LETTER XI.

A sterile region.--Our descent into a milder landscape.--Distant view of Florence.--Moonlight effect.--Visit the Gallery.--Relics of ancient credulity.--Paintings.--A Medusa’s head by Leonardo da Vinci.--Curious picture by Polemberg.--The Venus de Medicis.--Exquisitely sculptured figure of Morpheus.--Vast Cathedral.--Garden of Boboli.--Views from different parts of it.--Its resemblance to an antique Roman garden.

September 14th, 1780.

The sun had not been long above the horizon, before we set forward upon a craggy pavement hewn out of rough cliffs and precipices. Scarcely a tree was visible, and the few that presented themselves began already to shed their leaves. The raw nipping air of this desert with difficulty spares a blade of vegetation; and in the whole range of these extensive eminences I could not discover a single corn-field or pasture. Inhabitants, you may guess, there were none. I would defy even a Scotch highlander to find means of subsistence in so rude a soil.

Towards mid-day, we had surmounted the dreariest part of our journey, and began to perceive a milder landscape. The climate improved as well as the prospect, and after a continual descent of several hours, we saw groves and villages in the dips of the hills, and met a string of mules and horses laden with fruit. I purchased some figs and peaches from this little caravan, and spread my repast upon a bank, in the midst of lavender bushes in full bloom.

Continuing our route, we bade adieu to the realms of poverty and barrenness, and entered a cultivated vale, shaded by woody acclivities. Amongst these we wound along, between groves of poplar and cypress, till late in the evening. Upon winding a hill we discovered Florence at a distance surrounded with gardens and terraces rising one above another; the full moon seemed to shine with a peculiar charm upon this favoured region. Her serene light on the pale grey of the olive, gave a visionary and Elysian appearance to the landscape, and I was sorry when I found myself excluded from it by the gates of Florence.

I slept as well as my impatience would allow, till it was time next morning (Sept. 15,) to visit the gallery, and worship the Venus de Medicis. I felt, upon entering this world of refinement, as if I could have taken up my abode in it for ever, but, confused with the multitude of objects, I knew not on which first to bend my attention, and ran childishly by the ample ranks of sculptures, like a butterfly in a parterre, that skims before it fixes, over ten thousand flowers.

Having taken my course down one side of the gallery, I turned the angle and discovered another long perspective, equally stored with master-pieces of bronze and marble. A minute brought me to the extremity of this range, vast as it was; then, flying down a third, adorned in the same delightful manner, I paused under the bust of Jupiter Olympius; and began to reflect a little more maturely upon the company in which I found myself. Opposite, appeared the majestic features of Minerva, breathing divinity: and Cybele, the mother of the gods.

Having regarded these powers with due veneration, I next cast my eyes upon a black figure, whose attitude seemed to announce the deity of sleep. You know my fondness for this drowsy personage, and that it is not the first time I have quitted the most splendid society for him. I found him at present, of touchstone, with the countenance of a towardly brat, sleeping ill through indigestion. The artist had not conceived very poetical ideas of the god, or else he never would have represented him with so little grace and dignity.

Displeased at finding my favourite subject profaned, I perceived the transports of enthusiasm beginning to subside, and felt myself calm enough to follow the herd of guides and spectators from chamber to chamber, cabinet to cabinet, without falling into errors of rapture and admiration. We were led slowly and moderately through the large rooms, containing the portraits of painters, good, bad, and indifferent, from Raphael to Liotard; then into a museum of bronzes, which would afford both amusement and instruction for years.

When I had rather alarmed than satisfied my curiosity by rapidly running over a multitude of candelabrums, urns, and sacred utensils, we entered a small luminous apartment, surrounded with cases richly decorated, and filled with the most exquisite models of workmanship in bronze and various metals, classed in exact order. Here are crowds of diminutive deities and tutelary lars, to whom the superstition of former days attributed those midnight murmurs which were believed to presage the misfortunes of a family. Amongst these now neglected images are preserved a vast number of talismans, cabalistic amulets, and other grotesque relics of ancient credulity.

In the centre of the room I remarked a table, beautifully formed of polished gems, and, near it, the statue of a genius with his familiar serpent, and all his attributes; the guardian of the treasured antiquities. From this chamber we were conducted into another, which opens to that part of the gallery where the busts of Adrian and Antinous are placed. Two pilasters, delicately carved in trophies and clusters of ancient armour, stand on each side of the entrance; within are several perfumed cabinets of miniatures, and a single column of oriental alabaster about ten feet in height,

Lucido e terso, e bianco, più che latte.

I put my guide’s patience to the proof, by lingering to admire the column and cabinets. At last, the musk with which they are impregnated, obliged me to desist, and I moved on to a suite of saloons, with low arched roofs, glittering with arabesque, in azure and gold. Several medallions appear amongst the wreaths of foliage, tolerably well painted, with representations of splendid feasts and tournaments for which Florence was once so famous.

A vast collection of small pictures, most of them Flemish, covers the walls of these apartments. But nothing struck me more than a Medusa’s head by Leonardo da Vinci. It appears just severed from the body and cast on the damp pavement of a cavern: a deadly paleness covers the countenance, and the mouth exhales a pestilential vapour; the snakes, which fill almost the whole picture, beginning to untwist their folds; one or two seemed already crept away, and crawling up the rock in company with toads and other venomous reptiles.

Here are a great many Polembergs: one in particular, the strangest I ever beheld. Instead of those soft scenes of woods and waterfalls he is in general so fond of representing, he has chosen for his subject Virgil ushering Dante into the regions of eternal punishment, amidst the ruins of flaming edifices that glare across the infernal waters. These mournful towers harbour innumerable shapes, all busy in preying upon the damned. One capital devil, in the form of an enormous lobster, seems very strenuously employed in mumbling a miserable mortal, who sprawls, though in vain, to escape from his claws. This performance, whimsical as it is, retains all that softness of tint and delicacy of pencil for which Polemberg is so renowned.

Had not the subject so palpably contradicted the painter’s choice, I should have passed over this picture, like a thousand more, and have brought you immediately to the tribune. Need I say I was spell-bound the moment I set my feet within it, and saw full before me the Venus de Medicis? The warm ivory hue of the original marble is a beauty no copy has ever imitated, and the softness of the limbs exceeded the liveliest idea I had formed to myself of their perfection.

When I had taken my eyes reluctantly away from this beautiful object, I cast them upon a Morpheus of white marble, which lies slumbering at the feet of the goddess in the form of a graceful child. A dormant lion serves him for a pillow; two ample wings, carved with the utmost delicacy, are gathered under him; two others, budding from his temples, half-concealed by a flow of lovely ringlets. His languid hands scarcely hold a bunch of poppies: near him creeps a lizard, just yielding to his influence. Nothing can be more just than the expression of sleep in the countenance of the little divinity. His lion too is perfectly lulled, and rests his muzzle upon his fore paws as quiet as a domestic spaniel. My ill-humour at seeing this deity so grossly sculptured in the gallery, was dissipated by the gracefulness of his appearance in the tribune. I was now contented, for the artist had realized my ideas; and, if I may venture my opinion, sculpture never arrived to higher perfection, and, at the same time, kept more justly within its province. Sleeping figures with me always produce the finest illusion; but when I see an archer in the very act of discharging his arrow, a dancer with one foot in the air, or a gladiator extending his fist to all eternity, I grow tired, and view such wearisome attitudes with infinitely more admiration than pleasure.

The morning was gone before I could snatch myself from the tribune. In my way home, I looked into the cathedral, an enormous fabric, inlaid with the richest marbles, and covered with stars and chequered work, like an old-fashioned cabinet. The architect seems to have turned his building inside out; nothing in art being more ornamented than the exterior, and few churches so simple within. The nave is vast and solemn, the dome amazingly spacious, with the high altar in its centre, inclosed by a circular arcade near two hundred feet in diameter. There is something imposing in this decoration, as it suggests the idea of a sanctuary, into which none but the holy ought to penetrate. However profane I might feel myself, I took the liberty of entering, and sat down in a niche. Not a ray of light reaches this sacred inclosure, but through the medium of narrow windows, high in the dome, and richly painted. A sort of yellow tint predominates, which gives additional solemnity to the altar, and paleness to the votary before it. I was sensible of the effect, and obtained at least the colour of sanctity.

Having remained some time in this pious hue, I returned home and feasted upon grapes and ortolans with great edification; then walked to one of the bridges across the Arno, and from thence to the garden of Boboli, which lies behind the Grand Duke’s palace, stretched out on the side of a mountain. I ascended terrace after terrace, robed by a thick underwood of bay and myrtle, above which rise several nodding towers, and a long sweep of venerable wall, almost entirely concealed by ivy. You would have been enraptured with the broad masses of shade and dusky alleys that opened as I advanced, with white statues of fauns and sylvans glimmering amongst them; some of which pour water into sarcophagi of the purest marble, covered with antique relievos. The capitals of columns and ancient friezes are scattered about as seats.

On these I reposed myself, and looked up to the cypress groves which spring above the thickets; then, plunging into their retirements, I followed a winding path, which led me by a series of steep ascents to a green platform overlooking the whole extent of wood, with Florence deep beneath, and the tops of the hills which encircle it jagged with pines; here and there a convent, or villa, whitening in the sun. This scene extends as far as the eye can reach.

Still ascending I attained the brow of the eminence, and had nothing but the fortress of Belvedere, and two or three open porticos above me. On this elevated situation, I found several walks of trellis-work, clothed with luxuriant vines. A colossal statue of Ceres, her hands extended in the act of scattering fertility over the country, crowns the summit.

Descending alley after alley, and bank after bank, I came to the orangery in front of the palace, disposed in a grand amphitheatre, with marble niches relieved by dark foliage, out of which spring cedars and tall aërial cypresses. This spot brought the scenery of an antique Roman garden so vividly into my mind, that, lost in the train of recollections this idea excited, I expected every instant to be called to the table of Lucullus hard by, in one of the porticos, and to stretch myself on his purple triclinias; but waiting in vain for a summons till the approach of night, I returned delighted with a ramble that had led my imagination so far into antiquity.

Friday, Sept. 16.--My impatience to hear Pacchierotti called me up with the sun. I blessed a day which was to give me the greatest of musical pleasures, and travelled gaily towards Lucca, along a fertile plain, bounded by rocky hills, and scattered over with towns and villages. We passed Pistoia in haste, and about three in the afternoon entered the Lucchese territory, by a clean paved road, which runs through chestnut copses bordered with broom in blossom, and an immense variety of heaths; a red soil peeping forth from the vegetation, adds to the richness of the landscape, which swells all the way into gentle acclivities: and at about seven or eight miles from the city spreads all round into mountains, green to their very summits, and diversified with gardens and palaces. More pleasing scenery can with difficulty be imagined: I was quite charmed with beholding it, as I knew very well that the opera would keep me a long while chained down in its neighbourhood.

Happy for me that the environs of Lucca were so beautiful; since I defy almost any city to contain more ugliness within its walls. Narrow streets and dismal alleys; wide gutters and cracked pavements; everybody in black, according with the gloom of their habitations, which however are large and lofty enough of conscience; but having all grated windows, they convey none but dark and dungeon-like ideas. My spirits fell many degrees upon entering this sable capital; and when I found Friday was meagre day, in every sense of the word, with its inhabitants, and no opera to be performed, I grew wofully out of humour. Instead of a delightful symphony, I heard nothing for some time but the clatter of plates and the swearing of waiters.

Amongst the number of my tormentors was a whole Genoese family of distinction; very fat and sleek, and terribly addicted to the violin. Overhearing my sad complaint for want of music, they most generously determined I should have my fill of it, and, getting together a few scrapers, began such an academia as drove me to the further end of a very spacious apartment, whilst they possessed the other. The hopes and heir of the family--a chubby dolt of between eighteen and nineteen, his uncle, a thickset smiling personage, and a brace of innocent-looking younger brothers, plied their fiddles with a hearty good will, waggled their double chins, and played out of tune with the most happy unconsciousness, as amateurs are apt to do ninety-nine times in a hundred.

Pacchierotti, whom they all worshipped in their heavy way, sat silent the while in a corner; the second soprano warbled, not absolutely ill, at the harpsichord; whilst the old lady, young lady, and attendant females, kept ogling him with great perseverance. Those who could not get in, squinted through the crevices of the door. Abbates and greyhounds were fidgetting continually without. In short, I was so persecuted with questions, criticisms, and concertos, that, pleading headache and indisposition, I escaped about ten o’clock, and shook myself when I got safe to my apartment like a worried spaniel.