A Journal of two successive Tours upon the Continent, in the years 1816, 1817 and 1818

Front matter

A JOURNAL or TWO SUCCESSIVE TOURS UPO>» THE CONTINENT. Printed by A. and it. Spottiswoode, Punters-Street, London. A JOURNAL or TWO SUCCESSIVE TOURS UPON THE CONTINENT, IN THE YEARS 18lG, 1817, & 1818. By JAMES WILSON, Esq. Quis me ignotas traxit vagus error in oras Ire per nereas rupes, Alpemque nivosam i Ecquid erat tanti Romam vidisse sepultam. MILTON. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II LONDON : PRINTED FOR T. CADELL AND W. DAVIES. JN THE STRAND ; AND W. BI.ACKWOOD, EDINBURGH. 1820. A JOURNAL OF TWO SUCCESSIVE TOURS, 4*c. $c.

Chapter I

On the 23d March, 1816, we left Florence after our first visit, with the season very backward, but in weather as clear and brilliant as Italy can afford. We contracted with a vetturino to take us to Rome, without other passengers, for fifteen dollars each, which included. the payment for two beds, fire, and one meal a day. Our carriage was a sort of phaeton drawn by two mules, altogether convenient for viewing the country. What is called travelling by vetturino is exactly this, that you are carried about thirty-five miles a day ; to effect which it is ne cessary to rise by five o'clock in the morning, and continually to animate the driver by ejacu lations of discontent, reprobation, and encou ragement ; taking care under this last head, not to give him any claim for exorbitant personal VOL. II.

B reward at the end of the journey ; for he is al ways enough on the alert to twist any casual expression into a positive promise. You may also generally depend upon his being dissatisfied when paid ; but be steady to your purpose, as you may be equally certain that he will have more of respect for your firmness and prudence than of gratitude for your acquiescence in his unlimited demands. The pace of advance is about three miles and a half an hour. In the middle of the day the driver stops to refresh himself and his beasts for about two hours ; and he makes a point of finishing his journey before dark. Be careful to engage a vettura from a respectable proprietor of these carriages, and then you may be tolerably secure of strict ho nesty ; that is to say, notwithstanding every means will be put in practice to extort both by the principal and his servant ; by the former, in triking the bargain -, and by the latter, to in crease the amount of his drinkeldt, none of your luggage will be pillaged, but the driver, on the contrary, will prevent any bad consequences of your own carelessness, by protecting every thing which may be left in the carriage.

A written agreement with the master is indispensable be fore starting ; and with such precautions you may hope to travel for a little less than double what a native expends. But I must acknow- TO ROME. ledge that during my second tour in Italy, we very rarely used this mode of conveyance, pre ferring the post-horses and an independent carriage, with which you can command your own time, and extend or shorten your day's journey at pleasure. In short, if the truth be spoken, it is the only comfortable way of travelling ; a con viction produced by experience of every pos sible variety of locomotion, except a balloon, beginning with tramping on foot, and then by gradation trying the ass, the mule, the horse, the sledge, the cart, the gig, the phaeton, the vettura, the public coach, the courier, and the private post carriage ; and these in their different degrees of excellence.

The first place on the road which attracts the attention ofthe traveller is Incisa, and merely because it was the reported birth-place of # Fran- * Petrarch is claimed by the Aretines as a native of their city ; but Montaigne and Leandro Alberti say, that he was born at Incisa ; and Arezzo has enough of distinguished sons to bear the robbery, if it be one ; and so certainly is it a robbery, that the stolen goods must be restored on the evidence of Petrarch himself, who, in a letter addressed to Johannes Aretinus, de sua origine, writes thus : — " Quando vero tam anxie me rogas, plus etiam aliquid, quam interrogas respon debo. Non soluin ergo Arretri, sed in vicointimo civitatis illius qui hortus vulgo dicitur, heu flos aridus et fructus insipidus, natus satusque etiam fui." After this passage neither Mon taigne or Alberti need be at the trouble of giving us their opinion.

B*2 cesco Petrarca": on this account alone, we are inclined to notice it ; and to hear with patience the only old story concerning it, which says that Incisa received its name from a rock in the bed of the Arno, having been cut through to make a freer passage for the water. But I cannot wholly pass over the spot where we dined, called Pian del Fonte, prettily situated near the river, and under the side of a hill covered with gardens. The inn afforded but meagre fare, yet it provided an extravagant bill, which we absolutely refused to pay. The consequence was, that the villagers assembled in support of their chief, the host ; and on our ordering the driver to proceed, bill-hooks and hay-forks sprang up on every side to prevent advance and enforce the demands. But the sight of a pistol put the Hudibrastic legions to flight, and brought forth the female peasants, screaming and throwing about their arms, as if all their male companions were already murdered and exterminated.

Our money lay on the ground, which the landlord affirmed was too little to be worth picking up, and we drove off undisturbed by any fresh im pediments. The beauties of the country continued to increase as far as Le vane, where we slept full of expectation for the morrow. We stopped at Arezzo, charmingly posted at the head of the Val di Chiana, to examine the TO ROME. 5 place. Its antient name was Arretium, and it is supposed to have been founded before the Trojan war, either by the original inhabitants, the Umbri, or by the Pelasgi, who drove out the former. It appears very early in Roman his tory. Dionysius, in his third book, mentions Arezzo as one of five Tuscan cities which promised assistance to the Latins, when these last applied to the Sabines and Tuscans for aid against Tarquin the king of Rome.

Afterwards, in the year 443 of the city, Q. Fabius Maximus Rullianus reduced the Aretines, with the Peru gians and Cortonese, to sue for peace, they hav ing sustained several defeats in consequence of laying siege to Sutrium, a city in alliance with Rome. And at the time when Hannibal was threatening the very existence of the Roman commonwealth, Arretium was regarded with suspicious distrust, the senators of the city being considered ill-affected. The senate at Rome became daily more alarmed for the disposition evinced by the Aretines, and Caius Hostilius was ordered to seize upon hostages immediately, and send them to the Roman capital, through the hands of C. Terentius Varro, who was deputed in command for effecting this object. Hostilius immediately removed the standards of a legion encamped before the city within the walls, and having placed guards at convenient posts, cited b3 the Aretine senators to the Forum, and demanded the hostages.

The senate required two days for consideration ; but the general desired them to give themselves up, or that the children of all the senators would be seized upon the following day. The gates were then ordered to be shut, that none should pass out by night. But these commands being negligently executed, seven of the principal senators contrived to escape with their children before night came on, or the guards were mounted. The next day, at the dawn of the morning, the senate was assembled in the Forum ; the fugitives were missed, and their goods confiscated. One hundred and twenty hostages were taken from the remaining senators and delivered over to Varro to conduct them to Rome. Varro raised the distrust of the Roman government still higher, so that as if Tuscany were on the eve of insurrection, he was dispatched with another legion to keep Arretium in awe, while' Hostilius with the rest of the army marched over the whole province to ensure order and submission.

Varro afterwards took measures to secure the city, and left nothing to the free will ofthe Aretines, but treated them as actual rebels.* The above serves to show the importance of Arezzo in antient times, the independent spirit ofthe citizens, and their unea- * Livius, lib. 27. TO ROME. 7 siness under the increasing power ofthe Romans in Italy. But finally Arretium became a useful friend to the commonwealth, and furnished means for forwarding Scipio to Africa ; and like other cities which at first disputed the preten sions of Rome, it proved a willing and advantageous member of the empire, and produced one of the proudest ornaments of the court or Augustus. Mæcenas was an Aretine, descended from the antient Lucumones or kings of Etruria, and a descendant from Porsena. Arezzo too provided the Romans with Etruscan vases, as Pliny has told us, and also Martial, in the following lines : Arretina nimis ne spernas vasa monemus Lautus erat Tuscis Porsena fictilibus.

And Sic Arretinæ violent crystallina testæ. The city suffered during the irruptions of the Goths and Lombards, and for some time remained in a ruined condition ; but recovered sufficiently to take an active part in the Guelph and Ghibelline factions. Mabillon, in his Mu seum Italicum, gives us a curious extract from one ofthe letters, written by Delphinus, who became general of the order at Carnal doli, in the 16th century. This passage informs us of a singular b degradation to which the Aretines subjected themselves, by indulging in a gross insult upon the arms of Florence. The ensign of Florence was a lion, and a figure of this animal stood on the top of the cathedral, which the Aretines pulled down and threw into a well. When Charles the Eighth passed through the city, he had the lion drawn out of the well, and set it up on the square, and obliged all the inhabitants to kneel when they went by, and ask pardon ofthe offended image.

These risings of the spirit against the Florentines are now gone by, and Arezzo is a more peaceable, but more obscure appendage to the territory of the Grand Duke. It is almost fearful to enter on the long list of distinguished men who drew their breath at Arezzo ; I shall select however one or two of the most prominent. The celebrated Guido Pietra Mala, independently of his noble exploits, attracts notice by the singular opposition of his mode of life to his profession. Educated for the church, and elevated to the dignity of a bishop, he laid by his mitre and crosier, and buckled on a helmet, and supplied his hand with a sword instead of the pastoral staff. His brother Saccone is a good subject for a surprising memoir. Indeed, the learned Aretines seemed so sensible of the glory of their city, that they generally assumed as an agnomen TO ROME " Aretino," to mark their origin from it.

Thus we have Leonardo Aretino, Benedictus Arreti nus, Pietro Aretino, and Gui Aretino. Pietro Aretino, the famous satirist, it must be acknow ledged, appears to have been animated with a greater desire of detracting from the characters which he lashed, than of reforming them. But as the satirist of royalty he will always be known, although his works have long since ceased to be read ; because Ariosto brings him forward with high but concise eulogy : " Ecco il flagello " De' Principi, il divin Pietro Aretino." There are some indefatigable collectors of rare books, who still look after his works with avidity ; particularly if smitten with the love of ribbaldry, they find delight in the coarseness of his terms, but miss the severity of his satire. Gui Aretino is said to have invented the present mode of writing music ; and Cesalpini, a physician, had the first idea of the circulation of the blood, and first imagined the method of classing plants -, wherefore Linnæus pays him this compliment : Quisquis hie extiterit primos concedat honores Cæsalpine tibi, primaque serta dabit.

But I must cut short this list.* * Petrarch Y have mentioned above in a note upon Incisa. The cathedral is situated in an open spot, sur^ rounded with green turf. It was built in 1300, and is a noble looking structure. In a chapel, (which is rather in size and ornament another cathedral) on the left-hand side ofthe nave, is seen a very large picture by Benvenuti, (whom I have spoken of at Florence,) which may be considered a votive tablet to his native town. It is an original and spirited representation of Judith, with the head of Holophernes, which she holds up to the people, encouraging them by her own example to preserve the independence of their country. Benvenuti is the son of a cobler, who worked at his trade long after his son rose to celebrity, but has since retired weighed down with years.

His brothers also are tradesmen in Arezzo. Opposite to this painting is another of the same size, by Sabbatelli, of Abigail before David, which shows an inferior artist. Benvenuti has another picture in the nave of St. Donatus ; but the figure is stiff, and the coloring glaring and false, and it seems to be the produce of one of his earliest efforts for the public. The head, however, is very far above the style and character of the rest of the picture. The high altar of the church is a curious specimen of patient labor in the chiselling of marble. The celebrated dithyrambic poet, Redi, is buried here. He was a native of Arezzo, and sang the to ROME. 11 excellence ofthe wines ofthe neighbourhood, but abused those of Cortona, as an Aretine of course could not speak well of any thing to be found in the rival city.

Pignotti was also a native of Arezzo. Before the gates of the cathedral are two porphyry columns, a legacy to the building, left by a person who it seems snatched them from Paganism, and beatified them by posting them on each side of this christian entrance. To the west of the church is the Episcopal Palace, where the present bishop constantly resides. The bishopric is valued at about 30,000 crowns a-year. Adjoining to this building is a small museum of antiquities, but it con tains nothing worth particular notice. Just by the square on which the cathedral stands, is a small dirty house, or rather hovel, which is called the house of Petrarch. That it may be on the site where the poet was born and lived with his family is very probable ; but that it should be the identical residence of the exiled Florentine is almost impossible.

Descending from this square down a flight of steps which lead through an archway, you arrive at the Loggie, a highly ornamental range of buildings, which are supported in front by a spacious and noble portico. The whole was raised on the designs of Georgio Vasari the painter, who was a native of Arezzo, and who gave the plan of these buildings, which contain the theatre, the custom-house, and other public offices. Santa Maria della Pieve is a curious old gothie church of marble, in which Georgio Vasari has left several paintings, and among the rest the portraits of his own family, who are elevated. upon the high altar. This is an indecorum so extravagant, that we might almost fancy them to be placed there by the Roman catholics, as a proof that they did not really worship the sculptured and painted images posted over their altars.

There is also a picture of St. George and the Dragon, extremely good, and several others in bad condition, by this master. The church attached to the convent of Monte Cassino is remarkable for the perspective cupola painted by Del Pozzo. One of our party walk ing into the church, while we stood admiring the skill of the artist, and hearing us praise the cupola very highly, was surprised at our admiration, and observed that it surely could give us no pleasure after having seen the Dome at Flo rence ; for as he was completely deceived by the illusion, he supposed that our eulogy was pronounced on the excellence of the architecture ; and it was not till he was placed on a spot where he lost the chosen point of vision, that he discovered his mistake j a circumstance worth relating, because it is the highest praise TO ROME. 13 which can be offered to the ability of the painter.

In the dining-hall of this establishment is a large fresco by Georgio Vasari representing the feast of Ahasuerus. The characters of some of the heads are excellent ; but the costume is bad, and there is a want of clearness in the composi tion. At the Olivetani convent, near the gate lead ing to Rome, are the poor remains of an amphitheatre, the arches of which on one side are con verted into cellars, while the arena is certainly become more profitable, by yielding cabbages and gooseberry bushes instead of spectacles of Gladiators, and of men fighting with beasts. In this city is a large manufactory of wool len. We slept at Arezzo * on our returning to Florence, when we had a private post carriage, * As Arezzo, although further removed from the Arno than the ancient Arretium, is yet the last place on its bank, if we may so say, which is found on the road to Rome, I should wish to notice here a beautiful passage by Pignotti in his Favola Eroica of the Tiber and Arno, which appears to me very incorrect.

The Arno takes its source somewhere about Pietrafitta, between Monte Falterona and the Appenino della Ponna ; it then runs down the valley in a S.E. direction nearly to Arezzo, where it doubles on its own course, and flows N.W. to Florence. The Tiber rises near Mignano under Monte Coronaro, between which and the source of the Arno are several lofty and formidable summits; and yet and travelled with post horses ; which I merely mention to introduce an account of one of the Pignotti in some very charming verses tells us that they both spring from the same lake. It may be considered absurd to examine so strictly the geography of a fable ; but his description is so detailed, and the circumstance of the two rivers having the same fountain, is so immaterial to the dialogue, which ensues, that I should rather suppose he meant it for an accurate account of what he never saw, namely, the "Vasto lago;" of whose existence, however, I know nothing, nor did I ever meet with any mention of this subterranean lake elsewhere ; nor do the geographers who have made the best maps of Italy take any notice of this common origin.

The passage from Pignotti is as follows : Dove piu inalza la sassosa fronte, Cinta or di nubi or di canuto e bianco Manto nevoso quell' alpestre monte, Che Italia parte e preme a Etruria il fianco ; Entro il suo cupo sen, nella piu interna Parte stassi nascosa ampia caverna. Sotto le curve pietre, che natura Ha in archi immensi e in rozze volte unite Con informe ma grande architettura, D'umido musco e d'ellera vestite ; Un vasto lago di fresc' onda pieno Stende il tranquillo crystallino seno. Dall' alte volte rotta in bianche spume Quinci e quindi cader l'onda si sente ; L'aere rischiara appena un dubbio lume, Come talor di Cinzia ancor crescente, La scolorita luce in sen del bosco Segna un dubbio chiaror nell' aer fosco. I massi giu pendenti e ruinosi L'onda che in cupo suon su i sassi piomba, L'incerto albor che fere i spruzzi aquosi, L'Eco che da quegli antri ognor rinbomba, TO ROME. several disputes which we had during our tra vels, and which may show the inconvenience you are sometimes liable to, from the insolence of postillions, and also the facility with which you obtain redress by pursuing a proper course.

Our first post in the Tuscan dominions was to Camuccia, a wretched village just on the fron tier. As we had travelled through the Roman states with only a pair of horses, we were un prepared to expect that the tarif of Tuscany would oblige us to take a third horse, which, however, they put to our carriage at Camuccia. This we at first resisted, but after some alterca tion, it was agreed we should take it as far as Castiglione Fiorentino, the next post, where, it was said, a master of the post resided, and he would either not charge us for the third horse, or satisfy us that it was correct. When we reached Castiglione Fiorentino it was quite dark, and about a quarter past nine o'clock. We asked for the master of the post, but a fellow, evidently a postillion, showed himself in Con rozze e grandi imagini un sublime E maestoso orror nell' alma imprime.

Qui, Figli entrambi dello stesso fonte, II Tebro e l'Arno empion la limpid urna, E per diverse vie poscia dal monte Scendono, e l'onda chiara e taciturna, Quello rivolge alia Citta Latina Quello d'Etruria alia Citta Reina. EROM FLORENCE that character. When we told him that he was not the person we wanted, he said the master of the post was in bed with his wife, and would get up for nobody. The Tarif, and every thing we called for, was not to be had. There were about twenty-five rascally looking dogs about our carriage, and all the rest of the town seemed deserted, as it was just at the close ofthe carnival, and all the world were at the theatre. The soi disant master of the post with his numerous rabble began now to be insolent. We were only two in number, without pistols or any other means of defence, in case our quarrel came to extremities, which it seemed likely -to do j for although we consented to take the three horses, the rogue refused to harness the beasts till he was paid in advance for the post.

We had now been detained an hour, and the only means by which we kept off the wretches about us, was a loud threat that we would shoot the first person who came within five feet of the carriage. It is true we had not even a peashooter ; but it sometimes answers well to play the braggadoccio. I now determined to walk up to the theatre and search out a magistrate, in order to get assistance; therefore, leaving my friend in charge of the carriage, and trusting my throat in the hands of one of the twenty-five villains who was to guide me to the opera-house, I at last had an interview ROME. 17 in the lobby with the man of justice. If I had not been cold and hungry, no comedy could have been more to my taste than the whole of this incident, except perhaps the night being pitch dark, for that is at all times rather tragical.

The magistrate was of all the wretches we had to deal with, the worst ; for he sent two of his constables, (to use an English term, not under stood in Italy) most desperate looking dogs, who after all robbed us of half a crown and colluded with the postillion. The magistrate himself said that it was impossible for him to leave the theatre because he had ladies under his charge ; I was therefore dismissed with the above executors of the law. The postillion was no more concerned at seeing these two scurvy constables, than if they had been a brace of cats ; but rather raised his tone of insolence on their arrival. After an infinite variety of abusive terms spit forth on both sides, at half an hour after midnight, we got three horses put to the carriage, and our grand enemy the obtrusive postillion, with a stiletto stuck in his boot, as our jockies sometimes place their whips, mounted the saddle horse and drove us out of the town, swearing that he would put us into a ditch before we reached Arezzo, and declaring that he never saw two such cold blooded dogs ; for, to the astonishment of the Italians, we neither of us lost our temper during VOL. II. c the dispute.

We entered the gates of Arezzo, having slept very soundly on the road, at half past three in the morning, so that we found he could only have walked his horses from Casti glione Fiorentino. We gave him nothing for himself, of course, which, to fill up the perfect measure of impudence, he declared was unkind. But our unkindness unfortunately was better founded and of longer duration, for the morning after we reached Florence, we made our com plaint to Signor Salvetti, the post-master general, an old gentleman of high family, and remark able for his politeness to foreigners. He was just then about to retire from office, but his last act was to reprimand the post-master for being out of the way, and the magistrate for neglecting his duty, with a warning from the secretary of state that they would both be signally disgraced, on a repetition of such con duct.

The active offender, the postillion, was dismissed from his employment, with a mark against his name, to render him incapable of being received into any post within the Tus can dominions. To make the severity of this sentence perfectly intelligible, it must be ex plained, that the post boys in Italy are im mediately in the service of government, as in France ; that they wear a uniform, have a certain pay assigned to them, and are entitled to a TO ROME. 19 pension after serving a fixed number of years, or on being disabled. We were shocked at finding ourselves the means of visiting the man's indiscretion so heavily, and almost repented that we had laid our complaint ; but we were consoled to learn that this was his second offence, and we were stimulated to make known our grievance, by the numerous instances brought to our notice of the insolence of these scoundrels to the many English women, whose curiosity so overstretches their prudence, and female fears, as to lead them through Italy without men, even menials, to protect them, and totally abandoned to their own courage and activity to make their way.

Assuredly they must all be virgins, and assume confidence from certain legends told of such rare animals in Spenser's fairy queen, and in the ancient ballads of the old time before him. But I must not only return to Camuccia, but even a little way further back, to Cortona, of antique renown, which lies on a mountain to the left of the road, surveying the subject country, of which it was once the metropolis. It overlooks the Val di Chiana, and commands one of the most variegated inland prospects in the world. Part of the antient Etruscan walls still remain, and show that mode of building applauded by Vitruvius for its solidity and firmc ness, and called " opus incertum," in which the stones are not squared, but fitted as nearly as possible to the accidental and irregular angles, in which they are cut out of the quarry.

The antiquity of this city is so remote that it might fairly terrify a professed antiquary. Can we believe ourselves to be looking at a city, which afforded a conjecture to Herodo tus, upon the language spoken by the Pelasgi, who were the earliest inhabitants of Attica, but extinct in his time? Yet read his words. He rodotus, treating of this question, makes use of his knowledge of Italy, from having settled in the extremity of it, at Thurii, in the neighbourhood of Pæstum, and writes thus : * " What language the Pelasgi spoke I cannot affirm with certainty ; but if I may venture to form a con jecture upon those Pelasgi who inhabit the city of Cortona, on the mountains which border Tuscany, and who formerly were neighbours of those who are called Dorians, when they dwelt in Thessaliotis, &c, if I say I may found a con jecture on this people, I should suppose, that the Pelasgi used a barbarous dialect, because the Cortonians differ entirely in their language * It should be observed that the copies of Herodotus have in general the word Kp^aya, but Dionysius Hali. quoting the passage at length, writes it Kpoluva.

The difference therefore may be attributed to the copyists. TO ROME, 21 from the surrounding people, but agree with the Placians, who were of the same origin, and who also differ in language from their neighbours ; the Placians and Cortonians having both preserved their antient tongue in the places to which they migrated." Now when we consider that Hero dotus lived nearly 450 years before Christ ; and when we find him speaking of Cortona as al ready a long established city, is it not fearful to attempt to search out its origin ? But the most probable account seems to be this, which is taken from Dionysius Halicarnassus.* The Pelasgi being driven out of Greece by the Hel leni, took to their ships, and landed at one of the mouths of the Po, called Spineticum *, here finding that there was not sufficient land, they advanced inland under their leader Tarchon, and took Cortona, a frontier fort in the country of the Umbri.