Part 31

"Descending into the valley of houses, and then rising to the foot of a neighbouring hill, we entered the court yard of a vast hospital for the poor; an establishment made by the French, in which are men, women, and girls, each class being kept separate and made to work. Here an old man presented himself who officiated as an experienced guide, furnished with a lantern and great flambeau made of ropes impregnated with some kind of resin. A little back lane conducted us to a kind of grotto, containing an altar ornamented with several marble medallions, which are said to have been sculptured by the early Christians. This chapel served as an entrance to the chambers of the dead, which consist of long, winding, and intricate passages, cut out of the _tufa_ rock; in procuring which, for the purposes of building, these vast subterranean excavations were originally made, and afterwards used as depositories of the dead. During the persecutions against the early Christians, they were occupied by them either secretly as places of residence, where they might practise their worship unmolested, or, by the permission of their pagan persecutors, as abodes of the most humiliating kind, secluded from the light of day. Here our guide, preceding us with his smoking torch, which he occasionally struck on the walls, so as to scatter off a radiating flood of sparks which left him a brighter flame, showed us the little lateral recesses in which the humble believers were contented to lie, and shelves, excavated in the rock, in which their mortal remains were deposited after death. He pointed out the larger chambers, somewhat decorated with columns and arches in faint relief, in which the priests resided; the places where altars stood; and, in a higher excavation, raised his torch to a rude recess, or sunken balcony above the arched passage, whence the word was preached to the faithful below in a hall of great width. The chambers occupied by the most distinguished characters were denoted by better sculpture, Mosaic incrustations, and fresco paintings. We followed the windings of these subterranean corridors to a great extent, till we reached a hall which was said to be a quarter of a mile in height; but whether contrived for the purpose of ventilation, or as a shaft for raising the stone, we could not ascertain, any more than we could the accuracy of our guide's information, that the bodies of hundreds of martyrs were thrown down there by their pagan murderers, whence they were conveyed by their surviving friends into the niches prepared for them. From these remote parts, passages, now closed, were formerly open, which communicated with other catacombs and villages for sixteen miles round, affording the inmates, it is said, the means of escaping the persecutions which, from time to time, fell upon a sect so obnoxious to the pagan priesthood.

"We found the bones in these catacombs in excellent preservation, and on many the flesh of fifteen hundred years was still of such tenacious though pliant fibre, that it required a sharp knife to cut off a piece. The guide showed us the heads of some of those early Christians, with the tongues still remaining in them, but would not permit us to take one away. Here lived the venerated St. Januarius, whose particular cell was pointed out to us; and to these retreats was his dead body borne after his martyrdom; though some ancient painters represent him walking back with his head in his hands.

"We then visited the church of _Santa Maria della Vita_; it is an old and curious edifice, rich in marbles, and remarkable for the style of the grand altar, which is constructed over another one, as on a bridge, to which you rise by two lateral flights of steps, ornamented with elegant balustrades of costly marbles. The old monk showed us, behind the altar, an ancient painting of the Madonna, resembling an Indian, and a precious door to a case containing some sacred relic; but as we did not seem interested in these, he proceeded to open a door in the side wall, and requested us to walk in. To our surprise it was the entrance to another series of catacombs, in which were deposited the dead within the last two hundred years. These were placed in perpendicular niches in the rock, and plastered up, leaving only a part of the head projecting; the men with their faces out, the women with their faces in, only exposing the backs of their heads, from which the hair had long since fallen. By scraping away the plaster, some of the skeletons appeared in their whole extent, among which was an extraordinary one of a man about eight feet tall. The plaster which covers these bodies, thus showing only one half of the head, was painted so as to imitate the entire figure, clothed as men or women, and sometimes representing them as skeletons in part covered with drapery, with various inscriptions above them. The deeper recesses of these vaults led to chambers where we saw two carcasses of men, deposited only six months since; the flesh not decaying, but gradually drying up. They were naked and seated in niches in the wall, with their heads and arms hanging forward in very grotesque postures. In the catacombs which we first visited, the dead were generally placed horizontally, whereas here, all that we now saw were standing erect. We entered some chambers, however, with numerous empty horizontal recesses."

All the spots around Naples, of particular interest, as Vesuvius, Posilippo, and Portici were visited; crowds of beggars were encountered in all directions; but the people in general appeared to be healthy, lively, and happy. The streets are made gay by the immense number of carriages with which the public are accommodated at a very cheap rate, and people of all ranks are seen splashing along, sometimes to the number of seven or eight, clinging, as well as they can, to a vehicle scarcely large enough to hold half the number. The Neapolitans speak with great gesticulation, using many signs which have a known meaning; and they may sometimes be seen thus conversing across the street, from the upper stories of opposite houses. They are, of course, great eaters of macaroni, which is seen dangling from the shops in all parts of the city; and nothing is more amusing than the humble purchasers gathered around the stalls, stretching their necks with open mouths to suck it in.

Having seen as much of Naples as a long succession of bad weather permitted, our travellers set out in a vetturino for Rome, under the guidance of a snug, young, leather-breeched postilion, who spoke nothing but broad Italian. Crossing the Pontine marshes, where, it is probable, the wintry season prevented the frogs and musquitoes from recalling to their recollection the sufferings of Horace, they first looked down from the heights of Albano on the dome of St. Peter's, glittering in the bright rays of the sun, which just then broke through the clouds. On the last day of January, Mr. Peale found himself comfortably placed in a hotel of the Piazza di Spagna, ready to explore all that the eternal city could offer to his curious research. He remained at Rome till the month of July following.

His earliest visit was to St. Peter's, which he has minutely and graphically depicted. His first sensation he describes as one of surprise at the brightness and elegance of the whole interior, and in part of disappointment at the apparent want of magnitude. This was probably occasioned by the colossal statues, which, being proportioned to the vast pilasters, arches, and columns, seem to reduce the whole to an ordinary scale; and also to the wonderful harmony of all the parts, which prevents the contrast necessary to fill the mind with a sense of a gigantic object. When he had, however, walked over the wide fields of pavement, and compared the human beings before him with the stupendous masses around, he became by degrees convinced of the mighty magnitude, and experienced increased emotions of wonder and delight.

His visit to St. Peter's was followed by a minute survey of all the principal churches, galleries, antique monuments, and ruins, with which Rome abounds, among them, and in the study of the works of the great masters of art, he found five months pass rapidly away.

The houses of modern Rome generally present a good appearance, from the circumstance, that, although built of brick, they are, with few exceptions, plastered with great skill and dexterity to resemble stone, outside and inside. The puzzolana earth forms an admirable cement, and even when placed on the tops of houses it forms a terrace impenetrable by water. The streets are kept rather clean by the employment of convicts, but there is always abundance of dirt around the dwellings of the poor, who inhabit the ground floors, which are used not only for the residence of poverty and wretchedness, but for stables, and shops of every kind. The men, women, and children, however, in these unpromising abodes, are fat, dirty, and merry, and present no appearance of being victims of malaria or despotism. The streets, except the Corso, are seldom straight; but in the evenings they are filled with people, the rich taking a fashionable drive, with the utmost seriousness and silence, the poor lying and sitting on the ground, eating a piece of bread, or a fresh head of lettuce, in general, silent and serious like their betters, but occasionally bursting into roars of laughter, and expressing their hilarity by loudly clapping their hands.

"As the warm weather advances, every kind of workman who can get out his little bench, apparatus or chair, is at work in the street close up to his house. I have counted nine shoemakers, with their stalls, in front of one house, for the purpose of enjoying light and air. Benches and chairs are likewise occupied by the idle, chiefly old gentlemen, in front of the coffee-houses, especially in the Corso, where they are amused by the continual movement of carriages and pedestrians. In the evening, especially on holidays, tables are spread out with white cloths, and brilliantly illuminated and decorated with flowers, containing various articles of food, whilst a cook is busy on one side with his portable kitchen, cooking dough-nuts, or other articles, which are eaten on the spot.

"The English and French style of dress, both among men and women, prevails not only in the higher classes, but through all others, and in every part of the city. Huge Parisian bonnets, full set with broad ribands, are seen in every street; contrasting widely with the fashion of the country, which covers the head with a white linen cloth, folded square, and either hanging loose, or kept flat by sticks within them, or long pins like skewers, which bind up the hair. Long waists and stays are universal--the rich wear the fashionable corset of France--the poor, the stays of the country, thick set with bone, covered with gay velvet, and worn outside of their gowns, when they have any on, and tied at the top and back of the shoulders with long bunches of gay ribands. An apron, skirted with many coloured bands, hangs in front of a short petticoat with similar bands, and the shoes have great silver buckles. The taste for large ear and finger rings is universal, and heavy rolls of beads encircle almost every neck--the dark red coral being calculated, by its contrast, to improve their brown Italian complexion.

"The peasants, as they appear in town, differ from these, in wearing coarse pointed wool hats, decorated with ribands or flowers; wretched, old, ragged, or patched clothes; breeches without buttons or strings at the knees; sandals which they make out of raw hide, turning up a little above the sole, and with strong cords bound to their feet, the cord passing around their legs and up to their knees, encircling coarse linen or rags, which they wear instead of stockings. On Sundays and holidays, certain streets, as the _Repetti_, are the rendezvous of labouring men, who are then a little, but very little, better dressed than on other days; always displaying their stout legs in coarse white stockings, their knees still unbuttoned, and their shirt collars open even in cool weather, and, if warm, their jacket across one shoulder, one sleeve hanging in front--the other behind, and shifted to the other shoulder, should their exposure to the wind or current of air require it. I have often stopped to notice these groups, and have been surprised to find them generally silent, but with an expression of content. Occasionally, when a joke would circulate, it was managed with the fewest words. It is only when much excited, that a Roman displays any volubility of tongue or extravagance of gesticulation to disturb his usual air of dignity--whether above or below contempt--whether with much thought or with no thought at all.

"The Romans are certainly a sober people, but the lower classes, though they are not afflicted by Irish, Scotch, or American whiskey, Holland gin, or English porter, yet often indulge to excess in the cheap wine of the country. Every body drinks wine, and to offer water to a beggar would be an insult. It is only used occasionally with lemons in hot weather. At a late hour in the evening, in many streets, may be heard the noise of Bacchanalian merriment proceeding from some deep cavernous chamber, which, seen by lamp-light, shows nothing but coarse plastered walls, a greasy brick pavement, and benches and tables, around which, in the absence of all other comforts, the most miserable enjoy their principal, or only meal of the day, and freely circulate the bottle as a social bond. Besides, on holidays, the wine shops are frequented by groups of men and women, who sometimes exhibit around the door a noisy and licentious crowd. But wine is not always deemed sufficient, and those who are disposed to take a walk about sunrise, may every day see persons with little baskets of _aqua vitae_, which is swallowed by artificers between their beds and their workshops."

During Mr. Peale's stay at Rome, the election of the pope afforded him an opportunity of witnessing the many gorgeous and striking ceremonies, which attend the elevation of the spiritual father of the church to his temporal throne. These he has described minutely, but with little variation from the accounts given by those who have been at Rome on previous and similar occasions. He speaks of the sudden illumination of the vast dome of St. Peter's, as a sight of singular magnificence; in an instant the whole edifice appeared to throw out flowers of flame, and then, a few moments after, a new succession of lights, still more vivid, by their superior brightness, rendered the first nearly invisible.

From Rome, Mr. Peale went to Tivoli, and spent some days among the lovely scenery of that spot, familiar to every one who has not forgotten the exquisite praises Horace has bestowed on it. He saw and admired the remnants of the temple of the Sibyl, which Claude Lorraine has so often selected to add to the harmony and beauty of his inimitable landscapes; and amid the importunities of beggars, who infest a traveller in Italy in every haunt to which the love of antiquity or of scenery can lead him, and beneath the spray of the cataract--the _polvere del'acqua_, as it was called by the natives--he sketched a drawing of a spot which poets and painters have alike loved to select in ancient and modern days.

On entering Tuscany, he was pleased to find no longer the rags and patches of Naples and Rome, but a peasantry, better clad, and more industrious; the country was in a fine state of cultivation, and the habitations were neat and commodious. It was the season of harvest, and the fields abounded with men and women in nearly equal numbers, and apparently happy as they were cheerful.

At Florence, where Mr. Peale arrived on the 7th of July, he remained until the 22d of April following, thus devoting to that fair seat of the arts more than eight months. His time was zealously employed in the pursuit of his favourite studies; and he made, in the galleries so liberally opened to artists, copies of many of those works which have been considered as masterpieces at all times, which have been deemed the noblest of the spoils of conquest, and have become the guides of aspiring genius, and the test of taste, throughout the world.

The manners of the inhabitants are lively, but in general decorous; and whenever crowds are accidentally assembled, they disperse without tumult.

"In the public square it is common, once or twice a week, to see a quack doctor, seated in his chaise or gig, haranguing the crowd, with the most impassioned language and gestures: at one corner of his carriage is a banner consisting of a hideous portrait of an old monk, from whom he professes to have learned his precious secrets in the healing art; occasionally he displays a book of botanical engravings, gaily coloured, to show his knowledge of nature and his reliance on the bounty of Providence, invoking frequently the name of the Blessed Virgin, and reverently taking off his hat, in which he is imitated by the faithful around him. At the end of his discourse he produces his medicines, which are eagerly bought by the credulous.

"Occasionally, too, a dentist appears, on horseback, with an attendant, likewise on horseback, who, in a similar manner, but with an eloquence more voluble, and language more refined, expatiates on his well known skill and experience; and then, to suit his action to the word, proceeds to draw the teeth gratuitously of any that may present themselves at the left side of his horse, to the amount of five or six. It is surprising with what dexterity he performs the act, without moving from his saddle. Afterwards, if any one wants the assistance of the accomplished dentist, he must be sought at his lodgings."

The number of beggars, though great in itself, is small, when compared to that at Rome. Every place, too, is crowded with persons who pester you with knives, razors, and combs--linens, silks, and cloths--cravats, shawls, and rugs--alabaster carvings, and every thing that can be carried about by hand, which they persecute you to buy in spite of your no, no, which means nothing to them. Experienced Italians send off the dirty fellows with a "_caro mio_"--"no, my dear, I am not in want of it." The streets are kept remarkably clean, and the houses are generally substantial and well built, but less ornamented with stucco and sculpture, than those of Rome. The public edifices are remarkable rather for massive strength than architectural beauty, looking more like fortresses than palaces, and black with stone and time. There are numerous fountains scattered through the city; but, amidst the abundance of bronze and marble ornaments which they exhibit, the stream of water they pour out is extremely insignificant. The coffee-houses are well served, the favourite ices are made with clean ice taken from the streams, instead of the frozen and dirty snow collected in the mountains, which is used at Rome. In all public places of resort, are seen quantities of beautiful and fragrant flowers, the delight of the Florentines; and men are everywhere met who carry baskets of them, which are offered not only to the ladies, but are presented bunch after bunch, with the most persevering assiduity, to gentlemen who are sipping their coffee, eating their ice-creams, or reading the papers.

While Mr. Peale was in Florence, he had the good fortune to witness the powers of the most celebrated improvisatrice of the day, _Rosa Taddei_, of Naples. Her performances took place at the principal theatre, two or three times on each occasion, but with intervals of several days:--

"When the curtain rose, the scene was that of a parlour, seated. On the entrance of Rosa Taddei, she was greeted with loud applause by her old friends and confiding expectants. She appeared to be about thirty years of age, and, though small, her uncorsetted chest gave ample space for the important action of her powerful lungs. She was dressed as a private lady. Her pale face indicated a studious life, but her forehead was low and narrow, though her head was broad; her little sunken eye was quick in its movements, and when it looked intently out, to fashion the measure of a thought, was accompanied by a slight contraction of the brow that banished all suspicion of coquetry. Her nose was small, and her mouth would be called ordinary; but when it was about to speak, it quivered delicately with the rising emotion, and varied its expression according to the passion of her discourse.

"A servant now advances to the front of the stage, holding a little casket, destined to received the papers which are handed from different parts of the house, containing subjects proposed for recitation. When about forty of these are received, the casket is placed on a side table. Without reading them she folds and returns them to the casket. This is an operation of some time, and serves to give the appearance of business, and, perhaps, composure to the performer. Advancing to the side boxes and orchestra, she offers successively to different persons the casket, out of which, each time, a paper is drawn and presented to her. With a grave, deliberate, and emphatic voice she reads the theme proposed. If the subject is hackneyed, dull, or unfit, a lamentable and deep-toned ah! synonymous with our bah! is heard from various parts of the house; on which she tears up the paper with an impressive look, which seems to say--such is your pleasure. When six or seven subjects are approved by the cries of yes, yes, she places them on her side table, selects one, and, advancing to the piano, decides upon a musical harmony, which the professor immediately begins to play, and continues delicately; during which she walks in measured steps across the stage backwards and forwards, looking earnestly down, occasionally pausing, sometimes raising her hand to her mouth or forehead. The crowded house is silent as death, and she is only influenced by the measure of the music and the arrangement of her unseen materials of thought. This being completed, she suddenly advances, and begins with a burst of language, in which she continues with unhesitating volubility and moderate action, occasionally uttering some fine expression that draws forth from experienced critics an approving bravo! It was to be remarked, that as she advanced to the termination of every line, couplet, or stanza, according to the compass of the sentiment, there was a dwelling on the syllables and a monotonous chanting, very much resembling the cadence of a Quaker preacher; thereby permitting her thoughts to advance and fashion the commencement of the following line, couplet, or stanza, which was always eagerly and expressively pronounced at its commencement, and as regularly terminated in the thought-resolving chant.