A Journey to Crete, Costantinople, Naples and Florence: Three Months Abroad

Goethe quotes Pliny’s description of Naples, and what Goethe did I surely may be allowed to do. Instead, therefore, of trying to describe Naples myself, I will translate what he has quoted: “So happy, lovely, blessed is that region, that one perceives Nature has rejoiced in her work there. Such vital air, such continued salutary clemency of the sky, such fruitful fields, such sunny hills, such innoxious woods, such shady groves, such useful forests, such airy mountains, such far-extending cornfields, such an abundance of vines and olive-trees, such fine wool of the sheep, such fat necks of the oxen, so many lakes, such an abundance of irrigating rivers and streams, so many seas, so many harbours! The earth opens her bosom everywhere to commerce, and, almost anxious to assist man, stretches her arms into the sea.” After reading such a description, the well-known “Vedi Napoli e poi mori,” does not seem very exaggerated; nor when Goethe writes of his father: “It is said that he who has seen a ghost can never more be joyful, so on the contrary one might have said of him (his father) that he could never become quite unhappy, because he thought himself always back again at Naples.” That the days I spent there brought me enjoyment and delight, every one will easily suppose. People always call Paris a “gay” place, and such no doubt it is, still thousands and thousands lead a dreary and dismal life there, which seems hardly possible in Naples. Nature supplies all the necessaries of life in such abundance that even poverty ceases to cause real suffering. The climate is so mild that the want of what we should call indispensable clothing brings no discomfort; while a plate of macaroni, a dried fish, or a slice of melon seems to be all the food they require. They are exceedingly fond of music and dancing, and the Neapolitan airs are lively and pretty, and pleased me more than any I have heard in Italy. The performers who sing before the hotel, the caffés and restaurants, and accompany their songs with the guitar and the liveliest expression and gesticulations, look delightfully merry and cunning. Many of them improvise in a ready, pretty manner. Who can be sad and morose in a place like this, where everybody looks smiling, good-natured and contented? To be merry, joyful and happy lies in the air there, and is contagious like an epidemic. And I do not think the expression of good-nature and contentment one sees in almost every face, belies their feelings. The Neapolitans appeared to be very kind-hearted, and to delight in giving pleasure. We received, during our short stay at Naples, several marks of good will from them, of which I remember one especially with pleasure. We had stopped, on our way back from a short excursion to Posilipo, at a pretty restaurant, where we took some refreshments on an open platform overlooking the sea. While sitting there, and looking at the Bay and all the beauty surrounding it, a boat passed with a merry party in it, four of whom were amateur musicians. They played on two guitars, a flute, and a trombone. As soon as they saw us they stopped the boat right under our platform and played a pretty Neapolitan air, with the simple intention of giving us pleasure. When they had finished they greeted us and left. We returned the kind salute, and listened to their “renewed strain” till it became indistinct, and the accompanying sounds of the trombone only reached us.

After the great variety of Eastern costume the dress of the Neapolitans looked rather tame. The dress of the women is neat and clean, their full black hair is well plaited and shines like satin; but they wear nothing that can be called a costume, and I found even crinoline introduced to a great extent. If it were not for the dress of the different orders of monks and nuns, of boatmen and fishermen, and here and there a contadina in her pretty dress, the crowd would be not much more picturesque than an English one, from which however it would be easily distinguished by the darker complexion of the people, the animated features, and the lively gesticulations with which they accompany all they say.

We were at Naples the week after the first Sunday in May, which is one continual festival in honour of St. Gennaro, the great patron saint of Naples. Thus I had an opportunity of witnessing the celebrated miracle of liquefaction of the blood of the saint, which is kept in two phials in the chapel “del Tesoro” adjoining the cathedral, for the blood liquefies daily during the festival when high mass is celebrated. The chapel is wonderfully magnificent; the three altars with their ornaments, and the statues of more than forty saints, being all of silver. The most magnificent of all is, of course, that of Saint Gennaro standing on the high altar, whose mitre of gold is covered with precious stones of great size, and who wears round his neck enough ornaments to deck a whole crowd of queens and duchesses. They are the gifts of different kings and queens of Naples. Napoleon I., who stripped so many churches of their treasures, made a present to this all-powerful saint, and Victor Emanuel seems to have thought that in this respect he too must follow the example of his predecessors, for the saint wears two magnificent crosses of amethysts and diamonds, the gift of the Rè Galantuomo. My husband did not approve of this, and even expressed a wish that Garibaldi had melted down the gold and silver saints, and invested the money so obtained in schools for the people, and other public and charitable institutions.

But who can tell if even Garibaldi, the idol of the people of Naples, and the saint they perhaps most adore after St. Gennaro, could have done this. The priest to whom I expressed my astonishment, that the treasures of this chapel had escaped the vicissitudes of so many revolutions and wars, said it was evidently a miracle wrought by the saint.

If the great St. Gennaro has as yet escaped peculation, the common little saints that used to stand at every street corner of Naples, have not fared so well of late. They were all of them removed in one night, by order of General La Marmora, then Governor of Naples. The people, especially the women, became clamorous and noisy on the discovery next morning, but were told that the Governor was so fond of the Saints, that he wished to take better care of them. He had therefore removed the Saints from their uncomfortable quarters in the street, to snugger ones in the Churches and Convents, where they would be much better off. This entirely satisfied the crowd.

The removal of the Saints, and that of the pigs of St. Antonio, which Garibaldi effected, has much changed the appearance of the streets of Naples. The pigs of the Convent of St. Antonio, that used to run about in the principal streets of Naples, even in the fine Strada Toledo, and which lived upon public charity, were a terrible nuisance. The ignorant populace held these pigs of the holy fathers in great veneration, and fed them well, and I have been assured on good authority, that if a man had with his cart or carriage run over a child in the streets, he might possibly have escaped unpunished, but had he hurt a pig in that way, the infuriated mob would almost have killed him.

The morning I went to hear High Mass in the Chapel del Tesoro, it presented an animated and magnificent spectacle. The windows were darkened by crimson blinds, to keep the strong sunlight out, and the chapel was lighted up by numberless candles, the light of which was reflected by the silver ornaments that deck the whole chapel. The way up to the altar was lined with soldiers, I suppose to prevent disturbances in the eager crowd that longed to kiss the liquefied blood.

The people walked up in good order to the altar, but on the sides down which they returned, there was a good deal of squeezing and pushing. The priest that held the little glass case, containing the two phials in his hand, and who showed them to the congregation, shook the liquefied blood about, and thrust the case into the people’s faces with so rudely irreverent a manner, that I, who am no believer in the miracle, felt shocked; what impression it made upon the other people I cannot tell. They looked however quite contented and pleased. They were mostly priests and nuns, and persons of the lower orders, but I observed also some who appeared to belong to the upper classes.

While the crowd kissed the blood of the Saint the choir sang a most beautiful mass, and the rich voices with which bountiful Nature has endowed so many of her children under the blue sky of Naples, filled the chapel with harmony, and made the chords of my heart vibrate in unison. There was a bass voice among them that reminded me of Lablache.

On the evening of the same day I had witnessed the miracle of the liquefaction in the Chapel del Tesoro, the son of the famous conjuror Bosco repeated the trick before the boxes crowded with elegant ladies at the Theatre St. Carlo, but I did not go to see it. Ever since I am out of my teens, I no longer care for conjuring tricks; besides I had seen it done so well in the morning. I was however told that the trick in the evening succeeded quite as well, and was repeated several times before a smiling and applauding audience. I visited most of the other principal churches of Naples. The Church of St. Severo is full of fine modern statues. One representing a man who is trying to free himself from the meshes of a net in which he is entangled, and which is called “the snares of the world,” is very clever. Another one called “Modesty” is graceful, but as a representation of modesty, might have a somewhat thicker veil. At the Museo Borbonico, now called “Reale,” I admired some of the finest Greek marbles I have ever seen. The grand Torro Farnese, the wonderful Hercules, of the same famous collection, a Flora, that looks something between a Juno and a Venus, stately and graceful at the same time, the most charming representation of virgin youth I have ever seen. There is a whole room full of Venuses, of which one is certainly very beautiful, although apparently too conscious of her charms to please me very much.

“I must go up Mount Vesuvius before we leave Naples,” I said to my husband, and he, not less desirous than myself to visit a volcano, set out with me early the next morning, for the ascent of the mountain.

I know it is considered a beautiful sight to see the sun rise from the top of Vesuvius, but as it rises in the middle of May at a most unreasonably early hour, we despaired of getting to the top before the sun, so we let the god travel alone for several hours, and did not leave our hotel in the Chiatamone till a little after six o’clock. An hour’s quick drive brought us to Resina. Our way to the latter led us through the village of St. Giovanni, where one sees nothing but macaroni and pigs. Most of the houses are small macaroni manufactories, and the fresh macaroni are on long sticks, hung out into the street to dry. Most of the manufacturers keep a pig, which is tied to some post in the street, not far from the door of the house, or if a very tame, good little pig, runs about free.

After St. Giovanni, we passed through Portici, the home of Masaniello and his poor sister Fenella. Here there are delightful villas, with gardens sloping down to the bay, and close to it lies Resina, where the ascent of the mountain on horseback begins. There used to be a fine carriage road as far as St. Salvator, which is about an hour’s ride up the mountain, but the lava streams of the great eruption of 1859, have entirely destroyed it. We had not been more than ten minutes on our horses, when we came to these formidable traces of the last great eruption of the volcano. In broad thick masses the lava had flowed down the sides of the mountain into the blooming orchards and fruitful vineyards, to which the dark, dead rivers of stone presented a striking contrast.

These lava streams have a strange and diverse appearance. Sometimes the surface is roughly even and resembles immense masses of curiously twisted burnt trunks, and branches of trees. At other places it is more like a roughly ploughed field that by a sharp frost has become still more broken up than by the plough. Between the lava are large beds of ashes and cinders.

The ride to the foot of the cone, which lasted about an hour and a half, presented no difficulty, for the road rises very gradually and is broad, and lava presents a rough surface on which the horses’ feet do not slip. The cone must be climbed on foot, and is a very tiring piece of work even with the assistance of two guides, the one to pull you up with the help of a band fastened round his waist, the other pushing you up by placing one of his hands against your back. As climbing does not easily tire me I wanted to walk up, to which my husband however objected; so I had to sit down in a chair in which the guides carried me up. One guide in front held the two poles which were fastened to the chair in his hands, two men behind carried each one on his shoulder, and thus kept the chair in a horizontal position. It must be very hard work indeed to carry any body for an hour up so steep an ascent; for my husband, although he was assisted in the already described manner by two guides, found it very tiring indeed. The men did it however cheerfully, and with less appearance of fatigue than I had expected. When we had reached the top, and my husband and the men had rested awhile, we walked to the brink of the crater, and now I saw, with my own eyes, the strange and grand spectacle to the description of which I remember to have listened with almost incredulous wonder when a little school girl, and which to see I had longed for ever since we had passed Mount Etna and Stromboli.

The volcano was in a very fair state of activity. Thick volumes of smoke issued from it, and about every two minutes there was a loud report as of thunder or cannon, and then flames appeared, and ashes and stones were ejected flying high up into the air, and falling down with a rattling noise. It must not however be thought that we stood close to the terrible opening out of which rose the flames and smoke. Within the large crater from the brink of which we witnessed the spectacle, rises, what looks a Vesuvius on a smaller scale, and on the top of this, which is however below the level of the place where we stood, is the real crater. It is very fascinating to watch the eruptions, and we found it difficult to turn our backs upon it, and look a little at the scene around us in the beautiful world below.

The top of Vesuvius looks terribly dreary; the dread abode of horror and destruction. Nothing but the dark lava stones and ashes all around. There is of course no trace of animal or vegetable life visible anywhere. The sad monotony is however a little relieved by the different colours of the lava and the stones; especially by the bright yellow of the sulphur one sees in large quantities. This hideous image of death and destruction rises abruptly out of Elysian plains and vallies; its foot is washed by the azure sea dotted with emerald islands, and above smiles a limpid sky.

The view is very extensive, because Vesuvius is a mountain of considerable altitude; yet as it rises so abruptly out of the plain and sea, the view has the distinctness of no great distance, which adds much to its charm. It is lovely on all sides; but from the point that overlooks Naples, the Bay and its lovely shores, the Mediterranean, and the islands of Capri, Ischia and Procida, it is deservedly considered one of the most lovely in the world.

In going up the volcano the guides had chosen a stony, rough stream of lava, which affords a safe footing; in going down, on the contrary, they chose a bed of fine cinders and ashes, and ran or slid rapidly down. What it had taken us an hour to ascend, my husband descended in six minutes, and I, chair and all, took only about double that time. It is a very dusty affair, the black ashes whirl up under the feet of the men, and envelope one completely. Never was a tepid bath more refreshing than the one I enjoyed in the evening after I had come home from my visit to Vesuvius.

The guides had pointed out to us the lava streams of the different eruptions, and the immense stones and pieces of rock which were ejected by the volcano in 1822. In looking at these formidable pieces of rock, of which some were at a great distance from the crater, one gets an idea of the power that is working within it, and the fate of Herculaneum and Pompeii becomes intelligible. The latter place we had visited the day before. All I felt there is expressed in those few words: “Sic transit gloria mundi.” But never before had I realized so fully what the instability of all earthly greatness means. In this city of the dead I felt far, far removed from the present, and my mind for a moment seemed to realize what the future really means. A time, when the lovely city I had just left would have disappeared from the face of the earth, and its old site be a matter of doubt and uncertainty, when the language of Dante would survive perhaps in his book only, when the very features of sea and mountain around me might be changed; for had not eighteen hundred years ago, the waves of the gulf washed the walls of Pompeii that now lies far inland, and another Vesuvius burned than the one we ascended? And I saw with my mind’s eye the proud city across the sea, which I had left a few months before, as Macaulay, thinking of a time to come, describes it, a heap of ruins; and a traveller in a strange dress, speaking a language which is not yet formed, sitting on a broken arch of London Bridge, meditating like me at that moment on the truth of the words, “Sic transit gloria mundi.” We did not, as Murray recommends, enter Pompeii by the Strada dei Sepolcri, but through the Porta del Mare, and I liked it better, as the Strada de Sepolcri forms the fittest finale of the town.

I have heard of people who have been disappointed in Pompeii, others have said the same of the Acropolis. I cannot understand such people. They must be more dead than the very stones there, for they spoke to me, and what they said moved me deeply. When I first entered the city of the dead, I felt strange and bewildered like in a dream. Surely “reality is stranger than fiction.” What can be more strange than that the sun should shine again into the streets, and light up the painted walls and mosaic pavement of Pompeii. And yet so it is. That very old Pompeii, that lay for nearly eighteen centuries buried, is risen again. We walk through its streets, and tread the very stones worn out by the footsteps of Roman citizens, and by the wheels of their chariots.

We see their houses, their temples, their judgment halls, their baths and theatres, their gardens and court-yards, in which however the little fountain is silenced for ever. In walking into their houses we seem to become strangely familiar with their former inhabitants; we see everywhere traces of their being, of their virtues and vices, of their greatness and their folly. I daresay by night the spirits of the departed haunt the silent town; but it was by broad cheerful daylight that I visited it, and therefore it seemed inhabited only by pretty little lizards, which I saw flitting about on every wall, and between the delicate ferns that grow in the silent streets of Pompeii.

Of our journey from Naples to Leghorn, there is not much to be said, although it was very pleasant. We went with the Italian steamer “Principe Umberto,” which was filled with passengers, most of whom were going like ourselves to Florence, for the Dante festival, which was to be celebrated there on the 14th, 15th, and 16th of May. Several of the passengers were deputies sent to Florence from different towns in Calabria. The company was lively and merry. The piano in the saloon sounded almost the whole day, but being touched by skilful fingers it did not annoy me like the performances of the young ladies from Constantinople, or the quadrilles of the young English officer.

We arrived at Leghorn on the 13th of May, after a journey of twenty-four hours, there we remained the night, not daring to proceed to Florence, for we knew that all the hotels were over-crowded, and that we should find it difficult to get a room if we arrived late at night.

After a stroll through the town, which is a well built modern place, we went to rest, in order to be better able to bear the fatigues, and enjoy the pleasures of the days to come.

CHAPTER V.

THE DANTE FESTIVAL AT FLORENCE

“Del bel paese la dove il si suona.”

    Dante.
And now the great day had come, the 14th of May, 1865! I had to rise very early, for we intended to leave by the first train, which started from Leghorn at four o’clock in the morning. Although rather averse to early rising in England, it cost me no effort here. The thought of going to Florence roused me, besides the warm bright twilight of an Italian May morning lighted up my bedroom, and the street was already full of people, all in holiday dress, and taking the road towards the station, in order to secure places in the train that was to take them to Florence.

We were not the last in the crowd, and three hours after, arrived at Florence, where Italy was going to celebrate on that day the sixth centenary anniversary of the birth of Dante. Truly this solemn event happened “in the fulness of time,” and every thing concurred to make it as splendid and happy a festival as any nation has ever celebrated. Now, for the first time, the grand idea of Dante, a free and united Italy, has almost become a complete reality, and the hearts of all his people rejoice that from the Alps to Mount Etna, one law now reigns, and hopefully trust that the other great thought of Dante, the deliverance of the Church from the burden of temporal power, will ere long also become a reality. The disappointment and irritation the Italians felt at the loss of Savoy and Nice, has almost entirely passed, while what they have gained has still all the charm of a new possession, and something of the passion and enthusiasm of honeymoon-love in it. Is it therefore to be wondered at that the people of Italy rejoiced on the 14th of May? that every countenance wore a smile, and that their lively eyes sparkled with joy!

The festival happening in Spring-time was also a favourable circumstance. Dante, near the entrance of Hell, felt comforted because it was “la bella stagione,” was it therefore not natural that it added much to the splendour and enjoyment of a fête in “blooming Florence!” Had the anniversary happened in December or January, where could the flowers have come from, and the glory of the golden sunshine round Dante’s statue. A pelting rain might easily have damped the enthusiasm of his countrymen, as it would most certainly have spoiled the pretty bonnets of his fair compatriots, that made so nice a show in seats round the Piazza Santa Croce.

Most favourable for the celebration of the anniversary of Dante’s birth, was lastly, that it happened at Florence, the very town in all the world best adapted for the celebration of such an event.

Fancy a national festival at Paris or London! The size of those towns does not admit of a general decoration; but even if such a miracle could be performed, nobody would ever see a tenth part of it, as one would be nearly dead with fatigue getting half way from the Marble Arch to St. Paul’s. Another serious drawback are the immense multitudes that inhabit these monster towns, and create unpleasant crowds, which, to all that have not nerves of iron, and great physical strength, destroy all feeling of enjoyment. None of these unfavourable conditions existed in Florence. It is but a little place, though such a gem of a town, and can therefore be uniformly decorated, changed into a gigantic palace, through whose halls and corridors the inhabitants and visitors, that do not number by millions, gaily move. And such a place Florence appeared on that day. All the houses had red, green, or yellow silk hangings falling down from their windows, and were besides richly decorated with pictures, busts, flags, flowers, and evergreens. The noble architecture of the town, the nice clean streets, which are neither too narrow to look sombre, nor too broad not to be easily spanned by garlands of flowers, all united to produce the happiest effect. On all the principal places, statues of great Italians had been placed, or trophies in remembrance of some great national event, which happened on that particular spot. There was a great number of them; for the Florentines boast, and not without some reason, that if a stone were to mark every glorious memory of the town, there would hardly be a stone in Florence that did not deserve special distinction. I could not attempt to find out what all the statues and trophies meant, but even if I had looked at them all, and remembered every inscription, I could not enumerate them here, else what is to be but a chapter would become a volume.

I must however mention a fine statue of Galileo, on the Piazza Santa Maria Novella, with the following inscription:—

“A Galileo.
Finirà la tua gloria
quando il genere umano
cessi di vedere il sole ed abitare la terra.”[7 - Thy glory will end, when the human race shall have ceased to see the sun, and to inhabit the earth.]

Near the Ponte alla Carraia, there was a statue to Goldoni, the great writer of comedies, and on the Piazza del Duomo, those of the famous architects Arnolfo and Brunelesco. On the houses where celebrated men were born, lived, or died, tablets were placed recording their names and deeds, ornamented with banners, wreaths of flowers and laurels, and often with the bust or portrait of the illustrious dead.

The Bruneleschi palace, where Michael Angelo lived and died, and which still contains his books, furniture, etc., interested me much. On a house in the Corso, I noticed the following inscription:—

O voi che per la via d’amor passate
volgete uno sguardo alle mure
ove naque nell’ aprile del 1266
Beatrice Portinari,
prima e purissima fiamma,
che accese il genio
del Divino Poeta
Dante Alighieri.[8 - You that walk in the path of love, cast a look upon these walls, where in April 1266, was born Beatrice Portinari, etc.]

The house of Giovanni Battista Strozzi, named the Blind, the great scholar and philosopher of the 17th century, was beautifully decorated. I remarked also Frescobaldi’s, the friend of Dante, which stands in the Via Maggio, and not far from it, on the Piazza Santa Trinità, the house in which Robert Dudley, an English mathematician of the 17th century lived, whose memory still survives in Florence.

In Sta. Maria Maggiore, I observed a tablet which marks the spot where Brunetto Latini, Dante’s master, is buried. Under the name was written the following line from the Divina Comedia, which is deservedly considered a grander and more lasting monument than any that could be erected in marble:

“M’insegnavate come l’uom s’eterna.“[9 - You taught me how a man becomes immortal.]

On the Piazza del Duomo, is the “Sasso di Dante,” a stone upon which the great man often sat in meditations, as lofty and grand as the glorious Dome on which he was silently gazing.

In a niche in the wall over that spot, was placed the bust of Dante, surrounded by laurel wreaths and flowers. The Piazza dei Signori, looked magnificent and most beautiful of all that part which is formed by the Loggia dei Lanzi, under whose noble arches are placed some of the finest works of art: the Theseus by Benvenuto Cellini, the Rape of the Sabines by Giovanni di Bologna, and others. This gem of architecture is at all times splendid, but now its walls were covered with the most exquisite Gobelin tapestry, after designs by Michael Angelo. They represented the history of Adam and Eve, from their creation to their expulsion from Paradise.

The greatest care had however been bestowed on the decoration of the Piazza Santa Croce, where the inauguration of the national monument to Dante was to take place. This piazza is a large oblong space, whose houses were covered with flowers and rich red silk hangings, and the background was formed by the splendid marble façade of the church of Santa Croce. The piazza had been boarded and carpeted all over, and raised seats were erected for the spectators who had obtained tickets. When these seats and the windows round the piazza were all filled, principally with ladies, in the most elegant spring toilets, the effect was the gayest imaginable.

Behind the seats were placed thirty-eight paintings imitating bas-relief, illustrating the life of Dante. The first represented him when, nine years old, he first saw Beatrice, in the house of her father; the last showed his burial in Ravenna. There were also the portraits of about forty celebrated contemporaries, translators, or commentators of Dante.