Pictures From Italy

  hardly be observed among any class of men in the world.

  MR. PEPYS once heard a clergyman assert in his sermon, in

  illustration of his respect for the Priestly office, that if he

  could meet a Priest and angel together, he would salute the Priest

  first. I am rather of the opinion of PETRARCH, who, when his pupil

  BOCCACCIO wrote to him in great tribulation, that he had been

  visited and admonished for his writings by a Carthusian Friar who

  claimed to be a messenger immediately commissioned by Heaven for

  that purpose, replied, that for his own part, he would take the

  liberty of testing the reality of the commission by personal

  observation of the Messenger's face, eyes, forehead, behaviour, and

  discourse. I cannot but believe myself, from similar observation,

  that many unaccredited celestial messengers may be seen skulking

  through the streets of Genoa, or droning away their lives in other

  Italian towns.

  Perhaps the Cappuccini, though not a learned body, are, as an

  order, the best friends of the people. They seem to mingle with

  them more immediately, as their counsellors and comforters; and to

  go among them more, when they are sick; and to pry less than some

  other orders, into the secrets of families, for the purpose of

  establishing a baleful ascendency over their weaker members; and to

  be influenced by a less fierce desire to make converts, and once

  made, to let them go to ruin, soul and body. They may be seen, in

  their coarse dress, in all parts of the town at all times, and

  begging in the markets early in the morning. The Jesuits too,

  muster strong in the streets, and go slinking noiselessly about, in

  pairs, like black cats.

  In some of the narrow passages, distinct trades congregate. There

  is a street of jewellers, and there is a row of booksellers; but

  even down in places where nobody ever can, or ever could, penetrate

  in a carriage, there are mighty old palaces shut in among the

  gloomiest and closest walls, and almost shut out from the sun.

  Very few of the tradesmen have any idea of setting forth their

  goods, or disposing them for show. If you, a stranger, want to buy

  anything, you usually look round the shop till you see it; then

  clutch it, if it be within reach, and inquire how much. Everything

  is sold at the most unlikely place. If you want coffee, you go to

  a sweetmeat shop; and if you want meat, you will probably find it

  behind an old checked curtain, down half-a-dozen steps, in some

  sequestered nook as hard to find as if the commodity were poison,

  and Genoa's law were death to any that uttered it.

  Most of the apothecaries' shops are great lounging-places. Here,

  grave men with sticks, sit down in the shade for hours together,

  passing a meagre Genoa paper from hand to hand, and talking,

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  drowsily and sparingly, about the News. Two or three of these are

  poor physicians, ready to proclaim themselves on an emergency, and

  tear off with any messenger who may arrive. You may know them by

  the way in which they stretch their necks to listen, when you

  enter; and by the sigh with which they fall back again into their

  dull corners, on finding that you only want medicine. Few people

  lounge in the barbers' shops; though they are very numerous, as

  hardly any man shaves himself. But the apothecary's has its group

  of loungers, who sit back among the bottles, with their hands

  folded over the tops of their sticks. So still and quiet, that

  either you don't see them in the darkened shop, or mistake them -

  as I did one ghostly man in bottle-green, one day, with a hat like

  a stopper - for Horse Medicine.

  On a summer evening the Genoese are as fond of putting themselves,

  as their ancestors were of putting houses, in every available inch

  of space in and about the town. In all the lanes and alleys, and

  up every little ascent, and on every dwarf wall, and on every

  flight of steps, they cluster like bees. Meanwhile (and especially

  on festa-days) the bells of the churches ring incessantly; not in

  peals, or any known form of sound, but in a horrible, irregular,

  jerking, dingle, dingle, dingle: with a sudden stop at every

  fifteenth dingle or so, which is maddening. This performance is

  usually achieved by a boy up in the steeple, who takes hold of the

  clapper, or a little rope attached to it, and tries to dingle

  louder than every other boy similarly employed. The noise is

  supposed to be particularly obnoxious to Evil Spirits; but looking

  up into the steeples, and seeing (and hearing) these young

  Christians thus engaged, one might very naturally mistake them for

  the Enemy.

  Festa-days, early in the autumn, are very numerous. All the shops

  were shut up, twice within a week, for these holidays; and one

  night, all the houses in the neighbourhood of a particular church

  were illuminated, while the church itself was lighted, outside,

  with torches; and a grove of blazing links was erected, in an open

  space outside one of the city gates. This part of the ceremony is

  prettier and more singular a little way in the country, where you

  can trace the illuminated cottages all the way up a steep hillside;

  and where you pass festoons of tapers, wasting away in the

  starlight night, before some lonely little house upon the road.

  On these days, they always dress the church of the saint in whose

  honour the festa is holden, very gaily. Gold-embroidered festoons

  of different colours, hang from the arches; the altar furniture is

  set forth; and sometimes, even the lofty pillars are swathed from

  top to bottom in tight-fitting draperies. The cathedral is

  dedicated to St. Lorenzo. On St. Lorenzo's day, we went into it,

  just as the sun was setting. Although these decorations are

  usually in very indifferent taste, the effect, just then, was very

  superb indeed. For the whole building was dressed in red; and the

  sinking sun, streaming in, through a great red curtain in the chief

  doorway, made all the gorgeousness its own. When the sun went

  down, and it gradually grew quite dark inside, except for a few

  twinkling tapers on the principal altar, and some small dangling

  silver lamps, it was very mysterious and effective. But, sitting

  in any of the churches towards evening, is like a mild dose of

  opium.

  With the money collected at a festa, they usually pay for the

  dressing of the church, and for the hiring of the band, and for the

  tapers. If there be any left (which seldom happens, I believe),

  the souls in Purgatory get the benefit of it. They are also

  supposed to have the benefit of the exertions of certain small

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  boys, who shake money-boxes before some mysterious little buildings

  like rural turnpikes, which (usually shut up close) fly open on

  Red-letter days, and disclose an image and some flowers inside.

  Just without the city gate, on the Albara road, is a small house,

  with an altar in it, and a
stationary money-box: also for the

  benefit of the souls in Purgatory. Still further to stimulate the

  charitable, there is a monstrous painting on the plaster, on either

  side of the grated door, representing a select party of souls,

  frying. One of them has a grey moustache, and an elaborate head of

  grey hair: as if he had been taken out of a hairdresser's window

  and cast into the furnace. There he is: a most grotesque and

  hideously comic old soul: for ever blistering in the real sun, and

  melting in the mimic fire, for the gratification and improvement

  (and the contributions) of the poor Genoese.

  They are not a very joyous people, and are seldom seen to dance on

  their holidays: the staple places of entertainment among the

  women, being the churches and the public walks. They are very

  good-tempered, obliging, and industrious. Industry has not made

  them clean, for their habitations are extremely filthy, and their

  usual occupation on a fine Sunday morning, is to sit at their

  doors, hunting in each other's heads. But their dwellings are so

  close and confined that if those parts of the city had been beaten

  down by Massena in the time of the terrible Blockade, it would have

  at least occasioned one public benefit among many misfortunes.

  The Peasant Women, with naked feet and legs, are so constantly

  washing clothes, in the public tanks, and in every stream and

  ditch, that one cannot help wondering, in the midst of all this

  dirt, who wears them when they are clean. The custom is to lay the

  wet linen which is being operated upon, on a smooth stone, and

  hammer away at it, with a flat wooden mallet. This they do, as

  furiously as if they were revenging themselves on dress in general

  for being connected with the Fall of Mankind.

  It is not unusual to see, lying on the edge of the tank at these

  times, or on another flat stone, an unfortunate baby, tightly

  swathed up, arms and legs and all, in an enormous quantity of

  wrapper, so that it is unable to move a toe or finger. This custom

  (which we often see represented in old pictures) is universal among

  the common people. A child is left anywhere without the

  possibility of crawling away, or is accidentally knocked off a

  shelf, or tumbled out of bed, or is hung up to a hook now and then,

  and left dangling like a doll at an English rag-shop, without the

  least inconvenience to anybody.

  I was sitting, one Sunday, soon after my arrival, in the little

  country church of San Martino, a couple of miles from the city,

  while a baptism took place. I saw the priest, and an attendant

  with a large taper, and a man, and a woman, and some others; but I

  had no more idea, until the ceremony was all over, that it was a

  baptism, or that the curious little stiff instrument, that was

  passed from one to another, in the course of the ceremony, by the

  handle - like a short poker - was a child, than I had that it was

  my own christening. I borrowed the child afterwards, for a minute

  or two (it was lying across the font then), and found it very red

  in the face but perfectly quiet, and not to be bent on any terms.

  The number of cripples in the streets, soon ceased to surprise me.

  There are plenty of Saints' and Virgin's Shrines, of course;

  generally at the corners of streets. The favourite memento to the

  Faithful, about Genoa, is a painting, representing a peasant on his

  knees, with a spade and some other agricultural implements beside

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  him; and the Madonna, with the Infant Saviour in her arms,

  appearing to him in a cloud. This is the legend of the Madonna

  della Guardia: a chapel on a mountain within a few miles, which is

  in high repute. It seems that this peasant lived all alone by

  himself, tilling some land atop of the mountain, where, being a

  devout man, he daily said his prayers to the Virgin in the open

  air; for his hut was a very poor one. Upon a certain day, the

  Virgin appeared to him, as in the picture, and said, 'Why do you

  pray in the open air, and without a priest?' The peasant explained

  because there was neither priest nor church at hand - a very

  uncommon complaint indeed in Italy. 'I should wish, then,' said

  the Celestial Visitor, 'to have a chapel built here, in which the

  prayers of the Faithful may be offered up.' 'But, Santissima

  Madonna,' said the peasant, 'I am a poor man; and chapels cannot be

  built without money. They must be supported, too, Santissima; for

  to have a chapel and not support it liberally, is a wickedness - a

  deadly sin.' This sentiment gave great satisfaction to the

  visitor. 'Go!' said she. 'There is such a village in the valley

  on the left, and such another village in the valley on the right,

  and such another village elsewhere, that will gladly contribute to

  the building of a chapel. Go to them! Relate what you have seen;

  and do not doubt that sufficient money will be forthcoming to erect

  my chapel, or that it will, afterwards, be handsomely maintained.'

  All of which (miraculously) turned out to be quite true. And in

  proof of this prediction and revelation, there is the chapel of the

  Madonna della Guardia, rich and flourishing at this day.

  The splendour and variety of the Genoese churches, can hardly be

  exaggerated. The church of the Annunciata especially: built, like

  many of the others, at the cost of one noble family, and now in

  slow progress of repair: from the outer door to the utmost height

  of the high cupola, is so elaborately painted and set in gold, that

  it looks (as SIMOND describes it, in his charming book on Italy)

  like a great enamelled snuff-box. Most of the richer churches

  contain some beautiful pictures, or other embellishments of great

  price, almost universally set, side by side, with sprawling

  effigies of maudlin monks, and the veriest trash and tinsel ever

  seen.

  It may be a consequence of the frequent direction of the popular

  mind, and pocket, to the souls in Purgatory, but there is very

  little tenderness for the BODIES of the dead here. For the very

  poor, there are, immediately outside one angle of the walls, and

  behind a jutting point of the fortification, near the sea, certain

  common pits - one for every day in the year - which all remain

  closed up, until the turn of each comes for its daily reception of

  dead bodies. Among the troops in the town, there are usually some

  Swiss: more or less. When any of these die, they are buried out

  of a fund maintained by such of their countrymen as are resident in

  Genoa. Their providing coffins for these men is matter of great

  astonishment to the authorities.

  Certainly, the effect of this promiscuous and indecent splashing

  down of dead people in so many wells, is bad. It surrounds Death

  with revolting associations, that insensibly become connected with

  those whom Death is approaching. Indifference and avoidance are

  the natural result; and all the softening influences of the great

  sorrow are harshly disturbed.

  There is a ceremony
when an old Cavaliere or the like, expires, of

  erecting a pile of benches in the cathedral, to represent his bier;

  covering them over with a pall of black velvet; putting his hat and

  sword on the top; making a little square of seats about the whole;

  and sending out formal invitations to his friends and acquaintances

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  to come and sit there, and hear Mass: which is performed at the

  principal Altar, decorated with an infinity of candles for that

  purpose.

  When the better kind of people die, or are at the point of death,

  their nearest relations generally walk off: retiring into the

  country for a little change, and leaving the body to be disposed

  of, without any superintendence from them. The procession is

  usually formed, and the coffin borne, and the funeral conducted, by

  a body of persons called a Confraternita, who, as a kind of

  voluntary penance, undertake to perform these offices, in regular

  rotation, for the dead; but who, mingling something of pride with

  their humility, are dressed in a loose garment covering their whole

  person, and wear a hood concealing the face; with breathing-holes

  and apertures for the eyes. The effect of this costume is very

  ghastly: especially in the case of a certain Blue Confraternita

  belonging to Genoa, who, to say the least of them, are very ugly

  customers, and who look - suddenly encountered in their pious

  ministration in the streets - as if they were Ghoules or Demons,

  bearing off the body for themselves.

  Although such a custom may be liable to the abuse attendant on many

  Italian customs, of being recognised as a means of establishing a

  current account with Heaven, on which to draw, too easily, for

  future bad actions, or as an expiation for past misdeeds, it must

  be admitted to be a good one, and a practical one, and one

  involving unquestionably good works. A voluntary service like

  this, is surely better than the imposed penance (not at all an

  infrequent one) of giving so many licks to such and such a stone in

  the pavement of the cathedral; or than a vow to the Madonna to wear

  nothing but blue for a year or two. This is supposed to give great

  delight above; blue being (as is well known) the Madonna's

  favourite colour. Women who have devoted themselves to this act of

  Faith, are very commonly seen walking in the streets.