A DEAD CITY
Ravenna is so remote from the route of general travel in Italy, that I am certain you can have no late news from there, nor can I bring you anything much later than the sixth century. Yet, if you were to see Ravenna, you would say that that is late enough. I am surprised that a city which contains the most interesting early Christian churches and mosaics, is the richest in undisturbed specimens of early Christian art, and contains the only monuments of Roman emperors still in their original positions, should be so seldom visited. Ravenna has been dead for some centuries; and because n.o.body has cared to bury it, its ancient monuments are yet above ground. Gra.s.s grows in its wide streets, and its houses stand in a sleepy, vacant contemplation of each other: the wind must like to mourn about its silent squares. The waves of the Adriatic once brought the commerce of the East to its wharves; but the deposits of the Po and the tides have, in process of time, made it an inland town, and the sea is four miles away.
In the time of Augustus, Ravenna was a favorite Roman port and harbor for fleets of war and merchandise. There Theodoric, the great king of the Goths, set up his palace, and there is his enormous mausoleum. As early as A. D. 44 it became an episcopal see, with St. Apollinaris, a disciple of St. Peter, for its bishop. There some of the later Roman emperors fixed their residences, and there they repose. In and about it revolved the adventurous life of Galla Placidia, a woman of considerable talent and no principle, the daughter of Theodosius (the great Theodosius, who subdued the Arian heresy, the first emperor baptized in the true faith of the Trinity, the last who had a spark of genius), the sister of one emperor, and the mother of another,--twice a slave, once a queen, and once an empress; and she, too, rests there in the great mausoleum builded for her. There, also, lies Dante, in his tomb "by the upbraiding sh.o.r.e;" rejected once of ungrateful Florence, and forever after pa.s.sionately longed for. There, in one of the earliest Christian churches in existence, are the fine mosaics of the Emperor Justinian and Theodora, the handsome courtesan whom he raised to the dignity and luxury of an empress on his throne in Constantinople. There is the famous forest of pines, stretching--unbroken twenty miles down the coast to Rimini, in whose cool and breezy glades Dante and Boccaccio walked and meditated, which Dryden has commemorated, and Byron has invested with the fascination of his genius; and under the whispering boughs of which moved the glittering cavalcade which fetched the bride to Rimini,--the fair Francesca, whose sinful confession Dante heard in h.e.l.l.
We went down to Ravenna from Bologna one afternoon, through a country level and rich, riding along toward hazy evening, the land getting flatter as we proceeded (you know, there is a difference between level and flat), through interminable mulberry-trees and vines, and fields with the tender green of spring, with church spires in the rosy horizon; on till the meadows became marshes, in which millions of frogs sang the overture of the opening year. Our arrival, I have reason to believe, was an event in the old town. We had a crowd of moldy loafers to witness it at the station, not one of whom had ambition enough to work to earn a sou by lifting our traveling-bags. We had our hotel to ourselves, and wished that anybody else had it. The rival house was quite aware of our advent, and watched us with jealous eyes; and we, in turn, looked wistfully at it, for our own food was so scarce that, as an old traveler says, we feared that we shouldn"t have enough, until we saw it on the table, when its quality made it appear too much. The next morning, when I sallied out to hire a conveyance, I was an object of interest to the entire population, who seemed to think it very odd that any one should walk about and explore the quiet streets. If I were to describe Ravenna, I should say that it is as flat as Holland and as lively as New London.
There are broad streets, with high houses, that once were handsome, palaces that were once the abode of luxury, gardens that still bloom, and churches by the score. It is an open gate through which one walks unchallenged into the past, with little to break the a.s.sociation with the early Christian ages, their monuments undimmed by time, untouched by restoration and innovation, the whole struck with ecclesiastical death.
With all that we saw that day,--churches, basilicas, mosaics, statues, mausoleums,--I will not burden these pages; but I will set down is enough to give you the local color, and to recall some of the most interesting pa.s.sages in Christian history in this out-of-the-way city on the Adriatic.
Our first pilgrimage was to the Church of St. Apollinare Nuova; but why it is called new I do not know, as Theodoric built it for an Arian cathedral in about the year 500. It is a n.o.ble interior, having twenty-four marble columns of gray Cippolino, brought from Constantinople, with composite capitals, on each of which is an impost with Latin crosses sculptured on it. These columns support round arches, which divide the nave from the aisles, and on the whole length of the wall of the nave so supported are superb mosaics, full-length figures, in colors as fresh as if done yesterday, though they were executed thirteen hundred years ago. The mosaic on the left side--which is, perhaps, the finest one of the period in existence--is interesting on another account. It represents the city of Cla.s.sis, with sea and ships, and a long procession of twenty-two virgins presenting offerings to the Virgin and Child, seated on a throne. The Virgin is surrounded by angels, and has a glory round her head, which shows that homage is being paid to her. It has been supposed, from the early monuments of Christian art, that the worship of the Virgin is of comparatively recent origin; but this mosaic would go to show that Mariolatry was established before the end of the sixth century. Near this church is part of the front of the palace of Theodoric, in which the Exarchs and Lombard kings subsequently resided. Its treasures and marbles Charlemagne carried off to Germany.
DOWN TO THE PINETA
We drove three miles beyond the city, to the Church of St. Apollinare in Cla.s.se, a lonely edifice in a waste of marsh, a grand old basilica, a purer specimen of Christian art than Rome or any other Italian town can boast. Just outside the city gate stands a Greek cross on a small fluted column, which marks the site of the once magnificent Basilica of St.
Laurentius, which was demolished in the sixteenth century, its stone built into a new church in town, and its rich marbles carried to all-absorbing Rome. It was the last relic of the old port of Caesarea, famous since the time of Augustus. A marble column on a green meadow is all that remains of a once prosperous city. Our road lay through the marshy plain, across an elevated bridge over the sluggish united stream of the Ronco and Montone, from which there is a wide view, including the Pineta (or Pine Forest), the Church of St. Apollinare in the midst of rice-fields and marshes, and on a clear day the Alps and Apennines.
I can imagine nothing more desolate than this solitary church, or the approach to it. Laborers were busy spading up the heavy, wet ground, or digging trenches, which instantly filled with water, for the whole country was afloat. The frogs greeted us with clamorous chorus out of their slimy pools, and the mosquitoes attacked us as we rode along.
I noticed about on the bogs, wherever they could find standing-room, half-naked wretches, with long spears, having several p.r.o.ngs like tridents, which they thrust into the gra.s.s and shallow water. Calling one of them to us, we found that his business was fishing, and that he forked out very fat and edible-looking fish with his trident. s.h.a.ggy, undersized horses were wading in the water, nipping off the thin spears of gra.s.s. Close to the church is a rickety farmhouse. If I lived there, I would as lief be a fish as a horse.
The interior of this primitive old basilica is lofty and imposing, with twenty-four handsome columns of the gray Cippolino marble, and an elevated high altar and tribune, decorated with splendid mosaics of the sixth century,--biblical subjects, in all the stiff faithfulness of the holy old times. The marble floor is green and damp and slippery. Under the tribune is the crypt, where the body of St. Apollinaris used to lie (it is now under the high altar above); and as I desired to see where he used to rest, I walked in. I also walked into about six inches of water, in the dim, irreligious light; and so made a cold-water Baptist devotee of myself. In the side aisles are wonderful old sarcophagi, containing the ashes of archbishops of Ravenna, so old that the owners" names are forgotten of two of them, which shows that a man may build a tomb more enduring than his memory. The sculptured bas-reliefs are very interesting, being early Christian emblems and curious devices,--symbols of sheep, palms, peac.o.c.ks, crosses, and the four rivers of Paradise flowing down in stony streams from stony sources, and monograms, and pious rebuses. At the entrance of the crypt is an open stone book, called the Breviary of Gregory the Great. Detached from the church is the Bell Tower, a circular campanile of a sort peculiar to Ravenna, which adds to the picturesqueness of the pile, and suggests the notion that it is a mast unshipped from its vessel, the church, which consequently stands there water-logged, with no power to catch any wind, of doctrine or other, and move. I forgot to say that the basilica was launched in the year 534.
A little weary with the good but damp old Christians, we ordered our driver to continue across the marsh to the Pineta, whose dark fringe bounded all our horizon toward the Adriatic. It is the largest unbroken forest in Italy, and by all odds the most poetic in itself and its a.s.sociations. It is twenty-five miles long, and from one to three in breadth, a free growth of stately pines, whose boughs are full of music and sweet odors,--a succession of lovely glades and avenues, with miles and miles of drives over the springy turf. At the point where we entered is a farmhouse. Laborers had been gathering the cones, which were heaped up in immense windrows, hundreds of feet in length. Boys and men were busy pounding out the seeds from the cones. The latter are used for fuel, and the former are pressed for their oil. They are also eaten: we have often had them served at hotel tables, and found them rather tasteless, but not unpleasant. The turf, as we drove into the recesses of the forest, was thickly covered with wild flowers, of many colors and delicate forms; but we liked best the violets, for they reminded us of home, though the driver seemed to think them less valuable than the seeds of the pine-cones. A lovely day and history and romance united to fascinate us with the place. We were driving over the spot where, eighteen centuries ago, the Roman fleet used to ride at anchor. Here, it is certain, the gloomy spirit of Dante found congenial place for meditation, and the gay Boccaccio material for fiction. Here for hours, day after day, Byron used to gallop his horse, giving vent to that restless impatience which could not all escape from his fiery pen, hearing those voices of a past and dead Italy which he, more truthfully and pathetically than any other poet, has put into living verse. The driver pointed out what is called Byron"s Path, where he was wont to ride. Everybody here, indeed, knows of Byron; and I think his memory is more secure than any saint of them all in their stone boxes, partly because his poetry has celebrated the region, perhaps rather from the perpetuated tradition of his generosity. No foreigner was ever so popular as he while he lived at Ravenna. At least, the people say so now, since they find it so profitable to keep his memory alive and to point out his haunts. The Italians, to be sure, know how to make capital out of poets and heroes, and are quick to learn the curiosity of foreigners, and to gratify it for a compensation. But the evident esteem in which Byron"s memory is held in the Armenian monastery of St.
Lazzaro, at Venice, must be otherwise accounted for. The monks keep his library-room and table as they were when he wrote there, and like to show his portrait, and tell of his quick mastery of the difficult Armenian tongue. We have a notable example of a Person who became a monk when he was sick; but Byron accomplished too much work during the few months he was on the Island of St. Lazzaro, both in original composition and in translating English into Armenian, for one physically ruined and broken.
DANTE AND BYRON
The pilgrim to Ravenna, who has any idea of what is due to the genius of Dante, will be disappointed when he approaches his tomb. Its situation is in a not very conspicuous corner, at the foot of a narrow street, bearing the poet"s name, and beside the Church of San Francisco, which is interesting as containing the tombs of the Polenta family, whose hospitality to the wandering exile has rescued their names from oblivion. Opposite the tomb is the shabby old brick house of the Polentas, where Dante pa.s.sed many years of his life. It is tenanted now by all sorts of people, and a dirty carriage-shop in the courtyard kills the poetry of it. Dante died in 1321, and was at first buried in the neighboring church; but this tomb, since twice renewed, was erected, and his body removed here, in 1482. It is a square stuccoed structure, stained light green, and covered by a dome,--a tasteless monument, embellished with stucco medallions, inside, of the poet, of Virgil, of Brunetto Latini, the poet"s master, and of his patron, Guido da Polenta.
On the sarcophagus is the epitaph, composed in Latin by Dante himself, who seems to have thought, with Shakespeare, that for a poet to make his own epitaph was the safest thing to do. Notwithstanding the mean appearance of this sepulcher, there is none in all the soil of Italy that the traveler from America will visit with deeper interest. Near by is the house where Byron first resided in Ravenna, as a tablet records.
The people here preserve all the memorials of Byron; and, I should judge, hold his memory in something like affection. The Palace Guiccioli, in which he subsequently resided, is in another part of the town. He spent over two years in Ravenna, and said he preferred it to any place in Italy. Why I cannot see, unless it was remote from the route of travel, and the desolation of it was congenial to him.
Doubtless he loved these wide, marshy expanses on the Adriatic, and especially the great forest of pines on its sh.o.r.e; but Byron was apt to be governed in his choice of a residence by the woman with whom he was intimate. The palace was certainly pleasanter than his gloomy house in the Strada di Porta Sisi, and the society of the Countess Guiccioli was rather a stimulus than otherwise to his literary activity. At her suggestion he wrote the "Prophecy of Dante;" and the translation of "Francesca da Rimini" was "executed at Ravenna, where, five centuries before, and in the very house in which the unfortunate lady was born, Dante"s poem had been composed." Some of his finest poems were also produced here, poems for which Venice is as grateful as Ravenna. Here he wrote "Marino Faliero," "The Two Foscari," "Morganti Maggiore,"
"Sardanapalus," "The Blues," "The fifth canto of Don Juan," "Cain,"
"Heaven and Earth," and "The Vision of Judgment." I looked in at the court of the palace,--a pleasant, quiet place,--where he used to work, and tried to guess which were the windows of his apartments. The sun was shining brightly, and a bird was singing in the court; but there was no other sign of life, nor anything to remind one of the profligate genius who was so long a guest here.
RESTING-PLACE OF CAESARS--PICTURE OF A BEAUTIFUL HERETIC
Very different from the tomb of Dante, and different in the a.s.sociations it awakes, is the Rotunda or Mausoleum of Theodoric the Goth, outside the Porta Serrata, whose daughter, Amalasuntha, as it is supposed, about the year 530, erected this imposing structure as a certain place "to keep his memory whole and mummy hid" for ever. But the Goth had not lain in it long before Arianism went out of fashion quite, and the zealous Roman Catholics despoiled his costly sleeping-place, and scattered his ashes abroad. I do not know that any dead person has lived in it since.
The tomb is still a very solid affair,--a rotunda built of solid blocks of limestone, and resting on a ten-sided base, each side having a recess surmounted by an arch. The upper story is also decagonal, and is reached by a flight of modern stone steps. The roof is composed of a single block of Istrian limestone, scooped out like a shallow bowl inside; and, being the biggest roof-stone I ever saw, I will give you the dimensions.
It is thirty-six feet in diameter, hollowed out to the depth of ten feet, four feet thick at the center, and two feet nine inches at the edges, and is estimated to weigh two hundred tons. Amalasuntha must have had help in getting it up there. The lower story is partly under water.
The green gra.s.s of the inclosure in which it stands is damp enough for frogs. An old woman opened the iron gate to let us in. Whether she was any relation of the ancient proprietor, I did not inquire; but she had so much trouble in, turning the key in the rusty lock, and letting us in, that I presume we were the only visitors she has had for some centuries.
Old women abound in Ravenna; at least, she was not young who showed us the mausoleum of Galla Placidia. Placidia was also prudent and foreseeing, and built this once magnificent sepulcher for her own occupation. It is in the form of a Latin cross, forty-six feet in length by about forty in width. The floor is paved with rich marbles; the cupola is covered with mosaics of the time of the empress; and in the arch over the door is a fine representation of the Good Shepherd. Behind the altar is the ma.s.sive sarcophagus of marble (its cover of silver plates was long ago torn off) in which are literally the ashes of the empress. She was immured in it as a mummy, in a sitting position, clothed in imperial robes; and there the ghastly corpse sat in a cypress-wood chair, to be looked at by anybody who chose to peep through the aperture, for more than eleven hundred years, till one day, in 1577, some children introduced a lighted candle, perhaps out of compa.s.sion for her who sat so long in darkness, when her clothes caught fire, and she was burned up,--a warning to all children not to play with a dead and dry empress. In this resting-place are also the tombs of Honorius II., her brother, of Constantius III., her second husband, and of Honoria, her daughter.
There are no other undisturbed tombs of the Caesars in existence. Hers is almost the last, and the very small last, of a great succession. What thoughts of a great empire in ruins do not force themselves on one in the confined walls of this little chamber! What a woman was she whose ashes lie there! She saw and aided the ruin of the empire; but it may be said of her, that her vices were greater than her misfortunes. And what a story is her life! Born to the purple, educated in the palace at Constantinople, accomplished but not handsome, at the age of twenty she was in Rome when Alaric besieged it. Carried off captive by the Goths, she became the not unwilling object of the pa.s.sion of King Adolphus, who at length married her at Narbonne. At the nuptials the king, in a Roman habit, occupied a seat lower than hers, while she sat on a throne habited as a Roman empress, and received homage. Fifty handsome youths bore to her in each hand a dish of gold, one filled with coin, and the other with precious stones,--a small part only, these hundred vessels of treasure, of the spoils the Goths brought from her country. When Adolphus, who never abated his fondness for his Roman bride, was a.s.sa.s.sinated at Barcelona, she was treated like a slave by his a.s.sa.s.sins, and driven twelve miles on foot before the horse of his murderer. Ransomed at length for six hundred thousand measures of wheat by her brother Honorius, who handed her over struggling to Constantius, one of his generals. But, once married, her reluctance ceased; and she set herself to advance the interests of herself and husband, ruling him as she had done the first one. Her purpose was accomplished when he was declared joint emperor with Honorius. He died shortly after; and scandalous stories of her intimacy with her brother caused her removal to Constantinople; but she came back again, and reigned long as the regent of her son, Valentinian III.,--a feeble youth, who never grew to have either pa.s.sions or talents, and was very likely, as was said, enervated by his mother in dissolute indulgence, so that she might be supreme. But she died at Rome in 450, much praised for her orthodoxy and her devotion to the Trinity. And there was her daughter, Honoria, who ran off with a chamberlain, and afterward offered to throw herself into the arms of Attila who wouldn"t take her as a gift at first, but afterward demanded her, and fought to win her and her supposed inheritance. But they were a bad lot altogether; and it is no credit to a Christian of the nineteenth century to stay in this tomb so long.
Near this mausoleum is the magnificent Basilica of St. Vitale, built in the reign of Justinian, and consecrated in 547, I was interested to see it because it was erected in confessed imitation of St. Sophia at Constantinople, is in the octagonal form, and has all the accessories of Eastern splendor, according to the architectural authorities. Its effect is really rich and splendid; and it rather dazzled us with its maze of pillars, its upper and lower columns, its galleries, complicated capitals, arches on arches, and Byzantine intricacies. To the student of the very early ecclesiastical art, it must be an object of more interest than even of wonder. But what I cared most to see were the mosaics in the choir, executed in the time of Justinian, and as fresh and beautiful as on the day they were made. The mosaics and the exquisite arabesques on the roof of the choir, taken together, are certainly unequaled by any other early church decoration I have seen; and they are as interesting as they are beautiful. Any description of them is impossible; but mention may be made of two characteristic groups, remarkable for execution, and having yet a deeper interest.
In one compartment of the tribune is the figure of the Emperor Justinian, holding a vase with consecrated offerings, and surrounded by courtiers and soldiers. Opposite is the figure of the Empress Theodora, holding a similar vase, and attended by ladies of her court. There is a refinement and an elegance about the empress, a grace and sweet dignity, that is fascinating. This is royalty,--stately and cold perhaps: even the mouth may be a little cruel, I begin to perceive, as I think of her; but she wears the purple by divine right. I have not seen on any walls any figure walking out of history so captivating as this lady, who would seem to have been worthy of apotheosis in a Christian edifice. Can there be any doubt that this lovely woman was orthodox? She, also, has a story, which you doubtless have been recalling as you read. Is it worth while to repeat even its outlines? This charming regal woman was the daughter of the keeper of the bears in the circus at Constantinople; and she early went upon the stage as a pantomimist and buffoon. She was beautiful, with regular features, a little pale, but with a tinge of natural color, vivacious eyes, and an easy motion that displayed to advantage the graces of her small but elegant figure. I can see all that in the mosaic. But she sold her charms to whoever cared to buy them in Constantinople; she led a life of dissipation that cannot be even hinted at in these days; she went off to Egypt as the concubine of a general; was deserted, and dest.i.tute even to misery in Cairo; wandered about a vagabond in many Eastern cities, and won the reputation everywhere of the most beautiful courtesan of her time; reappeared in Constantinople; and, having, it is said, a vision of her future, suddenly took to a pretension of virtue and plain sewing; contrived to gain the notice of Justinian, to inflame his pa.s.sions as she did those of all the world besides, to captivate him into first an alliance, and at length a marriage. The emperor raised her to an equal seat with himself on his throne; and she was worshiped as empress in that city where she had been admired as harlot. And on the throne she was a wise woman, courageous and chaste; and had her palaces on the Bosphorus; and took good care of her beauty, and indulged in the pleasures of a good table; had ministers who kissed her feet; a crowd of women and eunuchs in her secret chambers, whose pa.s.sions she indulged; was avaricious and sometimes cruel; and founded a convent for the irreclaimably bad of her own s.e.x, some of whom liked it, and some of whom threw themselves into the sea in despair; and when she died was an irreparable loss to her emperor. So that it seems to me it is a pity that the historian should say that she was devout, but a little heretic.
A HIGH DAY IN ROME
PALM SUNDAY IN ST. PETER"S
The splendid and tiresome ceremonies of Holy Week set in; also the rain, which held up for two days. Rome without the sun, and with rain and the bone-penetrating damp cold of the season, is a wretched place. Squalor and ruins and cheap splendor need the sun; the galleries need it; the black old masters in the dark corners of the gaudy churches need it; I think scarcely anything of a cardinal"s big, blazing footman, unless the sun shines on him, and radiates from his broad back and his splendid calves; the models, who get up in theatrical costumes, and get put into pictures, and pa.s.s the world over for Roman peasants (and beautiful many of them are), can"t sit on the Spanish Stairs in indolent pose when it rains; the streets are slimy and horrible; the carriages try to run over you, and stand a very good chance of succeeding, where there are no sidewalks, and you are limping along on the slippery round cobble-stones; you can"t get into the country, which is the best part of Rome: but when the sun shines all this is changed; the dear old dirty town exercises, its fascinations on you then, and you speedily forget your recent misery.
Holy Week is a vexation to most people. All the world crowds here to see its exhibitions and theatrical shows, and works hard to catch a glimpse of them, and is tired out, if not disgusted, at the end. The things to see and hear are Palm Sunday in St. Peter"s; singing of the Miserere by the pope"s choir on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in the Sistine Chapel; washing of the pilgrims" feet in a chapel of St. Peter"s, and serving the apostles at table by the pope on Thursday, with a papal benediction from the balcony afterwards; Easter Sunday, with the illumination of St. Peter"s in the evening; and fireworks (this year in front of St. Peter"s in Montorio) Monday evening. Raised seats are built up about the high altar under the dome in St. Peter"s, which will accommodate a thousand, and perhaps more, ladies; and for these tickets are issued without numbers, and for twice as many as they will seat.
Gentlemen who are in evening dress are admitted to stand in the reserved places inside the lines of soldiers. For the Miserere in the Sistine Chapel tickets are also issued. As there is only room for about four hundred ladies, and a thousand and more tickets are given out, you may imagine the scramble. Ladies go for hours before the singing begins, and make a grand rush when the doors are open. I do not know any sight so unseemly and cruel as a crowd of women intent on getting in to such a ceremony: they are perfectly rude and unmerciful to each other. They push and trample one another under foot; veils and dresses are torn; ladies faint away in the scrimmage, and only the strongest and most unscrupulous get in. I have heard some say, who have been in the pellmell, that, not content with elbowing and pushing and pounding, some women even stick pins into those who are in the way. I hope this latter is not true; but it is certain that the conduct of most of the women is brutal. A weak or modest or timid woman stands no more chance than she would in a herd of infuriated Campagna cattle. The same scenes are enacted in the efforts to see the pope wash feet, and serve at the table. For the possession of the seats under the dome on Palm Sunday and Easter there is a like crush. The ceremonies do not begin until half-past nine; but ladies go between five and six o"clock in the morning, and when the pa.s.sages are open they make a grand rush. The seats, except those saved for the n.o.bility, are soon all taken, and the ladies who come after seven are lucky if they can get within the charmed circle, and find a spot to sit down on a campstool. They can then see only a part of the proceedings, and have a weary, exhausting time of it for hours. This year Rome is more crowded than ever before. There are American ladies enough to fill all the reserved places; and I fear they are energetic enough to get their share of them.
It rained Sunday; but there was a steady stream of people and carriages all the morning pouring over the Bridge of St. Angelo, and discharging into the piazza of St. Peter"s. It was after nine when I arrived on the ground. There was a crowd of carriages under the colonnades, and a heavy fringe in front of them; but the hundreds of people moving over the piazza, and up the steps to the entrances, made only the impression of dozens in the vast s.p.a.ce. I do not know if there are people enough in Rome to fill St. Peter"s; certainly there was no appearance of a crowd as we entered, although they had been pouring in all the morning, and still thronged the doors. I heard a traveler say that he followed ten thousand soldiers into the church, and then lost them from sight: they disappeared in the side chapels. He did not make his affidavit as to the number of soldiers. The interior area of the building is not much greater than the square of St. Mark in Venice. To go into the great edifice is almost like going outdoors. Lines of soldiers kept a wide pa.s.sage clear from the front door away down to the high altar; and there was a good ma.s.s of spectators on the outside. The tribunes for the ladies, built up under the dome, were of course, filled with ma.s.ses of ladies in solemn black; and there was more or less of a press of people surging about in that vicinity. Thousands of people were also roaming about in the great s.p.a.ces of the edifice; but there was nowhere else anything like a crowd. It had very much the appearance of a large fair-ground, with little crowds about favorite booths. Gentlemen in dress-coats were admitted to the circle under the dome. The pope"s choir was stationed in a gallery there opposite the high altar. Back of the altar was a wide s.p.a.ce for the dignitaries; seats were there, also, for amba.s.sadors and those born to the purple; and the pope"s seat was on a raised dais at the end. Outsiders could see nothing of what went on within there; and the ladies under the dome could only partially see, in the seats they had fought so gallantly to obtain.
St. Peter"s is a good place for grand processions and ceremonies; but it is a poor one for viewing them. A procession which moves down the nave is hidden by the soldiers who stand on either side, or is visible only by sections as it pa.s.ses: there is no good place to get the grand effect of the ma.s.ses of color, and the total of the gorgeous pageantry. I should like to see the display upon a grand stage, and enjoy it in a coup d"oeil. It is a fine study of color and effect, and the groupings are admirable; but the whole affair is nearly lost to the ma.s.s of spectators. It must be a sublime feeling to one in the procession to walk about in such monstrous fine clothes; but what would his emotions be if more people could see him! The grand altar stuck up under the dome not only breaks the effect of what would be the fine sweep of the nave back to the apse, but it cuts off all view of the celebration of the ma.s.s behind it, and, in effect, reduces what should be the great point of display in the church to a mere chapel. And when you add to that the temporary tribunes erected under the dome for seating the ladies, the entire nave is shut off from a view of the gorgeous ceremony of high ma.s.s. The effect would be incomparable if one could stand in the door, or anywhere in the nave, and, as in other churches, look down to the end upon a great platform, with the high altar and all the sublime spectacle in full view, with the blaze of candles and the clouds of incense rising in the distance.
At half-past nine the great doors opened, and the procession began, in slow and stately moving fashion, to enter. One saw a throng of ecclesiastics in robes and ermine; the white plumes of the Guard n.o.ble; the pages and chamberlains in scarlet; other pages, or what not, in black short-clothes, short swords, gold chains, cloak hanging from the shoulder, and stiff white ruffs; thirty-six cardinals in violet robes, with high miter-shaped white silk hats, that looked not unlike the pasteboard "trainer-caps" that boys wear when they play soldier; crucifixes, and a blazoned banner here and there; and, at last, the pope, in his red chair, borne on the shoulders of red lackeys, heaving along in a sea-sicky motion, clad in scarlet and gold, with a silver miter on his head, feebly making the papal benediction with two upraised fingers, and moving his lips in blessing. As the pope came in, a supplementary choir of men and soprano hybrids, stationed near the door, set up a high, welcoming song, or chant, which echoed rather finely through the building. All the music of the day is vocal.
The procession having reached its destination, and disappeared behind the altar of the dome, the pope dismounted, and took his seat on his throne. The blessing of the palms began, the cardinals first approaching, and afterwards the members of the diplomatic corps, the archbishops and bishops, the heads of the religious orders, and such private persons as have had permission to do so. I had previously seen the palms carried in by servants in great baskets. It is, perhaps, not necessary to say that they are not the poetical green waving palms, but stiff sort of wands, woven out of dry, yellow, split palm-leaves, sometimes four or five feet in length, braided into the semblance of a crown on top,--a kind of rough basket-work. The palms having been blessed, a procession was again formed down the nave and out the door, all in it "carrying palms in their hands," the yellow color of which added a new element of picturesqueness to the splendid pageant. The pope was carried as before, and bore in his hand a short braided palm, with gold woven in, flowers added, and the monogram "I. H. S." worked in the top. It is the pope"s custom to give this away when the ceremony is over. Last year he presented it to an American lady, whose devotion attracted him; this year I saw it go away in a gilded coach in the hands of an ecclesiastic. The procession disappeared through the great portal into the vestibule, and the door closed. In a moment somebody knocked three times on the door: it opened, and the procession returned, and moved again to the rear of the altar, the singers marching with it and chanting. The cardinals then changed their violet for scarlet robes; and high ma.s.s, for an hour, was celebrated by a cardinal priest: and I was told that it was the pope"s voice that we heard, high and clear, singing the pa.s.sion. The choir made the responses, and performed at intervals.
The singing was not without a certain power; indeed, it was marvelous how some of the voices really filled the vast s.p.a.ces of the edifice, and the choruses rolled in solemn waves of sound through the arches. The singing, with the male sopranos, is not to my taste; but it cannot be denied that it had a wild and strange effect.
While this was going on behind the altar, the people outside were wandering about, looking at each other, and on the watch not to miss any of the shows of the day. People were talking, chattering, and greeting each other as they might do in the street. Here and there somebody was kneeling on the pavement, unheeding the pa.s.sing throng. At several of the chapels, services were being conducted; and there was a large congregation, an ordinary church full, about each of them. But the most of those present seemed to regard it as a spectacle only; and as a display of dress, costumes, and nationalities it was almost unsurpa.s.sed.
There are few more wonderful sights in this world than an Englishwoman in what she considers full dress. An English dandy is also a pleasing object. For my part, as I have hinted, I like almost as well as anything the big footmen,--those in scarlet breeches and blue gold-embroidered coats. I stood in front of one of the fine creations for some time, and contemplated him as one does the Farnese Hercules. One likes to see to what a splendor his species can come, even if the brains have all run down into the calves of the legs. There were also the pages, the officers of the pope"s household, in costumes of the Middle Ages; the pope"s Swiss guard in the showy harlequin uniform designed by Michael Angelo; the foot-soldiers in white short-clothes, which threatened to burst, and let them fly into pieces; there were fine ladies and gentlemen, loafers and loungers, from every civilized country, jabbering in all the languages; there were beggars in rags, and boors in coats so patched that there was probably none of the original material left; there were groups of peasants from the Campagna, the men in short jackets and sheepskin breeches with the wool side out, the women with gay-colored folded cloths on their heads, and coa.r.s.e woolen gowns; a squad of wild-looking Spanish gypsies, burning-eyed, olive-skinned, hair long, black, crinkled, and greasy, as wild in raiment as in face; priests and friars, Zouaves in jaunty light gray and scarlet; rags and velvets, silks and serge cloths,--a cosmopolitan gathering poured into the world"s great place of meeting,--a fine religious Vanity Fair on Sunday.
There came an impressive moment in all this confusion, a point of august solemnity. Up to that instant, what with chanting and singing the many services, and the noise of talking and walking, there was a wild babel.
But at the stroke of the bell and the elevation of the Host, down went the muskets of the guard with one clang on the marble; the soldiers kneeled; the mult.i.tude in the nave, in the aisles, at all the chapels, kneeled; and for a minute in that vast edifice there was perfect stillness: if the whole great concourse had been swept from the earth, the spot where it lately was could not have been more silent. And then the military order went down the line, the soldiers rose, the crowd rose, and the ma.s.s and the hum went on.
It was all over before one; and the pope was borne out again, and the vast crowd began to discharge itself. But it was a long time before the carriages were all filled and rolled off. I stood for a half hour watching the stream go by,--the pompous soldiers, the peasants and citizens, the dazzling equipages, and jaded, exhausted women in black, who had sat or stood half a day under the dome, and could get no carriage; and the great state coaches of the cardinals, swinging high in the air, painted and gilded, with three n.o.ble footmen hanging on behind each, and a cardinal"s broad face in the window.
VESUVIUS
CLIMBING A VOLCANO
Everybody who comes to Naples,--that is, everybody except the lady who fell from her horse the other day at Resina and injured her shoulder, as she was mounting for the ascent,--everybody, I say, goes up Vesuvius, and nearly every one writes impressions and descriptions of the performance. If you believe the tales of travelers, it is an undertaking of great hazard, an experience of frightful emotions. How unsafe it is, especially for ladies, I heard twenty times in Naples before I had been there a day. Why, there was a lady thrown from her horse and nearly killed, only a week ago; and she still lay ill at the next hotel, a witness of the truth of the story. I imagined her plunged down a precipice of lava, or pitched over the lip of the crater, and only rescued by the devotion of a gallant guide, who threatened to let go of her if she didn"t pay him twenty francs instantly. This story, which will live and grow for years in this region, a waxing and never-waning peril of the volcano, I found, subsequently, had the foundation I have mentioned above. The lady did go to Resina in order to make the ascent of Vesuvius, mounted a horse there, fell off, being utterly unhorsewomanly, and hurt herself; but her injury had no more to do with Vesuvius than it had with the entrance of Victor Emanuel into Naples, which took place a couple of weeks after. Well, as I was saying, it is the fashion to write descriptions of Vesuvius; and you might as well have mine, which I shall give to you in rough outline.
There came a day when the Tramontane ceased to blow down on us the cold air of the snowy Apennines, and the white cap of Vesuvius, which is, by the way, worn generally like the caps of the Neapolitans, drifted inland instead of toward the sea. Warmer weather had come to make the bright sunshine no longer a mockery. For some days I had been getting the gauge of the mountain. With its white plume it is a constant quant.i.ty in the landscape: one sees it from every point of view; and we had been scarcely anywhere that volcanic remains, or signs of such action,--a thin crust shaking under our feet, as at Solfatara, where blasts of sulphurous steam drove in our faces,--did not remind us that the whole ground is uncertain, and undermined by the subterranean fires that have Vesuvius for a chimney. All the coast of the bay, within recent historic periods, in different spots at different times, has risen and sunk and risen again, in simple obedience to the pulsations of the great fiery monster below. It puffs up or sinks, like the crust of a baking apple-pie. This region is evidently not done; and I think it not unlikely it may have to be turned over again before it is. We had seen where Herculaneum lies under the lava and under the town of Resina; we had walked those clean and narrow streets of Pompeii, and seen the workmen picking away at the imbedded gravel, sand, and ashes which still cover nearly two thirds of the nice little, tight little Roman city; we had looked at the black gashes on the mountain-sides, where the lava streams had gushed and rolled and twisted over vineyards and villas and villages; and we decided to take a nearer look at the immediate cause of all this abnormal state of things.