Part 30

There are excursions from Sorrento upon the hills which can be accomplished by aid of donkeys, and it is also possible to cross over the hills to Amalfi, though this was not reckoned altogether safe from bandits. Boats can be had for boating, but the main excursions are by steamboat to Capri, and driving to Massa, a picturesque town a few miles westward; the road to it by the coast being a continuation of that from Castellamare, and affording lovely views at every turn. The excursion to Capri is made by steamboat, and every fine morning two rival steamers (a paddle and a screw boat) from Naples approached Sorrento to take excursionists to Capri and its blue grotto. In addition to the fare there and back of 5 francs, innumerable other little charges for boats, etc. make the expense up to 8 francs each. When the sea is stormy, the boats do not go, as it is impossible to enter the grotto when there is the least swell upon the water. This is annoying to unlucky persons who are left on the island, as it sometimes happens in consequence that the boats may not leave Naples for weeks together. I met on board the steamer two American friends who had come from Naples, were to sleep a night at Capri and return the next day, having taken their passage for the day following in a steamer for Genoa. The next day, however, proved stormy, and the steamboats did not make their appearance for several days afterwards, so that our friends must have been kept prisoners on the island and lost their passage besides. We had, however, a very beautiful day for the trip, the steamboat taking about two hours to reach Capri from Sorrento, and it was most enjoyable. The views from the deck are enchanting. When we arrived off the grotto, the vessel was surrounded by a multitude of little boats; and as three persons only are allowed to each, it took a long time for all the visitors to get off. The sea where the steamer stopped was of a most lovely blue colour, perhaps due to some great local saltness of the ocean. On approaching the entrance to the grotto, all were desired to lie down on the bottom of the boat, otherwise, by catching the crest of a wave, we might have broken our heads against the rocks of the entrance, which is very low,—although it might, one would think, be enlarged,—while the boatmen carefully pushed the boat inside. Once we were in, however, there was space enough for several boats to paddle about. We found everything bathed in the blue light of the sea reflected on the walls of the cavern. It is this which gives the name to the grotto. The rocks themselves are just ordinary colour, and do not, as might from the name be supposed, consist, like those of the blue John Cavern of Derbyshire, of actual blue spar.

When all had seen the grotto, the steamboats took us to the town of Capri, which, with another on the hill, is picturesque. There are good hotels near the landing–place. A long ascent leads to the high town, near which the palace of Tiberius once stood. From the height I had a view of the southern coast of Italy; but the day was hot, and the atmosphere therefore hazy, so that we could not see far. We returned to Sorrento in the afternoon.

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Sorrento is a great place—in fact, the chief place—for the manufacture of articles of inlaid wood. It is the industry of the town, and everywhere we found workshops for its manufacture, having attached to them shops for its sale, although, I presume, the larger part of the manufacture is for export or transmission elsewhere. As may be supposed, there is considerable diversity of skill among the workmen, and many articles exhibit inferiority; but I soon found out in which shops the best workmanship prevailed, and in particular considered the articles manufactured by M. Grandville were both well finished and wrought in good taste. Garguilo also, who has a more imposing establishment, had some very fine specimens of work. Every visitor buys more or less, principally, doubtless, to take home as gifts to friends, and I did not escape the contagion. Some of the articles are extremely beautiful; and one I secured, which seemed to be one of the finest examples, was so delicately inlaid that at first sight it seemed as if it were a painting on the wood. I saw, however, the process by which the inlaying is effected, which satisfied me with the reality of the inlaying. A picture is drawn on paper, and little pieces, corresponding in colour to the pattern, are cut out of larger coloured pieces with an extremely slender steel saw—almost a thread for fineness. These are glued down upon the pattern so closely that the joinings are invisible, and it is in the comparative skill with which this nice operation is conducted I presume the difference of quality and effect is mainly found. In purchasing these articles, however, one has not to lose sight of the fact that the transaction is taking place in the South of Italy, and sometimes a considerably higher price is asked than the seller is prepared to take. I had the specimens purchased put in a box, carefully packed, to send from Naples home by sea, and found on entering Naples that _octroi_ duty upon it was exacted, and this not according to value, but to weight. The wood shops are among the best in Sorrento, but I was struck with the marvellous likeness there was, in size at least, in the common small shops of Sorrento to what had been shops in Pompeii.

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We led a quiet life very pleasantly among friends and acquaintances at the hotel in Sorrento for about a fortnight, glad of rest after so much previous sight–seeing; but the hotel was always full, and the constant jingling of horses’ bells, denoting the arrival or departure of carriages, kept it lively, while, among other diversions, we witnessed the Tarantala dancing entertainment, to which I have elsewhere alluded (p. 72). We had at first thought of going to Cava, with a view to taking trips thence to Amalfi and Pæstum; but preferring rest, left that, like many other excursions, to another opportunity, which might never come. We returned to Naples on 11th April, having a glorious day for the return drive to Castellamare. The trees were only budding, so that we did not see things in perfection. As we drove out of the hotel yard, a man, neither clothed in plush and fine linen nor recently washed, jumped up and sat on the luggage behind, an undesirable–looking and unengaged lackey. The driver explained it was to guard the luggage, which sometimes, I believe, is, by the nimble–fingered inhabitants of the bay, quietly abstracted if not well roped. It was only, however, a genteel method of begging for 30 centimes, with which at Castellamare he was well satisfied. The beggars of Sorrento are certainly industrious in their calling. I stayed a few minutes at one place to make a little sketch, and was immediately surrounded by half–a–dozen women, and at least as many children, all wanting copper. One regular beggar, a man, old to appearance, who was constantly sauntering about, stick in hand, amused me much. His address was, as you approached him, arrestively and decisively, ‘Signor!’ You proceeded a yard farther, and it was more decisively, or rather imperatively, ‘Signor!’ You passed him, and it was ‘Signor! Signor!’ (weepingly) ‘povero vecc. he he per amor di Dio,’ a phrase generally employed by the Italian beggars. It is, however, but fair to add, that begging in Italy is not nearly so bad as it once was, for the authorities are setting their face against it. Still, in some places, it is a great annoyance that one cannot walk along the streets of a small town like Sorrento without being assailed by the same everlasting beggar, giving to whom only encourages to ask again.

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We were anxious upon our return to Naples to have ascended Vesuvius, at least as far as the Observatory, but unfortunately a heavy cloud hung over the mountain, and reluctantly we had to give it up. Instead, we took a drive to Puteoli, or, as it is now called, Pozzuoli, about two hours distant. Our way lay through the grotto of Posilipo, which is lighted up with gas, and is about a third of a mile long, about 21 feet wide, and varies in height from 70 to 25 feet; thence along an uninteresting road till again we reached the sea, when the islands and Puteoli looked very picturesque. One could hardly imagine from its appearance that it was formerly a great Roman port; but it has been subjected to many changes, and bears evidence of the forces below agitating the ground, by which some parts have been alternately submerged and upheaved, and the recurrence of such events would be sufficient of themselves to account for its desertion. Here we drove over the southern termination of the Appian Way, paved with the large old Roman stones; and our coachman pointed out the part of the old Roman pier (now in fragments, like a row of giant stepping–stones lifting their heads above water) at which he alleged the Apostle Paul had landed. There are some ruined temples in Puteoli and its neighbourhood, and the ruins of a large amphitheatre, which the guide said had held 45,000, but, as is more credibly stated by others, 25,000 spectators, for it is not so large or so imposing as that at Nismes, while the measurements are considerably less,—Nismes exceeding it in length by 75 feet, and in breadth by 120 feet. Chambers underneath were discovered in 1838, and are very interesting. They contained dens for the confinement of the wild beasts, and rooms where the gladiators were trained to fight. We had, previous to entering Puteoli, taken a side road to Solfatara. This is a scarcely extinct crater, supposed to have a direct communication underground with Vesuvius, twelve miles distant. However, there has been no eruption since 1198, when it sent forth a current of lava. A man who appeared as guide threw a heavy stone upon the probably thin crust of sulphurous matter constituting the ground over which we were treading; the reverberation from the fall indicated that it was hollow below, and in all likelihood a slender protection from a fiery furnace which it might not be safe to expose to the air and light of day. And as Solfatara is quiescent when Vesuvius is active, and active when Vesuvius is quiescent, which it then was, the thought, as we were intruding upon the domains of these angry forces of nature, that some sudden impulse might burst the earthy covering and blow us all up into the air, like Paul Pry peering about the steamboat when the boiler burst, was not comfortable. The guide took us to a hole from which sulphurous fumes were issuing, and for a few coppers entered it at some risk of suffocation, and by means of a long stick pulled out some pieces of hot sulphur from the boiling natural caldron, which we carried off as souvenirs of our visit to a place which some day may become the scene of a terrible disaster.

Taking a different route on returning, we passed the supposed tomb of Virgil; and crossing over the hill, came again in sight at some distance of Naples, and the continuous stretch of houses along the coast to the southward. Altogether it was a very interesting drive. Had we had time for it, we should have gone farther, as far as to Baiæ, which is a few miles beyond Puteoli.

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As illustrative of the method of selling and clutching at a profit, however small, I may here mention that, going out with a friend from the hotel, we were waylaid by boys offering walking–sticks for sale. The first boy asked 2 francs for a cane, my friend offered 1 franc, and it was at once taken. Thereupon another with much better canes came up. My friend picked out five of the best, for which he was asked 15 francs, and they were really very cheap at the money. He offered 5 francs and then 6, and to throw in the stick he had just bought of the other boy. The offer was at once closed with, so that he got for 7 francs five beautiful canes, which, judging from prices asked in the shops, were worth 20 francs at least.

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We had still a good deal to see in Naples; but, not feeling very well, we were anxious to leave a place the reputation of which for salubrity is by no means assuring, and departed for Rome by a morning train, leaving at 7 o’clock and arriving before 2 P.M.

XIV.

_FLORENCE, BOLOGNA._

FLORENCE.

WE stayed in Rome until 27th April, when we left for Florence. We had intended going round by the attractive town of Perugia, but the morning of the 26th was wet, and, delaying our departure for a day, we gave up Perugia, partly because to have gone upon a Friday would have involved spending a Sunday there. The latter part of our journey was interesting. On arriving at the outskirts of the town the railway circumnavigates it, so that we had an opportunity from the very first of seeing the cathedral dome and campanile, and the other towers and spires of Florence, which lies beautifully situated in a luxuriantly verdant valley, enclosed by the Apennines and other hills, and intersected by the river Arno, which, seeing for the first time in the soft moonlight in the course of the evening, looked so lovely.

The Lung’ Arno, or bank of the river, where most of the principal hotels are placed, is considered the best situation, at least for winter residence. Some of the hotels are unpleasantly near a waterfall or wear stretching across the river, the incessant din of which is troublesome at night. We spent a few nights at one of the hotels there, and afterwards a fortnight at the Pension Molini Barbensi[39], on the left bank of the river, where we found pleasant society and some former travelling acquaintances. The house is a good one, and the rooms are large, but a very little expenditure on sanitary arrangements would improve it as a residence. Living seems not to be expensive at Florence, and lodgings can be procured at a moderate rate.

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Florence lies upon the same river as Pisa, but I suppose fifty or sixty miles farther up, and the town bears some resemblance to it, but is far more picturesque and far more lively and populous. In fact, Pisa is quite a dull, quiet, dead–alive town beside it. The population of Florence, at present about 170,000, is four times as great as that of Pisa, and it has been a royal town as well as a provincial capital. The river is crossed by six bridges (three, or rather four of them, of very old date) connecting the north and south portions of the city, which, however, lies mainly upon the north shore. Of these bridges (all strongly buttressed against the force of the river, which no doubt occasionally descends in floods with great power), the Ponte Vecchio is peculiar and picturesque, and a remnant of old times, being covered on each side with houses, and on one side, on the top floor, by the long gallery which connects the Uffizi and Pitti Palaces. These houses on the bridge are very curious. Next the street they present to view on both sides small booths or stalls, principally occupied by goldsmiths or jewellers, which very likely much resemble what the shops of Old London were, but at the present day do not, for jewellers’ wares, inspire confidence. On the other or river sides, all manner of chambers in or on the wall project, jut out, and overhang the river, very perilous to behold, and suggestive of _oubliettes_ through which murdered travellers on the bridge might be quietly dropped into the river below, but conferring a quaintness of appearance precious in the sight of the artist. Equally striking in effect is an adjoining range of buildings on the left bank—also flanking the river, and with their projecting chambers overhanging it. In the centre of the bridge large arched openings enable the passer–by to look up and down the river, and take in the prospect beyond.

Nearly all along both sides of the Arno (protected by parapet walls) a wide street runs, and the buildings lining it are some of them stately and handsome, others are old or massive or peculiar, while the line is diversified here and there by a spire or a curious tower. The remarkable lofty old tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, and the dome and campanile of the cathedral,—all such notable objects in the pictures of Florence,—are prominent from almost every part, but especially from the south side of the river. There are, however, certain points of view from which Florence can be commanded. One of these is the terrace of the church of San Miniato, which stands upon a hill to the south–east, and is reached by a very delightful winding road bordered by villas, which were all at the time of our visit looking very charming in their new drapery of spring foliage. The church is an old one, finely decorated with marble and mosaics and marble pillars, and possessing a large crypt below. In itself it is well worth seeing, but it is principally visited for the sake of the prospect. Looking down from the terrace in front, Florence, with dome and towers, is seen lying away below very compactly in the centre of a long, large, flat plain, cut in two by the river, and surrounded by hills. It has here a fresher and cleaner look than most Italian towns. Immediately below San Miniato the piazza named after Michael Angelo lies, adorned in the centre by that artist’s famous colossal statue of David. The smart terraces of this nicely laid–out piazza command views similar to those from San Miniato, but from a lower elevation. A different winding road, as pleasant as the other, conducts down to the town.

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Another fine drive is to the very ancient town of Fiesole, which stands on a hill upon the north side, and is about three miles out of town. There is here a curious old church or cathedral, with pillars said to be of the first century. Ascending a hill a little higher, and probably 1000 feet above the sea, the view from the top is more commanding than that of San Miniato, and one sees the Arno winding its way for a long distance down the valley, and the Carrara Mountains in the distance. These and other drives about the suburbs of Florence give the impression of a very charming place for a spring residence; but Florence is hot in summer and often very cold in winter time, fierce winds blowing from the hills, which I suppose are frequently covered with snow. The older portions of the city are similar to most Italian towns, full of narrow, tortuous streets; but adjoining the river and in the newer portions, and in the outskirts, the streets are regular and comparatively wide, with piazzas or open spaces in several parts. There are wide, handsome boulevards or _viales_ encircling the city. In the Piazza Cavour there is a graceful triumphal arch akin to that in the Tuileries of Paris. At the west end, and adjoining the Arno, a large public park extends, called the Cascine, in which are long avenues bordered by trees, affording room for delightful drives and walks, one portion being also laid out as a racecourse. In the quarter south of the Arno the Boboli Gardens attached to the Royal Pitti Palace are also extensive, but open to the public only on Sundays and Thursdays.

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Florence, historically, is a place of great interest, and is associated with many great names. It is the birthplace of, among others, Dante, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Galileo, Michael Angelo Buonarotti, Cimabue, Fra Angelico, Leonardo da Vinci, Carlo Dolci, and others eminent in art. The houses of some of these celebrities are pointed out.

I can imagine that to those who spend a winter in Florence it must be exceedingly interesting to study the history of the place, and read on the spot such entertaining books as the remarkable life of that most remarkable man, Benvenuto Cellini, giving, as it does, such an insight into Italian life in the sixteenth century. Machiavelli, who died in 1527, brings his history down only to the year 1492; but after reading Trollope’s history, in four vols., Napier’s in six (leaving off at the year 1824) will afford for a whole winter a sufficiently tough _pièce de résistance_, the perusal whereof one’s physician would no doubt recommend should be diversified occasionally by a chapter in Mrs. Oliphant’s _Makers of Florence_, or by George Eliot’s _Romola_, which it is to be hoped was not drawn from the life.

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Florence, although in itself a more desirable place of residence than Rome, has no Roman ruins. It possesses, however, very many objects of great interest. There are within it about ninety churches, not a few of which are attractive.

The cathedral, commenced about six hundred years ago, and in its façade not yet finished, is immense, being 556 feet long by 342 feet wide. The spirit in which it was originated was lofty, the Florentine Republic desiring ‘that an edifice should be constructed so magnificent in its height and beauty that it shall surpass everything of the kind produced in the time of their greatest power by the Greeks and Romans.’ It is, at least in external covering, composed of marble—white, black, and green—with many sculptures and carvings in the marble, especially about the doorways. The stones are laid on a species of panelling consisting of upright parallelograms broken by large, formal, circular openings. Though it be somewhat stiff in pattern, and may be objected to as piebald, a certain richness of effect is produced. But the interior is not correspondent with the exterior; it is vast, but too bare and empty, and dark and dingy—perhaps, therefore, the more sublime! Looking up from below into the magnificent dome, it seems an enormous height to the lantern; as it no doubt is, being 352 feet—so high, in fact, that the dome itself is higher than that of St. Peter’s, although the highest pinnacle is not. In design and general effect, as a whole, the cathedral will not compare with the great temple of Rome. The campanile or bell tower which adjoins, but is separated from it, is of marvellous beauty, and stands nearly 300 feet high. It is a perpendicular square tower, built of every kind of coloured marble, adorned by statuary and covered with rich alto–relievos (of which photographs can be procured); also by the graceful windows, very charmingly decorated in a species of suitable tracery. There is a completeness about this tower, even though it lacks the spire with which Giotto intended it to be crowned, combined with an exuberant affluence of decoration, which renders it a delightful object of contemplation, or rather, I should say, a choice object of study.

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On the side of the piazza opposite to the west front the baptistery stands, an octagonal building 94 feet in diameter, and in one of the entrances the celebrated bronze gates are placed. We often availed ourselves of opportunities to examine these beautiful embodiments in bronze of Scripture subjects. Being exposed to the street, they are laden with dust, which to a certain extent reduces their apparent sharpness. Over this entrance gate there is a representation of the baptism of Jesus in three sculptured figures—our Lord, John the Baptist, and an attendant angel. Inside the baptistery, besides its oriental granite columns and its mosaics, there is nothing very remarkable.