part I

became quite sulky, and took little interest even in a beautiful

institute and academy, which a cardinal, a native of Ferrara, founded and endowed; however, some ancient monuments, in the Ducal Palace, served to revive me a little; and I was put in perfect good humor by a beautiful conception of a painter, John the Baptist before Herod and Herodias. The prophet, in his well-known dress of the wilderness, is pointing indignantly at Herodias. Quite unmoved, she looks at the prince, who is sitting by her side, while the latter regards the prophet with a calm but cunning look; a white middle-sized greyhound stands before the king, while from beneath the robe of Herodias, a small Italian one is peeping--both giving tongue at the prophet. To my mind, this is a most happy thought.

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[Sidenote: Ferrara-Cento]

_Cento, Oct._ 17, 1786.

In a better temper than yesterday, I write you to-day from Guercino's native city. It, however, is quite a different place: an hospitable well-built little town, of nearly 5000 inhabitants, flourishing, full of life, cleanly, and situated in a well cultivated plain, which stretches farther than the eye can reach. According to my usual custom, I ascended the tower. A sea of poplars, between which, and near at hand, one caught glimpses of little country-houses, each surrounded by its fields. A rich soil and a beautiful climate. It was an autumn evening, such as we seldom have to thank even summer for. The sky, which had been veiled all day, has cleared up, the clouds rolling off north and south towards the mountains, and I hope for a bright day to-morrow.

Here I first saw the Apennines, which I am approaching. The winter in this region lasts only through December and January: April is rainy--for the rest of the year beautiful weather, according to the nature of the season. Incessant rain is unknown. September here, to tell you the truth, was finer and warmer than August with you. The Apennines in the south have received a warm greeting from me, for I have now had enough of the plain. To-morrow I shall be writing at the foot of them.

Guercino loved his native town: indeed, the Italians almost universally cherish and maintain this sort of local patriotism, and it is to this beautiful feeling that Italy owes so many of its valuable institutions and its multitude of local sanctuaries. Under the management of this master, an academy of painting was formed here. He left behind him many paintings, which his townsmen are still very proud of, and which, indeed, fully justify their pride.

Guercino is here a sacred name, and that, too, in the mouths of children as well as of the old.

Most charmed was I with his picture, representing the risen Lord, appearing to his mother. Kneeling before Him, she looks upon Him with indescribable affection. Her left hand is touching His body just under the accursed wound which mars the whole picture. His hand lies upon her neck; and in order the better to gaze upon her, his body is slightly bent back. This gives to His figure a somewhat strange, not to say forced appearance. And yet for all that it is infinitely beautiful. The calm and sad look, with which He contemplates her, is unique and seems to convey the impression that before His noble soul there still floats a remembrance of His own sufferings and of hers, which the resurrection had not at once dispelled.

_Strange_ has engraved the picture. I wish that my friends could see even his copy of it.

After it a Madonna won my admiration. The child wants the breast; she modestly shrinks from exposing her bosom. Natural, noble, exquisite, and beautiful.

Further, a Mary, who is guiding the arm of the infant Christ, standing before her with His face towards the people, in order that with uplifted fingers He may bestow His blessings upon them. Judged by the spirit of the Roman Catholic legends, this must be pronounced a very happy idea. It has been often repeated.

Guercino is an intrinsically bold, masculine, sensible painter, without roughness. On the contrary, his pieces possess a certain tender moral grace, a reposeful freedom and grandeur, but with all that, a certain mannerism, so that when the eye once has grown accustomed to it, it is impossible to mistake a piece of his hand. The lightness, cleanness, and finish of his touch are perfectly astonishing. For his draperies he is particularly fond of a beautiful brownish-red blend of colours. These harmonize very well with the blue which he loves to combine with them.

[Sidenote: Bologna.]

The subjects of the other paintings are more or less unhappily chosen. The good artist has strained all his powers, but his invention and execution alike are thrown away and wasted. However, I derived both entertainment and profit from the view of this cycle of art, although such a hasty and rapid glance as I could alone bestow upon them, affords but little, either of gratification or instruction.

* * * * *

_Bologna, Oct._ 18, 1786. _Night._

Yesterday I started very early--before daybreak--from Cento, and arrived here in pretty good time. A brisk and well-educated cicerone having learned that I did not intend to make a long stay here, hurried me through all the streets, and into so many palaces and churches that I had scarcely time to set down in my note-book the names of them, and I hardly know if hereafter, when I shall look again at these scrawls, I shall be able to call to mind all the particulars. I will now mention, however, a couple or so of objects which stand out bright and clear enough as they afforded me a real gratification at the time.

First of all the Cecilia of Raphael! It was exactly what I had been told of it; but now I saw it with my own eyes. He has invariably accomplished that which others wished in vain to accomplish, and I would at present say no more of it than that it is by him. Five saints, side by side, not one of them has anything in common with us; however their existence, stands so perfectly real that one would wish for the picture to last through eternity, even though for himself he could be content to be annihilated. But in order to understand Raphael aright, and to form a just appreciation of him, and not to praise him as a god or as Melchisedec "without descent" or pedigree, it is necessary to study his masters and his predecessors. These, too, had a standing on the firm soil of truth; diligently, not to say anxiously, they had laid the foundation, and vied with each other in raising, step by step, the pyramid aloft, until, at last, profiting by all their labors, and enlightened by a heavenly genius, Raphael set the last stone on the summit, above which, or even at which, no one else can ever stand.

Our interest in the history of art becomes peculiarly lively when we consider the works of the old masters. _Francesco Francia_ is a very respectable artist. Pietro Perugino, so bold a man that one might almost call him a noble German fellow. Oh that fate had carried Albert Dürer further into Italy. In Munich I saw a couple of pieces by him of incredible grandeur. The poor man, how did he mistake his own worth in Venice, and make an agreement with the priests, on which he lost weeks and months! See him in his journey through the Netherlands exchanging his noble works of art for parrots, and in order to save his "douceur," drawing the portraits of the domestics, who bring him--a plate of fruit. To me the history of such a poor fool of an artist is infinitely touching.

Towards evening I got out of this ancient, venerable, and learned city, and extricated myself from its crowds, who, protected from the sun and weather by the arched bowers which are to be seen in almost every street, walk about, gape about, or buy, and sell, and transact whatever business they may have. I ascended the tower and enjoyed the pure air. The view is glorious! To the north we see the hills of Padua; beyond them the Swiss, Tyrolese, and Friulian Alps; in short, the whole northern chain, which, at the time, was enveloped in mist. Westward there stretched a boundless horizon, above which the towers of Modena alone stood out. Towards the east a similar plain reaching to the shores of the Adriatic, whose waters might be discerned in the setting sun. Towards the south, the first hills of the Apennines, which, like the Vicentine Hills, are planted up to their summits, or covered with churches, palaces, and summer-houses. The sky was perfectly clear, not a cloud to be seen, only on the horizon a kind of haze. The keeper of the tower assured me that for six years this mist had never left the distance. Otherwise, by the help of a telescope, you might easily discern the hills of Vicenza, with their houses and chapels, but now very rarely, even on the brightest days. And this mist lay chiefly on the Northern Chain, and makes our beloved Fatherland a regular Cimmeria. In proof of the salubrity of the situation and pure atmosphere of the city, he called my notice to the fact, that the roofs of the houses looked quite fresh, and that not a single tile was attacked by damp or moss. It must be confessed that the tiles look quite clean, and beautiful enough, but the good quality of the brick-earth may have something to do with this; at least we know that, in ancient times, excellent tiles were made in these parts.

[Sidenote: Bologna.]

The leaning tower has a frightful look, and yet it is most probable that it was built so by design. The following seems to me the explanation of this absurdity. In the disturbed times of the city every large edifice was a fortress, and every powerful family had its tower. By and bye the possession of such a building became a mark of splendour and distinction, and as, at last, a perpendicular tower was a common and every-day tiling, an oblique one was built. Both architect and owner have obtained their object; the multitude of slender, upright towers are just looked at, and all hurry to see the leaning one. Afterwards I ascended it. The bricks are all arranged horizontally. With clamps and good cement one may build any mad whim.

* * * * *

_Bologna, Oct._ 19, 1786.

I have spent this day to the best advantage I could in visiting and revisiting; but it is with art as with the world: the more we study it the larger we find it. In this heaven new stars are constantly appearing which I cannot count, and which sadly puzzle me; the Carracci, a Guido, a Domenichino, who shone forth in a later and happier period of art, but truly to enjoy whom requires both knowledge and judgment which I do not possess, and which cannot be acquired in a hurry. A great obstacle to our taking a pure delight in their pictures, and to an immediate understanding of their merits, is the absurd subjects of most of them. To admire or to be charmed with them one must be a madman.

It is as though the sons of God had wedded with the daughters of men, and out of such an union many a monster had sprung into existence. No sooner are you attracted by the _gusto_ of a Guido and his pencil, by which nothing but the most excellent objects the eye sees are worthy to be painted, but you, at once, withdraw your eyes from a subject so abominably stupid that the world has no term of contempt sufficient to express its meanness; and so it is throughout. It is ever anatomy--an execution--a flaying scene-always some suffering, never an action of the hero-never an interest in the scene before you-always something for the fancy--some excitement accruing from without. Nothing but deeds of horror or convulsive sufferings, malefactors or fanatics, along side of whom the artist, in order to save his art, invariably slips in a naked boy or a pretty damsel as a spectator, in every case treating his spiritual heroes as little better than lay-figures (_gliedermanner_), on which to hang some beautiful mantle with its folds. In all there is nothing that suggests a human notion! Scarcely one subject in ten that ever ought to have been painted, and that one the painter has chosen to view from any but the right point of view.

Guido's great picture in the Church of the Mendicants is all that painting can do, but, at the same time, all that absurdity could task an artist with. It is a votive piece. I can well believe that the whole consistory praised it, and also devised it. The two angels, who were fit to console a Psyche in her misery, must here ....

The S. Proclus is a beautiful figure, but the others--bishops and popes! Below are heavenly children playing with attributes. The painter, who had no choice left him, laboured to help himself as best he could. He exerted himself merely to show that he was not the barbarian. Two naked figures by Guido; a St. John in the Wilderness; a Sebastian, how exquisitely painted, and what do they say? the one is gaping and the other wriggling.

Were I to contemplate history in my present ill humor, I should say, Faith revived art, but Superstition immediately made itself master of it, and ground it to the dust.

After dinner, seeming somewhat of a milder temper and less arrogantly disposed than in the morning, I entered the following remarks in my note-book. In the palace of the Tanari there is a famous picture by Guido, the Virgin suckling the infant Saviour--of a size rather larger than life--the head as if a god had painted it,--indescribable is the expression with which she gazes upon the sucking infant. To me it seems a calm, profound resignation, as if she were nourishing not the child of her joy and love, but a supposititious, heavenly changeling; and goes on suckling it because now she cannot do otherwise, although, in deep humility, she wonders how she ever came to do it. The rest of the canvass is filled up with a mass of drapery which connoisseurs highly prize. For my