LETTER XLVII.

FLORENCE--GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY--THE GRAND CHAMBERLAIN--PRINCE DE LIGNE--THE AUSTRIAN AMBa.s.sADOR--THE MARQUIS TORRIGIANI--LEOPOLD OF TUSCANY--VIEWS OF THE VAL D'ARNO--SPLENDID BALL--TREES OF CANDLES--THE DUKE AND d.u.c.h.eSS--HIGHBORN ITALIAN AND ENGLISH BEAUTIES, ETC., ETC.

I was presented to the grand Duke of Tuscany yesterday morning, at a private audience. As we have no minister at this court, I drove alone to the ducal palace, and, pa.s.sing through the body-guard of young n.o.bles, was met at the door of the ante-chamber by the Marquis Corsi, the grand chamberlain. Around a blazing fire, in this room, stood five or six persons, in splendid uniforms, to whom I was introduced on entering. One was the Prince de Ligne--traveling at present in Italy, and waiting to be presented by the Austrian amba.s.sador--a young and remarkably handsome man of twenty-five. He showed a knowledge of America, in the course of a half hour's conversation, which rather surprised me, inquiring particularly about the residences and condition of the United States' ministers whom he had met at the various courts of Europe. The Austrian amba.s.sador, an old, wily-looking man, covered with orders, joined in the conversation and asked after our former minister at Paris, Mr. Brown, remarking that he had done the United States great credit, during his emba.s.sy. He had known Mr. Gallatin also, and spoke highly of him. Mr. Van Buren's election to the vice-presidency, after his recall, seemed greatly to surprise him.

The Prince was summoned to the presence of the Duke, and I remained some fifteen minutes in conversation with a venerable and n.o.ble-looking man, the Marquis Torrigiani, one of the chamberlains.

His eldest son has lately gone upon his travels in the United States, in company with Mr. Thorn, an American gentleman living in Florence.

He seemed to think the voyage a great undertaking. Torrigiani is one of the oldest of the Florentine n.o.bles, and his family is in high esteem.

As the Austrian minister came out, the Grand Chamberlain came for me, and I entered the presence of the Duke. He was standing quite alone in a small, plain room, dressed in a simple white uniform, with a star upon his breast--a slender, pale, scholar-like looking young man, of perhaps thirty years. He received me with a pleasant smile, and crossing his hands behind him, came close to me, and commenced questioning me about America. The departure of young Torrigiani for the United States pleased him, and he said he should like to go himself--"but," said he, "a voyage of three thousand miles and back--_comment faire!_" and he threw out his hands with a look of mock despair that was very expressive. He a.s.sured me he felt great pleasure at Mr. Thorn's having taken up his residence in Florence. He had sent for his whole family a few days before, and promised them every attention to their comfort during the absence of Mr. Thorn. He said young Torrigiani was _bien instruit_, and would travel to advantage, without doubt. At every pause of his inquiries, he looked me full in the eyes, and seemed anxious to yield me the _parole_ and listen. He bowed with a smile, after I had been with him perhaps half an hour, and I took my leave with all the impressions of his character which common report had given me, quite confirmed. He is said to be the best monarch in Europe, and it is written most expressively in his mild, amiable features.

The Duke is very unwilling to marry again, although the crown pa.s.ses from his family if he die without a male heir. He has two daughters, lovely children, between five and seven, whose mother died not quite a year since. She was unusually beloved, both by her husband and his subjects, and is still talked of by the people, and never without the deepest regret. She was very religious, and is said to have died of a cold taken in doing a severe penance. The Duke watched with her day and night, till she died; and I was told by the old Chamberlain, that he cannot yet speak of her without tears.

With the new year, the Grand Duke of Tuscany threw off his mourning.

Not from his countenance, for the sadness of that is habitual; but his equipages have laid off their black trappings, his grooms and outriders are in drab and gold, and, more important to us strangers in his capital, the ducal palace is aired with a weekly reception and ball, as splendid and hospitable as money and taste can make them.

Leopold of Tuscany is said to be the richest individual in Europe. The Palazzo Pitti, in which he lives, seems to confirm it. The exterior is marked with the character of the times in which it was built, and might be that of a fortress--its long, dark front of roughly-hewn stone, with its two slight, out-curving wings, bearing a look of more strength than beauty. The interior is incalculably rich. The suite of halls on the front side is the home of the choicest and most extensive gallery of pictures in the world. The tables of inlaid gems and mosaic, the walls encrusted with relievos, the curious floors, the drapery--all satiate the eye with sumptuousness. It is built against a hill, and I was surprised, on the night of the ball, to find myself alighting from the carriage upon the same floor to which I had mounted from the front by tediously long staircases. The Duke thus rides in his carriage to his upper story--an advantage which saves him no little fatigue and exposure. The gardens of the Boboli, which cover the hill behind, rise far above the turrets of the palace, and command glorious views of the Val d'Arno.

The reception hour at the ball was from eight to nine. We were received at the steps on the garden side of the palace, by a crowd of servants, in livery, under the orders of a fat major-domo, and pa.s.sing through a long gallery, lined with exotics and grenadiers, we arrived at the anteroom, where the Duke's body-guard of n.o.bles were drawn up in attendance. The band was playing delightfully in the saloon beyond.

I had arrived late, having been presented a few days before, and desirous of avoiding the stiffness of the first hour of presentation.

The rooms were in a blaze of light from eight _trees_ of candles, cypress-shaped, and reaching from the floor to the ceiling, and the company entirely a.s.sembled, crowded them with a dazzling show of jewels, flowers, feathers, and uniforms.

The Duke and the Grand d.u.c.h.ess (the widow of the late Duke) stood in the centre of the room, and in the pauses of conversation, the different amba.s.sadors presented their countrymen. His highness was dressed in a suit of plain black, probably the worst made clothes in Florence. With his pale, timid face, his bent shoulders, an inexpressibly ill-tied cravat, and rank, untrimmed whiskers, he was the most uncourtly person present. His extreme popularity as a monarch is certainly very independent of his personal address. His mother-in-law is about his own age, with marked features, full of talent, a pale, high forehead, and the bearing altogether of a queen.

She wore a small diadem of the purest diamonds, and with her height and her flashing jewels, she was conspicuous from every part of the room. She is a high Catholic, and is said to be bending all her powers upon the re-establishment of the Jesuits in Florence.

As soon as the presentations were over, the Grand Duke led out the wife of the English amba.s.sador, and opened the ball with a waltz. He then danced a quadrille with the wife of the French amba.s.sador, and for his next partner selected an _American lady_--the daughter of Colonel T----, of New York.

The supper rooms were opened early, and among the delicacies of a table loaded with everything rare and luxurious, were a brace or two of pheasants from the Duke's estates in Germany. Duly flavored with _truffes_, and accompanied with Rhine wines, which deserved the conspicuous place given them upon the royal table--and in this letter.

I hardly dare speak of the degree of _beauty_ in the a.s.sembly; it is so difficult to compare a new impression with an old one, and the thing itself is so indefinite. But there were two persons present whose extreme loveliness, as it is not disputed even by admiring envy, may be worth describing, for the sake of the comparison.

The Princess S---- may be twenty-four years of age. She is of the middle height, with the slight stoop in her shoulders, which is rather a grace than a fault. Her bust is exquisitely turned, her neck slender but full, her arms, hands, and feet, those of a Psyche. Her face is the abstraction of highborn Italian beauty--calm, almost to indifference, of an indescribably _glowing paleness_--a complexion that would be alabaster if it were not for the richness of the blood beneath, betrayed in lips whose depth of color and fineness of curve seem only too curiously beautiful to be the work of nature. Her eyes are dark and large, and must have had an indolent expression in her childhood, but are now the very seat and soul of feeling. A constant trace of pain mars the beauty of her forehead. She dresses her hair with a kind of characteristic departure from the mode, parting its glossy flakes on her brow with nymph-like simplicity, a peculiarity which one regrets not to see in the too Parisian dress of her person.

In her manner she is strikingly elegant, but without being absent, she seems to give an unconscious attention to what is about her, and to be gracious and winning without knowing or intending it, merely because she could not listen or speak otherwise. Her voice is sweet, and, in her own Italian, mellow and soft to a degree inconceivable by those who have not heard this delicious language spoken in its native land.

With all these advantages, and a look of pride that nothing could insult, there is an expression in her beautiful face that reminds you of her s.e.x and its temptations, and prepares you fully for the history which you may hear from the first woman that stands at your elbow.

The other is that English girl of seventeen, shrinking timidly from the crowd, and leaning with her hands clasped over her father's arm, apparently listening only to the waltz, and unconscious that every eye is fixed upon her in admiration. She has lived all her life in Italy, but has been bred by an English mother, in a retired villa of the Val d'Arno--her character and feelings are those of her race, and nothing of Italy about her, but the glow of its sunny clime in the else spotless snow of her complexion, and an enthusiasm in her downcast eye that you may account for as you will--it is not English! Her form has just ripened into womanhood. The bust still wants fullness, and the step confidence. Her forehead is rather too intellectual to be maidenly; but the droop of her singularly long eye-lashes over eyes that elude the most guarded glance of your own, and the modest expression of her lips closed but not pressed together, redeem her from any look of conscious superiority, and convince you that she only seeks to be un.o.bserved. A single ringlet of golden brown hair falls nearly to her shoulder, catching the light upon its glossy curves with an effect that would enchant a painter. Lilies of the valley, the first of the season, are in her bosom and her hair, and she might be the personification of the flower for delicacy and beauty. You are only disappointed in talking with her. She expresses herself with a nerve and self-command, which, from a slight glance, you did not antic.i.p.ate. She shrinks from the general eye, but in conversation she is the high-minded woman more than the timid child for which her manner seems to mark her. In either light, she is the very presence of purity. She stands by the side of her not less beautiful rival, like a Madonna by a Magdalen--both seem not at home in the world, but only one could have dropped from heaven.

LETTER XLVIII.

VALLOMBROSA--ITALIAN OXEN--CONVENT--SERVICE IN THE CHAPEL--HOUSE OCCUPIED BY MILTON.

I left Florence for Vallombrosa at daylight on a warm summer's morning, in company with four ladies. We drove along the northern bank of the Arno for four or five miles, pa.s.sing several beautiful villas, belonging to the Florentine n.o.bles; and, crossing the river by a picturesque bridge, took the road to the village of Pelago, which lies at the foot of the mountain, and is the farthest point to which a carriage can mount. It is about fourteen miles from Florence, and the ascent thence to the convent is nearly three.

We alighted in the centre of the village, in the midst of a ragged troop of women and children, among whom were two idiot beggars; and, while the preparations were making for our ascent, we took chairs in the open square around a basket of cherries, and made a delicious luncheon of fruit and bread, very much to the astonishment of some two hundred spectators.

Our conveyances appeared in the course of half an hour, consisting of two large baskets, each drawn by a pair of oxen and containing two persons, and a small Sardinian pony. The ladies seated themselves with some hesitation in their singular sledges; I mounted the pony, and we made a dusty exit from Pelago, attended to the gate by our gaping friends, who bowed, and wished us the _bon viaggio_ with more grat.i.tude than three Tuscan _crazie_ would buy, I am sure, in any other part of the world.

The gray oxen of Italy are quite a different race from ours, much lighter and quicker, and in a small vehicle they will trot off five or six miles in the hour as freely as a horse. They are exceedingly beautiful. The hide is very fine, of a soft squirrel gray, and as sleek and polished often as that of a well-groomed courser. With their large, bright, intelligent eyes, high-lifted heads, and open nostrils, they are among the finest-looking animals in the world in motion. We soon came to the steep path, and the facility with which our singular equipages mounted was surprising. I followed, as well as I could, on my diminutive pony, my feet touching the ground, and my balance constantly endangered by the contact of stumps and stones--the hard-mouthed little creature taking his own way, in spite of every effort of mine to the contrary.

We stopped to breathe in a deep, cool glen, which lay across our path, the descent into which was very difficult. The road through the bottom of it ran just above the bank of a brook, into which poured a pretty fall of eight or ten feet, and with the spray-wet gra.s.s beneath, and the full-leaved chestnuts above, it was as delicious a spot for a rest in a summer noontide as I ever saw. The ladies took out their pencils and sketched it, making a group themselves the while, which added all the picture wanted.

The path wound continually about in the deep woods, with which the mountain is covered, and occasionally from an opening we obtained a view back upon the valley of the Arno, which was exceedingly fine. We came in sight of the convent in about two hours, emerging from the shade of the thick chestnuts into a cultivated lawn, fenced and mown with the nicety of the gra.s.s-plot before a cottage, and entering upon a smooth, well-swept pavement, approached the gate of the venerable-looking pile, as anxious for the refreshment of its far-famed hospitality as ever pilgrims were.

An old cheerful-looking monk came out to meet us, and shaking hands with the ladies very cordially, a.s.sisted in extracting them from their cramped conveyances. He then led the way to a small stone cottage, a little removed from the convent, quoting gravely by the way the law of the order against the entrance of females over the monastic threshold.

We were ushered into a small, neat parlor, with two bedrooms communicating, and two of the servants of the monastery followed, with water and snow-white napkins, the _padre degli forestieri_, as they called the old monk, who received us, talking most volubly all the while.

The cook appeared presently with a low reverence, and asked what we would like for dinner. He ran over the contents of the larder before we had time to answer his question, enumerating half a dozen kinds of game, and a variety altogether that rather surprised our ideas of monastical severity. His own rosy gills bore testimony that it was not the kitchen of Dennis Bulgruddery.

While dinner was preparing, Father Gasparo proposed a walk. An avenue of the most majestic trees opened immediately away from the little lawn before the cottage door. We followed it perhaps half a mile round the mountain, threading a thick pine forest, till we emerged on the edge of a shelf of greensward, running just under the summit of the hill. From this spot the view was limited only by the power of the eye. The silver line of the Mediterranean off Leghorn is seen hence on a clear day, between which and the mountain lie sixty or seventy miles, wound into the loveliest undulations by the course of the Arno.

The vale of this beautiful river, in which Florence stands, was just distinguishable as a mere dell in the prospect. It was one of the sultriest days of August, but the air was vividly fresh, and the sun, with all the strength of the climate of Italy, was unoppressive. We seated ourselves on the small fine gra.s.s of the hillside, and with the good old monk narrating pa.s.sages of his life, enjoyed the glorious scene till the cook's messenger summoned us back to dinner.

We were waited upon at table by two young servitors of the convent, with shaven crowns and long black ca.s.socks, under the direction of Father Gasparo, who sat at a little distance, entertaining us with his inexhaustible stories till the bell rung for the convent supper. The dinner would have graced the table of an emperor. Soup, beef, cutlets, ducks, woodc.o.c.ks, followed each other, cooked in the most approved manner, with all the accompaniments established by taste and usage; and better wine, white and red, never was pressed from the Tuscan grape. The dessert was various and plentiful; and while we were sitting, after the good father's departure, wondering at the luxuries we had found on a mountain-top, strong coffee and _liqueurs_ were set before us, both of the finest flavor.

I was to sleep myself in the convent. Father Gasparo joined us upon the wooden bench in the avenue, where we were enjoying a brilliant sunset, and informed me that the gates shut at eight. The vesper-bell soon rung, echoing round from the rocks, and I bade my four companions good night, and followed the monk to the cloisters. As we entered the postern, he asked me whether I would go directly to the cell, or attend first the service in the chapel, a.s.sisting my decision at the same time by gently slipping his arm through mine and drawing me toward the cloth door, from which a strong peal of the organ was issuing.

We lifted the suspended curtain, and entered a chapel so dimly lit, that I could only judge of its extent from the reverberations of the music. The lamps were all in the choir, behind the altar, and the shuffling footsteps of the gathering monks approached it from every quarter. Father Gasparo led me to the base of a pillar, and telling me to kneel, left me and entered the choir, where he was lost in the depth of one of the old richly-carved seats for a few minutes, appearing again with thirty or forty others, who rose and joined in the chorus of the chant, making the hollow roof ring with the deep unmingled base of their voices.

I stood till I was chilled, listening to the service, and looking at the long line of monks rising and sitting, with their monotonous changes of books and positions, and not knowing which way to go for warmth or retirement. I wandered up and down the dim church during the remaining hour, an unwilling, but not altogether an unamused spectator of the scene. The performers of the service, with the exception of Father Gasparo, were young men from sixteen to twenty; but during my slow turns to and fro on the pavement of the church, fifteen or twenty old monks entered, and, with a bend of the knee before the altar went off into the obscure corners, and knelt motionless at prayer, for almost an hour. I could just distinguish the dark outline of their figures when my eye became accustomed to the imperfect light, and I never saw a finer spectacle of religious devotion.

The convent clock struck ten, and shutting up their "clasped missals,"

the young monks took their cloaks about them, bent their knees in pa.s.sing the altar, and disappeared by different doors. Father Gasparo was the last to depart, and our footsteps echoed as we pa.s.sed through the long cloisters to the cell appropriated for me. We opened one of some twenty small doors, and I was agreeably surprised to find a supper of cold game upon the table, with a bottle of wine, and two plates--the monk intending to give me his company at supper. The cell was hung round with bad engravings of the Virgin, the death of martyrs, crosses, &c., and a small oaken desk stood against the wall beneath a large crucifix, with a prayer-book upon it. The bed was high, ample, and spotlessly white, and relieved the otherwise comfortless look of a stone floor and white-washed walls. I felt the change from summer heat to the keen mountain air, and as I shivered and b.u.t.toned my coat, my gay guest threw over me his heavy black cowl of cloth--a dress that, with its closeness and numerous folds, would keep one warm in Siberia. Adding to it his little black scull-cap, he told me, with a hearty laugh, that but for a certain absence of sanct.i.ty in the expression of my face, and the uncanonical length of my hair, I looked the monk complete. We had a merry supper. The wine was of a choicer vintage than that we had drank at dinner, and the father answered, upon my discovery of its merits, that he _never wasted it upon women_.

In the course of the conversation, I found out that my entertainer was a kind of butler, or head-servitor of the convent, and that the great body of the monks were of n.o.ble lineage. The feeling of pride still remains among them from the days when the Certosa of Vallombrosa was a residence for princes, before its splendid pictures were pillaged by a foreign army, its wealth scattered, and its numbers diminished. "In those days," said the monk, "we received nothing for our hospitality but the pleasure it gave us"--relieving my mind, by the remark, of what I looked forward to at parting as a delicate point.

My host left me at midnight, and I went to bed, and slept under a thick covering in an Italian August. "The blanched linen, white and lavendered," seemed to have a peculiar charm, for though I had promised to meet my excluded companions at sunrise, on the top of the mountain, I slept soundly till nine, and was obliged to breakfast alone in the refectory of the convent.

We were to dine at three, and start for Florence at four the next day, and we spent our morning in traversing the mountain paths, and getting views on every side. Fifty or a hundred feet above the convent, perched on a rock like an eyry, stands a small building in which Milton is supposed to have lived, during his six weeks sojourn at the convent. It is now fitted up as a nest of small chapels--every one of its six or eight little chambers having an altar. The ladies were not permitted to enter it. I selected the room I presumed the poet must have chosen--the only one commanding the immense view to the west, and, looking from the window, could easily feel the truth of his simile, "thick as leaves in Vallombrosa." It is a mountain of foliage.

Another sumptuous dinner was served, Father Gasparo sitting by, even more voluble than before, the baskets and the pony were brought to the door, and we bade farewell to the old monk with more regret than a day's acquaintance often produces. We reached our carriage in an hour, and were in Florence at eight--having pa.s.sed, by unanimous opinion, the two brightest days in our calendar of travel.

LETTER XLIX.

HOUSE OF MICHAEL ANGELO--THE ANCIENT CHURCH OF SAN MINIATO--MADAME CATALANI--WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR--MIDNIGHT Ma.s.s, ETC.

I went with a party this morning to visit _the house of Michael Angelo_. It stands as he lived in it, in the Via Ghibellini, and is still in possession of his descendants. It is a neat building of three stories, divided on the second floor into three rooms, shown as those occupied by the painter, sculptor, and poet. The first is panelled and painted by his scholars after his death--each picture representing some incident of his life. There are ten or twelve of these, and several of them are highly beautiful. One near the window represents him in his old age on a visit to "Lorenzo the Magnificent," who commands him to sit in his presence. The Duke is standing before his chair, and the figure of the old man is finely expressive.

The next room appears to have been his parlor, and the furniture is exactly as it stood when he died. In one corner is placed a bust of him in his youth, with his face perfect; and opposite, another, taken from a cast after his nose was broken by a fellow painter in the church of the Carmine. There are also one or two portraits of him, and the resemblance through them all, shows that the likeness we have of him in the engravings are uncommonly correct.

In the inner room, which was his studio, they show his pallet, brushes, pots, maul-sticks, slippers, and easel--all standing carelessly in the little closets around, as if he had left them but yesterday. The walls are painted in fresco, by Angelo himself, and represent groups of all the distinguished philosophers, poets and statesmen of his time. Among them are the heads of Petrarch, Dante, Galileo, and Lorenzo de Medici. It is a n.o.ble gallery! perhaps a hundred heads in all.