
more genius than in the intensity with which he made
Nature participate in the drama. Only a mountaineer
like himself, -accustomed to follow the paths which wind
round wooded hill-sides, would have thought of painting
this scene on an incline, and utilising the declivity for the
purpose of setting trees and figures directly against the
horizon. He adopted this arrangement indeed on other
occasions, notably for the S, Jerome in the Brera, where
262 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
again we find the sloping ground and the big oak-trees
that traverse the picture obliquely and stand out against
the sky. All who saw the Peter Martyr remembered
the intense emotion which breathed from the rural
scene, from the branches illuminated by the miraculous
appearance of the two angels bearing the palm to the
martyr, from the rustling foUage, trembling, as it were,
at the tragedy enacted in its shade, from the grand
movement of the clouds reddened by the fiery light of
dying day. Once more, Nature had proved the best
and most maternal source of inspiration.
How fully I can enter into the soul and the work of the
great Cadorian on this fine afternoon of early autumn,
here at Pieve, breathing the good healthful smell of the
country, along meadows enamelled with red clover,
dark blue salvia, colchicum and buttercup. Sturdy
mountaineer, who wast still painting firmly and vigorously
when nearing thy hundredth year, it is here I love to
evoke thee, rather than in the cold galleries of a museum,
rather even than at Venice, where none will ever eclipse
thy glory. It was here thou hadst thy purest joys, in the
midst of these landscapes thy childish eyes gazed at so
eagerly, on this soil to which thou wast attached by all
the roots of thy being, in this little town where the illus-
trious artist of the Most Serene Republic, the familar
of the greatest men, to whom Doges, Kings, Emperors
and Popes had sat, was but the son of Gregorio Vecellio.
There can be no more intimate delight for a man who
has reached the summit of earthly honours than to
return every year to the village where he was born.
Far from artificial life, he comes back to Nature, and to
the land in the presence of which he need no longer play
a part, and in whose sight all are equal. It was at
Pieve, when reverses befell him, that Titian sought
healing for his stricken soul, and gained strength for
TITIAN AT PIEVE 263
further struggles, robust as those forest-trees to which
Dante, in a magnificent image, compares the springs of
the soul, those trees which raise themselves again by
their own vigour after the passing of the storm :
Come la fronda, che flette la cima
nel transito nel vento, e poi si leva
per la propria virtti che la sublima.^
In spite of all the honours and splendours of Venice
it was here, in this modest dwelling, that he felt most at
home ; and he might have inscribed on it, as did Ari osto
on his house at Ferrara : Parva, sed apta mihi (small,
but suited to me).
How good is life, and how beautiful Nature ! All
we need is to enjoy both without excess, in perfect
equilibrium of the faculties. Mountaineers have precision
both of eye and mind ; they are realists, but realists
with that yearning for the ideal which the sight of peaks
ever soaring heavenward inspires. We must not look
to Titian for the intellectual depths of a Leonardo, or
the grandiose and pathetic visions of a Michelangelo
and a Rembrandt ; nor must we ask for the effusions of
poets who like Correggio let their hearts sing and move
us by their fervour. Titian dominates his subjects
and subordinates them to his art with a calm and
vigorous intelligence, a strength of will, a self-mastery
which enabled him to excel in every genre. His physiog-
nomy, his features, his general aspect were those of a
man of action rather than an artist. He was no dreamer.
We know that he was careful of his material interests,
like a peasant. True, these temperaments based on
practical reason do not move us as do the pure poets,
do not draw us breathless after them to the regions of
^ Like to the trees bowing their tops to the passage of the.
wind, and then rising hy their own vigour which exalts theni.
264 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
mystery and the infinite ; but they delight the mind
without agitating it. They use art to show us the beauty
of things and the joy of life. Conceived in joy, their
works express and dilTuse joy. Is there any better task
than to teach happiness 1
But the sun has already disappeared. Only the peaks
are still aglow. The Marmarole Mountains first flush
rosily, then pass gradually from soft red to burning
crimson, and look as if they were actually ablaze. It is
twilight, the gorgeous hour d'Annunzio aptly calls the
hour of Titian, *' because then all things glow in rich
golden tones, like the nude figures of that marvellous
craftsman, and seem to illumine the sky, rather than
to receive light therefrom." It was at this hour that
Titian feasted his eyes on those amber reflections which
hover over objects as his superb Flora's hair floats over
her divine flesh. And when night fell, when the last
gleam faded on the last peak of the Marmarole, he re-
turned quietly to the old paternal house, and slept the
healthy sleep of the industrious peasant.
CHAPTER IV
BELLTJNO
The stage-coaches which used to ply between Pieve
a>nd Belluno a few years ago, when I visited them for the
first time, have made way for powerful motor-vehicles
which dash along the roads with a great clanking of
metal, raising whirlwinds of dust. They give no truce
even for a single day to the old Cadorine forests. They
CADORE TIMBER 265
shake and break down the soil of the ancient road to
Germany, the Via di Lamagna as the Italians call it,
which in this particular section goes by the name of La
Cavallera. Fortunately, I was able to hire one of those
little light carriages owned by the well-to-do peasants of
the region, and to make my pilgrimage quietly in the
good sunshine, lulled by the murmur of the foaming
Piave.
After leaving Pieve and Tai, the country has still the
aspect of high mountain regions, and the road winds
through pine-forests. A rapid descent by three bold
loops brings us to Perarolo, at the confluence of the
Boite, a most picturesque and pleasant situation. It is
from here onward that the Piave, swelled by the waters
of its tributary, is used for the transport of the famous
Cadore timber, unrivalled for ship-building and famous
from the earliest days. Pending the completion of a
railway which is being made, the trunks of pine and larch
still go to Venice by water ; and it is interesting to
note, all along the road, the very ingenious operations
by which each of the numerous owners of trees and
factories utilises the stream. But in the face 'of the
resulting delays and complications I can understand the
impatience of the Cadorians for the completion of their
long promised railway.
The valley is sometimes so compressed between the
mountains that there is only just room for the river and
the rock-hewn road. Many inscriptions recall the
fighting in these defiles in 1848. After the village of
Termine, which may be said to mark the southern
boundary of Cadore, the plain widens a little. The
cultivated patches increase. The trees expand under
the warmer sun. On the road we meet groups of young
women, their faces shaded by light coloured veils, who
have the robust grace of the Venetian Madonnas. An
266 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
old woman with a sharp nose and prominent chia, seated
beside a basket in the open-air market at Ospitale, is
exactly like the egg-seller in the foreground of the Presen-
tation ; and to complete the reminiscence, a Uttle girl
in a blue dress, with a thick plait of hair, has the profile
of the childish Virgin who is ascending the steps of the
Temple.
Towards Longarone, a gay and attractive little market-
town, the mountains become lower and more distant,
though I the Gallina still commands the plain with its
pointed beak, the shape of which varies so oddly as one
approaches it. Then at the Ponte nell' Alpi, the road
forks. To the left, the old German road continues ;
after skirting the Bosco del Gran Consiglio, whose secular
trees were reserved for the fleet of the RepubUc, and two
large ponds — that of San Croce a smiHng sheet of water,
that known as the Lago Morte a motionless expanse of
the darkest blue — it enters Venice by Vittorio and
Treviso. The road to the right is much less interesting.
It goes its interminable straight way between monotonous
stretches of cultivated ground under a fierce sun which
makes the fresh shades of Belluno all the more agreeable
to enter.
Of the Roman past of which it is proud Belluno has
no traces, save a tomb discovered in the foundations of
the Church of San Stefano. Nor has it many relics of
the Middle Ages. Its present aspect bears the impress of
the Venetian domination. The lion of S. Mark has laid
his paw on everything. For nearly four centuries
BeUuno was the faithful handmaid of Venice. Then,
lying on the boundaries of the two rivals, Austria and
Italy, it underwent all the fluctuations of the fortune of
war. Ardently patriotic, it was always in the van
against Austria, and when the plebiscite was taken,
gave itself almost unanimously to the new kingdom of
PALAZZO DEI RETTORI 267
Savoy. Hatred of the black and yellow flag with the
Imperial Eagle is still hot in the hearts of the Bellunese.
There is little to say of the actual town. It is a
provincial centre of no special activity, a city of soldiers
and officials. Its chief traffic arises from its situation at
the egress from the Tyrol ; but it gives the impression
of being merely a halting-place for hurried tourists.
The streets are interesting, with their arcaded houses
whose painted fagades and windows with small carved
columns recall certain corners of Venice. Two of the
squares are dignified and spacious : the Piazza Campi-
tello, the rendezvous of fashionable society, and the
Piazza del Duomo, where stand the Cathedral, the
Palazzo dei Rettori, and the Municipio. The last named
building is modern ; in spite of its Gothic style and the
rather crude red of its walls, it harmonises well enough
with its neighbours. As to the Palazzo dei Rettori — ^now
the Prefecture — it is the most remarkable structure in
Belluno. Built in the early years of the Renaissance,
it is ascribed to Giovanni Candi, the author of the
beautiful spiral staircase of the Palazzo Contarini dal
Bavolo at Venice ; the arrangement is very happy, with
charming details ; the balconies are discreetly elegant ;
all the capitals are different, and very well carved ;
the general effect is most harmonious. But the chief
attraction of Belluno is its situation at a bend of the
Piave, on a sort of plateau overlooking the valley.
The river, an impetuous torrent up to this point, slackens
its speed to embrace the town which it seems to quit
regretfully ; its slender blue ribbon may be seen for a
great distance gleaming in the sun and almost disap-
pearing in a white bed of shingle. Two mountain
ranges protect Belluno, and bound its horizons : to the
north, the Agordine Alps with their well-defined rocky
peaks ; to the south, the wooded and cultivated hills
268 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
of the Pre-Alps which divide the valley of the Piave from
the Trevisan plain.
It would be strange if an Italian city of the impor-
tance of Belluno had no local artist worthy of mention.
Here in Venetia, where beauty blossoms so naturally,
where the decorative instinct is in the blood, wh«re the
humblest citizen arranges his dwelling agreeably,
ornamenting it with galleries and terraces, where even
the peasants lay out their patches of cultivated ground
harmoniously, with an eye to the prospect and the general
effect, Belluno could not be an exception to the rule.
Here, as in Tuscany and Umbria, there are few villages
which have not a pleasant aspect and a work of art to
show the stranger. How many painters and sculptors
who, in other countries, would have left glorious names,
are unknown here to any but students and are sometimes
even forgotten, because they worked beside rivals too
numerous, or too renowned !
Belluno is proud of her two Ricci, Sebastiano, the
skilful decorator, who spent most of his life abroad,
and his nephew Marco, an agreeable and facile land-
scape painter. But the glory of the town is associated
above all with the name of Andrea Brustolon, whom his
compatriots are fond of describing as the Phidias of
wood-carvers. His fame, however, has hardly penetrated
beyond his own district, though Balzac in his Cousin Pons
speaks of a frame carved by " the famous Brustolon,
the Michelangelo of wood." Burckhardt, generally so
exhaustive, does not even mention the artist, nor,
indeed, does he speak of any of the curiosities of the city,
which, I think, he cannot have visited. Signor Corrado
Ricci is more discriminating when he compares the
sculptor of Belluno to Sansovino, and declares that " by
his imagination, his ardour and his accomplishment he
ranks above most of his contemporaries." Brustolon
BRUSTOLON 269
belongs to that group of Venetian artists who are admir-
able decorators, but nothing more. When, instead of
carving isolated figures of a grandiloquent and preten-
tious kind, they confined themselves to the adornment
of churches and palaces with gilded stucco and graceful
and elaborately carved furniture, they produced works
the magnificence of which is unsurpassable. Taber-
nacles, crucifixes remarkable for the anguished expres-
sion of the Saviour, altar-colonnades, volutes loaded
with clusters of fruit and foliage, the rich armorial
shields of princes and bishops, furniture ornamented with
fruit, animals and human figures — such specimens of
Brustolon's works are scattered throughout the Tyrol
and Venetia. Some of these carvings are veritable
pictures in relief. The best to my mind were those in the
Church of San Pietro : the Death of 8. Francis Xavier
and more especially a Crucifixion, in which I was struck
by the noble attitude of the Virgin and by a Magdalen
kneeling at the foot of the Cross, whose expression of
passionate grief and love is very moving.
Until the prolongation of the line towards Pieve di
Cadore is completed, Belluno is the terminus of the
railway which descends quietly upon Treviso, skirting
the banks of the Piave. The valley is still shut in by
fairly high mountains with jagged crests, among which
the most prominent is the majestic Pizzocco, with a sum-
mit resembling a Doge's cap. On a solid stone bridge
we cross the terrible Cordevole, which we saw at its
source near Arabba on the Dolomite road ; according to
a local legend the troops of Attila were checked by a
sudden rise in its waters. On the way we see the Villa
Colvago, where Goldoni's comic genius awoke, and where
he wrote the first two of his hundred and fifty plays.
After Feltre, an ancient Roman town in a pleasant
position on the height, the valley narrows to a savage
270 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
defile where the Piave becomes a torrent. Then the
horizon opens out again. The river once more spreads
its bed of pebbles. The vines cling to the trees and
hang in garlands. The houses and the farms are painted
in vivid colours and sometimes adorned with frescoes.
Campaniles shoot up among the trees. The great
Venetian plain stretches before us as far as the eye can
reach.
CHAPTER V
PORDENONE
It is a delightful pilgrimage across Friuli in the joy
of the morning, through meadows spangled with dew.
The distance is blurred by mist. The glistening highway
dazzles one, like a steel ribbon unrolled in the sun.
The way is beset with memories of the Empire, and of
the astounding epic of the youthful Bonaparte. Friuli
and Upper Venetia are studded with towns which fur-
nished titles for the Marshals and Generals of the glorious
army. After the lapse of a century, the old exploits
still live, and there is no osteria in this region whose walls
are nob adorned with engravings setting forth episodes
in the battles of Arcole and Rivoli. In spite of passing
clouds, the French will never be looked upon as enemies
in this ItaUan land. And I know of no higher tribute
to a conqueror.
The lofty Campanile of Pordenone emerges from the
luxuriant masses of foliage that give shade to the town.
Squares and avenues are planted with huge chestnuts
PORDENONE 271
and planes. Monte Cavallo, already covered with snow,
rears its mighty ridge on the horizon. If foreigners are
rare at Udine, here they must be quite unknown, to
judge by the sensation I create. There is indeed little
to see in the birthplace of Pordenone, where I imagined
he would be better represented. In the council-
chamber of the Municipio, where the little local nauseum
is installed, I found only a Group of Saints, remarkable
enough in colour and handling, and a narrow fresco,
which, according to the custodian, had been removed
from the house inhabited by the artist ; it represents a
kind of rustic ballet, and is quite unlike any other work of
his known to me. The same penury is to be found in the
Cathedral : in the choir, there is an Apotheosis ofS. Mark,
unfinished and damaged ; on a pillar two figures in poor
preservation, a S. Erasmus and a S. Eoch, to whom
Pordenone is supposed to have given his own features ;
finally, on the altar of S. Joseph, a fine panel of 1515, The
Virgin enthroned between S. Christopher and S. Joseph.
The Virgin, whose mantle is spread over four donors,
has a deliciously childish face, and the landscape, in
which Pordenone 's hand is very recognisable, is exqui-
sitely graceful. But all this offers scanty data by
which to appreciate the artist, and had I not seen his
frescoes at Cremona and Piacenza, I should form a very
false idea of him who aspired to rival Titian, and whose
painting — brutal, violent, dramatic and disorderly —
proves the truth of Buff on 's dictum for artists as for
writers : The style is the man. Pordenone spent his
life quarrelling first with one and then with the other,
including his own brother, and he probably died of
poison administered by an enemy. The vigorous life
and movement of his works sometimes suggest Rubens
and even Michelangelo, who, it seems, thought highly of
his talent. In any case, no artist of his day was more
272 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
accomplished ; it is not necessary to accept literally
Vasari's story which tells how he painted a sign in a few
minutes for a tradesman while the latter was at mass,
but it is certain that he had extraordinary facility, and
that bravura of the brush so essential to the fresco-
painter. But we must not look for grace, or moderation,
or, above all, for thought in Pordenone's work. Some-
times he imitated Giorgione, sometimes Palma, sometimes
Titian ; Burckhardt justly remarks that he is always
superficial, and even in his best works we miss that
absorption in the theme, that renunciation of self which
is the art of the great masters. He tries to amaze, and
succeeds in so doing, but he does not charm. He who
dreamed of eclipsing Titian survives for us mainly as
the disastrous precursor of the Bolognese.
CHAPTER VI
UDINE
" Udinb is a fine town," said Chateaubriand, who was
impressed mainly by the Municipio, and its portico
imitated from that of the Doge's palace. The author of
the Memoires d' outre Tomhe is right ; and I am surprised
that this delightful city, the gem of Friuli, should be so
little known, in spite of the attractions it can offer to its
guests, an enchanting aspect, one of the most beautiful
squares in Italy, an incomparable situation in the centre
of the Venetian plain, good local painters and one of the
finest collections of Tiepolos in the world. The German
and Austrian tourists who come down to Venice by the
UDINE 273
Pontebba line sometimes visit Udine while waiting for a
train, or to spend the night ; but the French and English
travellers who seek it are rare. Chateaubriand only saw
it because it happened to lie on his way when he was
going to Prague to rejoin Charles X. In a general way
my compatriots are so fascinated by Venice that they
only tear themselves away at the last moment, when they
have to be making their way homeward. I myself,
much as I have seen of out of the way comers of Italy,
and often as I have traversed the adorable Veneto in its
crimson autumn mantle, had never before made up my
mind to go beyond ConegUano and take the few d^ys
necessary to visit Friuli and its capital.
This year I determined to do so. I arrived at Udine
one September evening, and the next day I had the joy
so dear to the real traveller, of waking up in a city quite
unknown to me, but which I felt to be full of promise.
The night before an omnibus with rattling windows had
jolted me over the badly paved and ill-lighted streets ;
I had seen the dim outlines of buildings I tried to identify
by the help of my guide-book ; but on the whole, all the
surprises of discovery were still before me. Of course,
these are not uniformly pleasant, and often one is dis-
appointed by one's first encounter with a city ; only by
degrees does one yield to its reticent charm. But here
the revelation was immediate. My arrival in the little
square bathed in the morning sunshine, the climb to
the Castello, and, from the high esplanade, the circular
view of the immense Friulian plain spreading out in a
double fan round Udine, will always be one of my most
treasured memories, rich as they are in impressions of
this kind.
On emerging from my hotel I had only noted a town of
no very individual character, clean and animated, with
wide arcaded streets and houses of the Venetian type ;
T
274 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
then, suddenly, at a turn in the street, I came upon the
square I was seeking. I knew it was fine ; I had never
supposed it would be so magnificent. Surrounded
by palaces and porticoes, adorned with statues and
columns, dominated by the lofty mass of the castle, from
whatever point one looks at it it is eminently picturesque.
Everything harmonises perfectly ; there is nothing
superfluous. And yet in a very restricted space we have,
on one side a 16th century loggia called the Loggia di
San Giovanni, and the clock-tower of the same style
as that of Venice ; in the middle, a fountain designed
by Giovanni da Udine, two columns, one crowned
by the lion of S. Mark, two figures of giants, a statue
of Peace given by Napoleon I to commemorate the
treaty of Campo Formio, and, of course, an equestrian
statue of Victor Emmanuel ; finally, on the other side,
the charming Loggia del Lionello, called after the local
architect who built the town-hall in the 15th century
from a design which was a very clever adaptation of the
Doge's Palace. This combination, above which rise
the bell -tower of the Church of Santa Maria, and the
imposing walls of the Castle, is one of the most fascinating
sights offered to the tourist by the little cities of Italy.
Unfortunately, the Municipio was almost completely
destroyed by fire in 1876 ; only the walls have survived,
but we can still admire in their original state the alter-
nate courses of red and white marble, the slender columns
and their varied capitals, the little balustrade that gives
so much elegance to the loggia, and, in a niche at the
corner of the building; the Virgin carved in 1448 bj^
Buono, the author of the Porta della Carta.
To go up to the Castello one passes under an arch
designed, it is said, by Palladio ; it was formerly sur-
mounted by the Venetian lion, as we may see in a view
of the town by Palma the Younger, in the Museum. For
WORKS IN MUSEUM 275
all this region, the Most Serene Republic was in deed that
" planter of lions," spoken of by Chateaubriand in the
pages he wrote in praise of Venice in September, 1833,
pages which are among the finest in the Mimoires
d'Outre-tombe. An earthquake overthrew the old castle
which used to stand on the top of the hill ; it was
replaced by the present building, which has been suc-
cessively used for a variety of purposes ; it was by turns
a fortress, the residence of the Patriarchs and a prison ;
at present it houses various departments of the munici-
pality and the Museum. A double staircase leads to the
great hall which has been classed as a national monument
in deference to its vast proportions and the remains of
frescoes which still adorn its walls. Unfortunately, these
old paintings have been in a very bad state ever since the
time when the castle served as barracks. Soldiers,
be they Italian or French, are dangerous neighbours for
works of art. Udine, like Avignon, learned this by harsh
experience.
In the Museum I noticed an amusing panorama of the
city drawn by Callot in 1600, a delicate gray Canaletto,
a little study by Veronese for his Martyrdom of SS.
Mark and Marcellinus, and three Tiepolos. But the
town is so rich in the works of this master that I do not
linger over these, and I should have preferred to see
local artists more fully represented here. I had some
difficulty in finding a fairly good Coronation of the Virgin,
by Girolamo da Udine. Those who wish to study the
creator of the school, Martino, better known as Pellegrino
da San Danielle, must leave Udine and go either to
Aquileia, to see the altar-piece in the Cathedral ; to
San Daniele, his native town ; or to Cividale, the ancient
Lombard capital, which guards, together with many
precious archaeological treasures, the painter's master-
piece, the Madonna di Santa Maria dei Battuti. Here,
T 2
276 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
in the Museum of Udine, there are only F(mr Evangelists
by him, so black and damaged that it is hardly possible
to distinguish them.
But why should I stay shut up in these dark rooms
when from the windows I catch glimpses of the superb
panorama to be enjoyed from the esplanade behind the
castle ? I know very few vistas so vast and so magni-
ficent. If, as tradition declares, this hill was made by
Attila's orders that he might gaze from afar at the
burning of Aquileia, we must admit that the barbarian
was no less consummate a stage-manager than Nero.
In all Italy, where from the earliest ages there has been
a genius for the development of those perspectives which
bring infinity within range of a town, there is no more
superb position. Though the altitude is only a few
yards, the spectator has the illusion of being high in
space. It is a privileged situation for a capital ; in the
very centre of the country, it is able to overlook and keep
watch on the whole of it. Friuli lies about Udine in
an almost regular curve ; a gigantic amphitheatre,
which slopes downward very gradually from the snow-
capped Alps to the green Pre- Alps, from these to the
hills covered with woods and vineyards, from the hills
to the gentle incUne of the plain, and from the plain to
the lagoons. Seen from here, the circle of the Camic
Alps forms a high, stem barrier dominated on the East
by the Canino, and on the West, very far back in the
direction of Gemona, by the Cogliana, the highest
peak in the region. Although these heights are not
quite 9,000 feet, they look imposing, viewed thus almost
from the level of the sea. The first frosts of September
have already covered them with snow. Two youths,
who must have come down from them quite lately, gaze
at them with the mournful home-sick eyes of mountain-
eers in a flat country. They are typical sons of Friuli,
TIEPOLO AT UDINE 277
strong and laborious, sturdier than the Venetians.
At my request they name the distant peaks, and point
out the more important towns we can distinguish on the
river-banks, or in the folds of the hill-sides : Cividale,
San Daniele, Palmanova, with its starry fortress,
San Vito, Pordenone. Quite to the South are the lagoons
where Aquileia and Grado slumber, and sometimes
even, in clear weather, the line of the Adriatic maybe
seen as far as the island of Anadyomene . . . An
admirable spectacle that I weary not of contemplating
until the hour when the setting sun sheds over every-
thing that *' Titian light " of which Chateaubriand
speaks when he compares Venice to a beautiful woman
whose perfumed hair is stirred by the evening breeze,
and who dies, acclaimed by all the graces and smiles
of Nature . . . An admirable spectacle indeed, perhaps
even more inspiring on the morrow, in the sunshine of the
new day. And yet I must not linger. How can I leave
Udine without having seen its Tiepolos ? Nowhere can
the traveller do fuller justice to the painter whose fame
grows year by year, and who, to our more enlightened
modem eyes, is no longer merely the delightful improvi-
satore, the virtuoso in whom all the folly of the Venetian
18th century is incarnate. I recall the chapter in which
Maurice Barr^s exclaims : " My comrade, my other
self, is Tiepolo ! '* The author of Un Homme libre, who,
no doubt, would hesitate to sign this confession of
dilettantism to-day, has exaggerated the artificial side
of Tiepolo. Confronted with his great compositions
scattered throughout Venetia, we form a very different
idea of the painter, who, far from being an artist of the
decadence, a kind of Bernini of painting, was a master,
not only of grace, but of health and vigour. This
reputed improvisatore was a laborious worker ; in proof
of this we need but adduce the numerous sketches he
278 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
made for works which would seem, from their accom-
plished execution, to have been thrown off without effort.
Artists who have a real gift never suggest the labour of
creation. Camille Mauclair aptly compares Tiepolo to
Mozart, who seems no less facile, whereas no musical
language is more learned and complex than his. It is
good to show that a difficulty has been overcome ;
but better still to overcome it without showing that
we have done so, for it is the function of genius to
place before us " the marvellous result of knowledg'e
and effort, as if it were nature itself."
Of course Tiepolo is the painter of that city and
period where and when the joy of life was carried to its
extreme limits ; but he was also a great-grandson of
the sixteenth century, of the race of great Venetian
masters who had died out over a hundred years before
with Tintoretto.
The Udine works are most interesting. They enable
us to study the painter in the flower of his youth, in
his maturity, and almost in his old age, for they were
painted in 1720, 1734 and 1759 respectively. Unfor-
tunately, the frescoes in the Cathedral have been ruined
by clumsy restorations, and are of little value. In the
Museum I saw a mediocre S. Francis de Sales, a Meeting
of the Council of the Order of Malta, more interesting
historically than artistically, and a fairly good Angel of
the Apocalypse hovering over a fine landscape. But
to recognise the real genius of Tiepolo, we must visit
the episcopal palace and the Oratorio della Purita.
The archiepiscopal palace, built at the beginning of the
seventeenth century for the Patriarchs of Aquileia,
who long claimed to rank with the Popes, is now the
home of their successors, the Bishops of Udine. It
was one of the last of the patriarchs, Denys Dolfino,
who commissioned Tiepolo to decorate its rooms.
TIEPOLO AT UDINE 279
Individually, these frescoes are not the best painted
by the artist ; but their gay and luminous general
effect is most pleasing to the eye. The Fall of the
Rebel Angels, on the vault of the main staircase, is a
vigorous and dramatic composition, of astonishing
boldness of movement. The decoration of a ceiling
was always a delight to Tiepolo *, in no other genre
did he more fully display the resources of his fancy and
his imagination. The decoration of the Oratory was
executed twenty-five years later. Tiepolo, less energetic
now, entrusted the lateral walls to his son, and only
painted the Immciculate Conception over the altar,
and the magnificent Assumption of the ceiling. The
latter is one of his masterpieces : nobility of invention,
mastery of execution and splendour of colour are carried
to the highest possible point, and in common with his
distinguished biographer, Signor Pompeo Molmenti,
I admire the art with which Tiepolo " preserved an
unforgettable air of sweetness and grace in the midst of
such a display of brilliant colours and striking ideas."
Here, as before in the Cathedral at Este, I wondered
at the ease with which he rose to the greatness of his
subject and attuned his mind to the solemnity of the
place in which he was painting, without the help of any
intimate belief, as far as we can judge. Like Tintoretto
before him and Delacroix after him — to quote but
two examples — Tiepolo proves that the genius of an
artist may sometimes rise to the beauty of religious
poetry without the aid of fa th.
280 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
CHAPTER VII
AQUILEIA
This decaying town, to which the war has given a
momentary importance, was an important Roman city.
Was it really, as we are told, over twelve miles in
circumference, and had it 600,000 inhabitants ? I
know not. But be this as it may, the " second Rome "
as it was called, the favourite residence of Augustus,
the concentration camp of the army, the naval base,
the splendidissima colonia of the Empire was a genuine
capital. But, ravaged by Attila, supplanted by Grado
and Venice, which demolished most of its buildings in
order to construct their own, and gradually forced
inland by the alluvial deposits of the Isonzo and the
Natisone, it almost disappeared from the map.
Its Cathedral survives to bear witness to its former
splendour, and here we may read the record of its
vicissitudes. The magnificent mosaic, discovered by
accident some years ago, is all that remains of the
original basilica. Some workmen, digging to discover
the source of a leak, laid bare the most important
mosaic of the fourth century, about three feet below
the nave. It was unskilfully repaired by the Austrians,
and Ugo Ojetti is now engaged upon a more perfect
restoration ; he drew my attention to the variety
and richness of the ornamentation : decorative friezes,
heads, animals, picturesque scenes, Victories with
outspread wings, etc.
On these earlier foundations a Romanesque church
was built at the beginning of the eleventh century ;
the choir and the transept vaults still exist. The nave
MUSEUM OF AQUILEIA 281
was destroyed by an earthquake and rebuilt about
1380 ; the Gothic arches rested on the ancient columns,
the capitals of which were raised when necessary. The
decoration was due to the Venetian Renaissance, notably
the fine pulpit in the style of the Lombardi, placed
exactly in front of the choir, in the central axis of the
church. The new priest, the learned archaeologist
Celso Costantini, explained to me how much this arrange-
ment is appreciated by the preacher, who is thus enabled
to face his entire audience. Four large Austrian shells
are placed on the pulpit, recalling the recent drama.
One might linger long in this church ; there are some
interesting old frescoes in the choir and a good picture
by Pellegrino da San Daniele ; the crypt is decorated
with paintings of the thirteenth century. But time
presses, and I am anxious to visit the Museum, on the
door of which Museo Nazionale is already inscribed.
The entrance is under a colonnade shaded by wisteria
in blossom. Cypresses, laurels, pines and magnolias
make a delicious setting in which it should be easy to
forget the horrors so lately witnessed.
The peace of the Museum, slumbering in the midst of
its beautiful garden, was rudely disturbed a few days
before the declaration of war. On April 27, 1915,
Austrian officials carried off some 600 of the most
valuable smaller objects, coins, ambers and bronzes ;
but to avoid alarming the population they left all the
sculpture, with the exception of the bust of the Empress
Livia. In spite of these depredations, the Museum
is very rich, and it would take several days to explore
it thoroughly. Its great attraction is that it is purely
local ; no object from outside is admitted. Statues,
tombs, medals and jewels were all found at Aquileia,
and this gives us a good idea of the importance of the
Roman city.
282 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
The Museum is especially rich in relics of the time of
Augustus, who made the city a sort of heg^dquarters
whence he controlled the operations of the legions
commanded by his sons-in-law, Tiberius and Drusus.
Suetonius declares that he had chosen Aquileia ui
bellis Pannonicis atque Germanicis aut interveniret aut
non longe ahesset.'^
Strangely indeed does history repeat itself, bringing
together within a few miles the headquarters of a
Roman Emperor and of a King of Italy in the eternal
struggle of the Latins against the northern barbarians.
The soldiers who fell on the Carso and the Isonzo sleep
near the funereal monuments of the Imperial legionaries.
Aquileia never forgot its debt to Augustus, and
piously preserved the portraits of his family. Though
the bust of his wife has disappeared, there are statues
in the Museum of the Emperor as a young man, of
Tiberius and of Claudius.
After this briUiant period when the Empire extended
as far as the Danube, the military importance of Aquileia
declined ; but the town then entered upon a period
of economic prosperity which lasted until the fourth
century, when Bishop Theodore built the basilica of
which all that remains is the mosaic lately discovered.
Systematic excavation would no doubt reveal other
marvels ; this will be the task of the new authorities.
I think there is a great future for Aquileia among the
many artistic towns of Italy.
Before leaving for Udine, I pass into the burial ground
which surrounds the church. Noble cypresses seem
to be lifting a prayer to heaven. Between their trunks
are the graves of soldiers who fell in the, first battles.
The surroundings are deeply impressive, and I can
* In order not to be remote from the Pannonian and
Germanic wars.
o
THE "REDEEMED" DISTRICTS 283
understand how they must have inspired d'Annunzio,
who made a speech here on All Saints' Day last year.
At the request of Ugo Ojetti the city of Florence sent
young plants of laurel and rose to relieve the gloom of
the yews by their crimson and heroic note. Aquileia is
no longer the weeping woman depicted by Carducci :
Passa come un sospir su'l Garda argenteo :
6 pianto d' Aquileia su per le solitudini.^
The famous Quando ? (When ?) of the Salut Italique
is no longer asked in this case. The ancient city of
Augustus was restored to Italy a year ago.
CHAPTER VIII
TRENT AND TEtESTE " REDEEMED. "
They are delivered at last, those irredente (unre-
deemed) territories, now redentej for the recovery of
which Italy declared war on her ancient ally, and ranged
herself by our side.
La primavera in fior mena tedeschi.
" Springtime with its flowers brings us the Germans,"
sighed Carducci. But the glorious autumn of this year
has seen them hurrying back over the mountains
faster than they came down from them. What enthu-
siasm must be lifting up all hearts in the Trentino, whose
roads are dotted with columns commemorating the
heroic struggle against the eternal enemy, and in Friuli,
where the name of Giovanni Battista Cella is still
* A sigh seemed to pass over silvery Garda : it is the lament o f
Aquileia above in the solitudes.
284 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
cherished, that Cella whose bust is in the loggia at
Udine, and whom Garibaldi called the bravest of the
brave, prode fra i prodi. What joy throughout the
whole peninsula ! And what joy too among those who
have long loved Italy !
A few months ago, at the end of a lecture I gave at
the Sorbonne, I ended with tlve wish that soon — not
this year, I said, but next year — I might be able to
travel over the Dolomite road again and find it Italian
throughout. I did not think my wish would be so
quickly granted, nor that I should so soon be able to
triumph over a Viennese critic who once laughed at me
for giving their Italian names to regions which he
assured me were " politically and permanently
Austrian." And now the barbarians have been driven
out of Titian's country. All the bells of Cadore must
be celebrating the Italian victory. Trent, the chief
town of the Department of the Upper Adige, has become
the capital of the seventieth province of Italy.
The Austrians are said to have laid a mine under
the monument to Dante in one of the squares of Trent,
meaning on their retreat to blow up a memorial which
proclaimed publicly, almost provocatively, the irreden-
tiam of the town and of the province. They had not
forgotten the verses written by Carducci in 1906, at
the time of its inauguration :
Dante si spazia da ben cinquecento
Anni de I'Alpi su'l tremendo spatto
Ed or s'6 fermo, e par eh' aspetti, a Trento. . . .^
For what, if not for the liberation, the expulsion of
the barbarians, the flight of the usurpers to the other
side of the mountains, to the pine-forests of Germany,
^ Dante has been wandering for five hundred years on the
terrible slopes of the Alps, and now he halts and seems to be
waiting at Trent. ...
" QUANDO ? " 285
where, as Chateaubriand said, the very sun has " an
evil face." Let us hope that the flight was so precipitate
that there was no time to destroy the statue.
In any case, the Austrian officers will no longer
amuse themselves by firing their pistols at it. A free
and joyous people now lays flowers at its feet. Dante
is no longer listening anxiously on his high stone pedestal.
. . . What he hears now is the murmur of thousands of
voices repeating the prophetic verses in which, six
hundred years ago, he fixed the natural frontiers of
Italy north of Trent and east of Istria, as far as the
Gulf of Quarnero *' which bounds Italy and bathes her
frontier."
And I think, too, of that spring day in war-time, when
I gazed on the other hostage city from a tower at Grado,
on a little island of the Adriatic lagoon, from which
the Italians had driven the Austrians at the beginning
of hostilities. After breakfasting in the naval officers'
mess, I went, in company with two French sub-
lieutenants— aviators who have covered themselves
with glory — to the belvedere whence the enemy coast
could be seen. With what a thrill of emotion I saw
before me. Trieste, lying indolently along the shore
at the foot of those hills which make such a dark and
stately setting for the light tints of its houses. With
a field-glass I was able to distinguish the principal
buildings of the Tergeste of Augustus, where everything
speaks eloquently of Roman power and the glory of the
lion of S. Mark. Here again Carducci's verses rose to
my lips, and I repeated the famous " Quando ? " of his
Salut Italique.
The long expected answer to this " Quando 1 " has
a t last been given by the historic communique from
286 WANDERINGS IN ITALY
General Diaz : " Our ti;oop3 have occupied Trent
and have landed at Trieste. The Italian tricolour is
flying over the Castello de Buon Consiglio and over
San Giusto.** What a sudden and splendid realisation
in unhoped for conditions of the burning message
which fell from the skies one morning last year, when
Gabriele d'Annunzio threw down these prophetic words
to the inhabitants of Trieste from his aeroplane :
** Brothers, take courage ! I teU you, I swear to
you that the Italian flag shall be hoisted over the great
arsenal, on the top of San Giusto. Courage and
endurance ! The end of your martyrdom is at hand !
The dawn of joy is even now reddening. Hovering
over you on these Italian wings, I throw down my heart
and this message to you in earnest of my promise."
The day has come. The Italian flag floats over the
arsenal and San Giusto, as the poet foretold in his
superb Ode on the Latin Resurrection, written at the
beginning of the war. Italy will be able to grave the
blazon of the House of Savoy " on the stone of Roman
Pola, on the Adriatic restored to the Lion."
The windows of Trieste are a-flutter with the banners
prepared by her people in silence, in the secrecy of their
homes and the passion of their hearts.
THE END.
INDEX
INDEX
Abano, 216-7
^feilius Lepidus, 76
^milius Scaurus, 109
Alberti, L. B., 113-116, 118, 126
Aldus Manutius, 111
Alfleri, 228
Alunno, Niccolo, 136
Amadeo of Pavia, 61-3
Ampezzo, 249-50
d'Annunzio, 50, 61, 206, 214, 217, 237,
249, 283, 286
Antelami, B., 83 '
Antonelli, 24
Aquileia, 277, 280-3
Aretino, 233
Aries. 83
Arqua, 222-30
Assisi, 140-6
Augustus, 280, 282-3, 285
Avogrado, Brigitta, 50
Balzao, 268
Barbaro, brothers, 189
Barrfes, Maurice, 35, 45, 80, 99, 155,
196, 277
Bassano, 182-8 ; see also Ponte, Da
Battaglia, 216-7
Bayard, 50
Beauharnais, Eugene de, 183, 211
Begarelli, 94-5
Bellagio, 35, 41, 66-72
Belluno, 183, 264-9
Bentivoglio, A., 104
Bergamo, 57-65
Beyle, H., see Stendhal
Biandronuo, 33
Boccati, 134-5, 137
Bologna, 97-104
Giovanni da, 96, 101
Bolzano, 243-5
Bonflgli, 134-5, 137
Bonvicino, see Moretto, II
Bordone, Paris, 232-3
Borgo San Donnino, 79-83
Borgosesia, 27
Botticelli, 238
Bramante, 37, 110
Bregia, Pietro da, 35
Brenta, the, 196-7, 200, 202, 205
Brescia, 48-57
Brosses, President de, 59, 92, 97, 99,
143, 156, 198, 202
Brustolon, A., 268-9
Buono, 274
Burckhardt, 62, 84, 107, 272
Byron, 149, 196,208-9,225,228,231
Cadenabbia, 35, 71
Cadore, 27, 253
Callot, 275
Canaletto, 275
Canova, 184, 187
Carducci, 39, 49, 70, 254, 283, 285
Carracci, the, 98-9
Castelfranco, 234-40
Cella, G. B., 283
Cernobbio, 38
Cesena, 110-11
Charlemagne, 160
Chateaubriand, 81, 199, 215-16, 228,
272, 275, 277, 285
Cigoli, 261
Cima, 178-9
Claudian, 216
Clitumnus, the, 129, 149
Colleoni, Bartolomeo, 62-4
Chapel, 61-4
Medea, 62-3
Comabbio, 33
Co mo, Cathedral, 31, 35-7, 41
Lake, 32-3, 35, 40-1
Conegliano, 177-182
Contarini, F., 207
Cornaro, L., 222
Correggio, 22, 29, 31, 53, 83-9, 98
Cortina, 246-8, 252
Costantini, C, 281
Courajod, 252
Coyer, Abb^, 81
Cremona, Cathedral, 61
Dante, 16, 46, 79, 109-10, 112 ,129,
142, 172, 227, 231, 263
Dolomites, the, 245-50
Domodossola, 11
Donnay, Maurice, 188
Duccio, A. di, 116-7
Dumas, 42, 81, 244
Emiiia, 75
Emilia, Via, 75-6
Emo family, 193
Este, 220, 222
d'Este. Villa, 38
Euganean Hills, 215-16, 221, 228
Faenza, 105-7
Falzarego, 247
WANDERINGS IN ITALT
289
IT
290
INDEX
Fanzolo, 193
Farnese, Alessandro and Ranuccio,
77,82
Feltre, 269
Ferrari, Gaudenzio, 15, 28-32
F^rrigli Palace, 207
Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, 134-5, 137
Foix, Gaston de, 50
Foligno, 136, 148
Forli, 107, 109
Melozzo da, 108, 136
Forlimpopoli, 110
Foscari, Francesco, 59
Villa, 201, 204
Foscarini, A., 207
Francesca, Piero della, 136
Francis of Assisi, S., 69, 113, 131-3,
150
Frigimelica, 210
Friuli, 276-7
Fusina. 197-200
Garibaldi, 284
Gautier, Th^ophile, 49
Gentile da Fabriano, 136
Giorgione, 235-9
Giotto, 150
Giusti Gardens, 155-60
Goethe, 59, 143, 165-7, 169, 172-7, 244
Goldoni, 269
Gozzoli, Benozzo, 136, 149, 150-2
Grado, 277, 280, 285
Guercino, 99
Guglielmo, 93
Guiccioli, Countess, 209, 228
Guido, 99
Heine, H., 46
Henri III., 172, 203-4, 207
ISEO, Lake, 40-8, 70
Isotta, 112-3, 119
Lalandb, 197
Lario, Lake, 12, 71
Laura, 225, 227, 230
Leonardo, 21, 58, 98
Leopardi, 46, 172
Lionello, 274
Lombardi, A., 101
Lor rain, Claude, 81
Lotto, L., 232
Lucretius, 259
Luini, 17-23
Maggiore, Lake, 32-3
Malatesta, 110-14, 126
Malchiostro Chapel, 53, 78, 232
Malcontenta, 201-5
Manin, L., 189
Manni, G. 139
Marconi, B-occo, 233
Martin V., Pope, 101
Martino, see San Daniele
Maser, 188-93
Mauclair, C, 278
Maximilian of Mexico, 211
Maynard, 80
Medici, L. de',91, 171
Melozzo, see Forli
Michel, Andr6, 29
Michelangelo, 95, 111, 165, 184, 232
Michelet, 46
Milan, 11, 17, 21, 33, 37, 58-9, 61
Mira, 205-9
Misson, 82
Mocchi, Fr., 77
Modena, 91-6
Molmenti, 213, 220, 279
Monate, 33
Monselice, 214-7
Montaigne, 81, 141, 143, 244
Montefalco, 148
Moretto, II, 51-7, 233
Moroni, 55
Musset, A. de, 85, 178, 196
Napoleon I.» 167, 184, 199, 211, 212,
274
Napoleon III., 211
Nolhac, P. de, 223, 229
Novara, 11, 23-6, 29
Nuzio, Matteo, 111
Orcagna, 47
Orta, Lake, 11-17
Padtja, 60, 214-5
Palladio, 48, 51, 162-8, 170, 172, 175-
6, 188-9, 193, 201-2, 204, 274
Palma, 274
Parma, 83-91
Pavia, Certosa of, 37, 61-2
' Perkins, 101
Perrier, Du., 204
Perugia, 123-30
Perugino, 129, 135, 137-8
Petrarch, 142, 196, 216, 224r-30
Piacenza, 76-9, 81
Piccolomini, Sylvius ^neas , 142
Pieve di Cadore, 253-264
Pisani family, 207, 210-13
Pisano, Giovanni, 130-1
Niccold, 101, 130-1
PUny, 36, 39, 149, 170
Politian, 114
Ponte, Da, family, 184-6
Pordenone, 56, 78, 232, 270-2
Poussin, 81
QuERCiA, Jacopo della, 100-4
Raphael, 125, 129
Ravenna, 110
Renan, 129, 146
Reymond, Marcel, 98, 103
Ricci, Corrado, 268
Marco, 268
Sebastiano, 268
INDEX
291
Rimini, 111-119
Rocchicciola, 147
Rodari, the brother^, 37
Romanino, 52, 65-7, 78
Rosa, Mount, 17, 25, 27, 33
Rousseau, J. J., 69
Rubicon, the. 111
RusMn, 143
San Danish, P. da, 275, 281
San Giulio, island of, 12, 14, 15
Sand, Georges, 40, 86-8
Sansovino, 190
Saronno, 17-29
Scamozzi, 163, 167, 175, 217
Schneider, 124
SerbeUoni, Villa, 16, 24, 66
SheUey, 220-1
SiqnoreUi, 127, 136
Spagna, Lo, 139
Stendhal, 23, 33-4, 48, 58, 71,77,89,
90, 99, 228
Stih, 210-14
Taine, 32, 35-7, 41, 49, 138
Tasso, 38, 69
Tavernola, 43
■termine, 265
Tiepolo, 213, 220, 272, 277-9
Titian, 56-7, 231, 232, 253-4
Tomo, 89
Trent. 284-5
Trentino, the, 283-6
Treviso, 57, 59, 78, 187, 231-3
Girolamo da, 52, 233
Udine, 272-9
Giovanni da, 274
Girolamo da, 275
Val^ry, 156
Varallo, 26-32
Varese, 32-4
Vasari, 103, 133, 193, 272
Venice, 59, 118, 192, 197, 202-3, 210,
239, 253
Vercelli 29
Verona,' 59-60, 93, 155-61
Veronese, Paolo, 189-92, 194, 202,
275
Vicenza, 45, 57, 80, 65, 161-76, 202
Virgil, 39, 40, 71, 229-30, 259
Visconti, P. M., 59
Vittoria, Alessandro, 189-90
WiNOKELMANN, 253
Wyzewa, T. de, 29, 31
Zblotti, B., 194, 202
Zenone, 204
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