University of Virginia Library

40. LETTER XL.

Our gondola set us on shore at Fusina an hour or
two before sunset, with a sky (such as we have had
for five months) without a cloud, and the same promise
of a golden sunset, to which I have now become
so accustomed, that rain and a dark heaven would
seem to me almost unnatural. It was the hour and
the spot at which Childe Harold must have left Venice,
and we look at the “blue Friuli mountains,” the
“deep-died Brenta,” and the “far Rhœtian hill,” and
feel the truth of his description as well as its beauty.
The two banks of the Brenta are studded with the
palaces of the Venetian nobles for almost twenty
miles, and the road runs close to the water on the
northern side, following all its graceful windings, and,
at every few yards, surprising the traveller with some
fresh scene of cultivated beauty, church, palace, or
garden, while the gondolas on the stream, and the fair
“damas” of Italy sitting under the porticoes, enliven
and brighten the picture. These people live out of
doors, and the road was thronged with the contadini;
and here and there rolled by a carriage, with servants
in livery; or a family of the better class on their evening
walk, sauntered along at the Italian pace of indolence,
and a finer or happier looking race of people
would not easily be found. It is difficult to see the
athletic frames and dark flashing eyes of the Lombardy
peasantry, and remember their degraded condition.
You can not believe it will remain so. If they
think at all, they must in time, feel too deeply to endure.

The guide-book says, the “traveller wants words to
express his sensations at the beauty of the country
from Padua to Verona.” Its beauty is owing to the perfection
of a method of cultivation universal in Italy.
The fields are divided into handsome squares, by rows
of elms or other forest trees, and the vines are trained
upon these with all the elegance of holyday festoons,
winding about the trunks, and hanging with their
heavy clusters from one to the other, the foliage of
vine and tree mingled so closely that it appears as if
they sprung from the same root. Every square is perfectly
enclosed with these fantastic walls of vine-leaves
and grapes, and the imagination of a poet could conceive
nothing more beautiful for a festival of Bacchus.
The ground between is sown with grass or corn. The
vines are luxuriant always, and often send their tendrils
into the air higher than the topmost branch of
the tree, and this extends the whole distance from
Padua to Verona, with no interruption except the palaces
and gardens of the nobles lying between.

It was just the season for gathering and pressing the
grape, and the romantic vineyards were full of the happy
peasants, of all ages, mounting the ladders adventurously
for the tall clusters, heaping the baskets and
carts, driving in the stately gray oxen with their loads,
and talking and singing as merrily as if it were Areadia.
Oh how beautiful these scenes are in Italy. The
people are picturesque, the land is like the poetry of
nature, the habits are all as they were described centuries
ago, and as the still living pictures of the glorious
old masters represent them. The most every-day
traveller smiles and wonders, as he lets down his carriage
windows to look at the vintage.

We have been three or four days in Verona, visiting
Juliet's tomb, and riding through the lovely environs.
The opera here is excellent, and we went last night to
see “Romeo and Juliet” performed in the city renowned
by their story. The prima donna was one
of those sirens found often in Italy — a young singer
of great promise, with that daring brilliancy which
practice and maturer science discipline, to my taste,
too severely. It was like the wild, ungovernable trill
of a bird, and my ear is not so nice yet, that I even
would not rather feel a roughness in the harmony than
lose it. Malibran delighted me more in America than
in Paris.

The opera was over at twelve, and, as we emerged
from the crowded lobby, the moon, full, and as clear
and soft as the eye of a child, burst through the arches
of the portico. The theatre is opposite the celebrated
Roman amphitheatre, and the wish to visit it
by moonlight was expressed spontaneously by the
whole party. The custode was roused, and we entered
the vast arena and stood in the midst, with the gigantic
ranges of stone seats towering up in a receding
circle, as if to the very sky, and the lofty arches and
echoing dens lying black and silent in the dead shadows
of the moon. A hundred thousand people could
sit here; and it was in these arenas, scattered through
the Roman provinces, that the bloody gladiator fights,
and the massacre of Christians, and every scene of
horror, amused the subjects of the mighty mistress of
the world. You would never believe it, if you could
have seen how peacefully the moonlight now sleeps
on the moss-gathering walls, and with what untrimmed
grace the vines and flowers creep and blossom on
the rocky crevices of the windows.

We arrived at Bologna just in time to get to the
opera. Malibran in La Gazza Ladra was enough to
make one forget more than the fatigue of a day's travel.
She sings as well as ever, and plays much better,
though she had been ill, and looked thin. In the prison
scene, she was ghastlier even than the character
required. There are few pleasures in Europe like
such singing as hers, and the Italians, in their excellent
operas, and the cheap rate at which they can be
frequented, have a resource corresponding to everything
else in their delightful country. Every comfort
and luxury is better and cheaper in Italy than elsewhere,
and it is a pity that he who can get his wine
for three cents a bottle, his dinner and his place at the
opera for ten, and has lodgings for anything he chooses

to pay, can not find leisure, and does not think it
worth the trouble, to look about for means to be free.
It is vexatious to see nature lavishing such blessings
on slaves.

The next morning we visited a palace, which, as it
is not mentioned in the guide-books of travel, I had
not before seen — the Lambaccari. It was full of glorious
pictures, most of them for sale. Among others
we were captivated with a Magdalen of unrivalled
sweetness, by Guido Carracci. It has been bought
since by Mr. Cabot, of Boston, who passed through
Bologna the day after, and will be sent to America, I
am happy to say, immediately. There were also six
of “Charles the Second's beauties,” — portraits of the
celebrated women of that gay monarch's court, by
Sir Peter Lely — ripe, glowing English women, more
voluptuous than chary-looking, but pictures of exquisite
workmanship. There were nine or ten apartments
to this splendid palace, all crowded with paintings
by the first masters, and the surviving Lambaccari
is said to be selling them one by one for bread. It is
really melancholy to go through Italy, and see how
her people are suffering, and her nobles starving under
oppression.

We crossed the Appenines in two of the finest days
that ever shone, and descending through clouds and
mist to the Tuscan frontier, entered the lovely valley
of the Arno, sparkling in the sunshine, with all its
palaces and spires, as beautiful as ever. I am at Florence
once more, and parting from the delightful party
with whom I have travelled for two months. I start
for Rome to-morrow, in company with five artists.