 Chapter 4 Part 1 of Glimpses of Italian Society in the 18th century by Hester Lynch Piozzi, this LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Venice. We went down the Brenta in a barge that brought us in eight hours to Venice, the first appearance of which revived all the ideas inspired by Canaletti, whose views of this town are most scrupulously exact, those especially which one sees at the Queen of England's house in St. James's Park, to such a degree indeed that we knew all the famous towers, steeples, etc. before we reached them. St. Mark's place, after all I had read and all I had heard of it, exceeded expectation. Such a cluster of excellence, such a constellation of artificial beauties my mind had never ventured to excite the idea of within herself. So great is the devotion of the common people here to their titular saint that when they cry out as we do all England forever they do not say Viva Venezia but Viva San Marco. And I doubt much if that was not once the way with us. In one of Shakespeare's plays an expiring prince being near to give up all for gone is animated by his son in these words courage father cry St. George. We had an opportunity of seeing his day celebrated with a very grand procession the other morning, April the 23rd, when a live boy personated the hero of the show but sat so still upon his painted corsa that it was long before I perceived him to breathe. The streets were vastly crowded with spectators that in every place make the principal part of the spectacle. It is odd that a custom witch in contemplation seems so unlikely to please should when put in practice appear highly necessary and productive of an effect which can be obtained no other way. Were the houses in Parliament Street to hang damask curtains worked carpets pieces of various colored silks with fringe or lace around them out of every window when the King of England goes to the house with numberless well-dressed ladies leaning out to see him pass it would give one an idea of the continental towns upon a gala day but our people will be up to cry out Monmouth Street and look ashamed of their neighbors so the same-decker work counterpane or crimson curtain produced at Easter which made a figure at Christmas the December before so that no end will be put to the expense in our country was such a fancy to take place. The rainy weather beside would spoil all our finery at once and here though it is still cold enough to be sure and the women wear saddens yet still one shivers over a bad fire only because there is no place to walk and warm oneself. I've not seen a drop of rain. The truth is this town cannot be a wholesome one for there is scarcely a possibility of taking exercise nor have I been once able to circulate my blood by motion since our arrival except perhaps by climbing the beautiful tower which stands as everything else does in Samark's place and you may drive a garden chair up that's so easy as the ascent so broad and luminous the way from the top is presented to one side to the most striking of all prospects water bounded by land not land by water the curious and elegant highlights upon which and into which the piles of venice have driven exhibiting clusters of houses churches palaces everything started up in the midst of the sea so as to excite amazement it was upon the day appointed for making a new chancellor however the point ought to have looked at this lovely city when every shop adorned with its own peculiar produce was disposed to hail the passage of its favorite in a manner so lively so luxuriant and at the same time so tasteful there's no telling Milaners crowned the new dignitaries picture with flowers while columns of gauze twisted rum with ribbon in the most elegant style supported the figure on each side and made the prettiest appearance possible the furrier formed his skins into representations of the animal they had once belonged to so the lion was seen dandling the kid at one door while the fox stood courting a badger out of his hole at the other the polterers and fruiterers were by many thought the most beautiful shops in town from the variety of fancies displayed in the disposal of their goods and I admired the truly Italian ingenuity of a gunsmith who had found the art of turning his instruments of terror into objects of delight by his judicious manner of placing and arranging them every shop was illuminated with a large glass chandelier before it besides the wax candles and colored lamps in disposed among the ornaments within the senators have much the appearance of our lawyers going robed to Westminster Hall but the gentle woman is there called wear red dresses and remind me of the doctors of the ecclesiastical courts and doctors commons I have said nothing yet about the gondolas which everybody knows are black and give an air of melancholy at first sight yet nothing less than sorrowful it is like painting the live lemuses chumly in the character of Milton's penciled nun devout and pure sober steadfast and demure as I once saw her drawn by a famous hand to show a Venetian lady in her gondola and send a letter which is black like the gondola but wholly calculated like that for the purposes of refined gallantry so is the nightly rendezvous the coffeehouse and casino for wilds Palladiers palaces served to adorn the grand canal and strike those who enter Venice with surprise at its magnificence those snug retreats are intended for the relaxation of those who inhabit the more splendid apartments and are fatigued with exertions of dignity and necessity of no small expense we've been told much of the suspicious temper of Venetian laws and have heard often that every discourse is suffered except such as tends to political conversation in the city and that whatever nobleman native of Venice is seen speaking familiarly with the foreign minister runs a risk of punishment too terrible to be thought on how far that manner of proceeding maybe wise or just I know not certain it is that they have preserved their laws in violet to their city unattempted and their republic respectable through all the concussions that have shaken the rest of Europe surrounded by envious powers it becomes them to be vigilant conscious of the value of their unconquered state it is no wonder that they love her and surely the true Amor patriae never glowed more warmly and old Roman bosoms than in theirs who draw as many families here do they pedigree from the consuls of the Commonwealth love without jealousy as seldom to be met with especially in these warm climates let us then permit them to be jealous of a constitution which all the other states of Italy look on with envy not unmixed with malice and propagate strange stories to its disadvantage that suspicion should be concealed under the mask of gaiety is neither very new nor very strange the reign of our Charles the second was equally famous for plots perjuries and cruel chastisements as for wanton levity and indecent frolics but here at Venice there are no unpermitted frolics her rulers love to see her gay and cheerful they are the fathers of their country and if they indulge take care not to spoil her with regard to common chat I've heard many a liberal and eloquent disquisition upon the state of Europe in general and on Venice in particular from several agreeable friends at their own casino who did not appear to have more fears upon them than myself and I know not why they should chevalier Amo is deservedly a favorite with them I'm used to talk whole evenings of him and of general Elliott the bombarding of Tunis and the defense of Gibraltar the newspaper the spoke of some fireworks exhibited in England in honour of the hero they were for a month with the joy said an agreeable Venetian they were not food that if he's whoever sees Samark's place lighted up of an evening adorned with every excellence of human art and pregnant with pleasure expressed by intelligent countenances sparkling with every grace of nature the sea washing its walls the moonbeams dancing on its subjugated waves sport and laughter resounding from the coffee houses girls with guitars skipping about the square masks and merry makers singing as they pass you and they're supplied with a band of music as heard at some distance upon the water and cause attention to sounds made sweeter by the element over which they're brought whoever is led suddenly I say to this scene of seemingly perennial gaiety will be up to cry out of Venice as Eve says to adam and Milton with the conversing I forget all time all seasons and they change all please are like for it is sure there are in this time many astonishing privations of all that are used to make other places delightful and as poor am I the savage zeb been about to return to utter height no horse there no ass no cow no golden pippins no dish of tea ah you see I go without everything I always so content there though it is really just so one lives at this lovely Venice one is heard of a horse being exhibited for a show there and yesterday I watched the poor people paying a penny a piece for the sight of a stuffed one and they're more than persuaded at the truth of what I'm told here that numberless inhabitants live and die in this great capital nor ever find out or think of inquiring how the milk brought from terra firma is originally produced the viewer venice from the zwetka a word contractor from judecker as I'm told would invite one never more to stray from it father at least than to st. George's church on another little opposite island whence the prospect is surely wonderful it is to this church I was sent for the purpose of seeing a famous picture painted by paul vernaise of the marriage at canner in gunnery when we arrived the picture was kept in a refectory belonging to friars of what order I have forgotten and no woman could be admitted my disappointment was so great that I was deprived even of the powers of solicitation by the extreme ill humorous occasion and my few entreaties for admission were completely disregarded by the good old monk who remained outside with me while the gentleman visited the convent without molestation at my return to venice I met little comfort as everybody told me it was my own fault as I might put on men's clothes and to see it whenever I pleased as nobody then would stop though perhaps all of them would know me but it is almost time to talk of the realto said to be the finest single arch in europe I suppose it is so very beautiful too when looked on from the water but so dirtily kept and deformed with mean shops that passing over it disgust gets the better of every other sensation the truth is our dear venetians are nothing less than cleanly st mark's place is all covered over in a morning with chicken coops which stink one to death so nobody I believe ever thinks of changing their baskets and all about the ducal palace is made so very offensive by the resort of human creatures for every purpose most unworthy of so charming a place that all enjoyment of its beauties is rendered difficult to a person of any delicacy and poisoned so provokingly that I do never cease to wonder that so little police and proper regulation are established in the city so particularly lovely to render her sweet and wholesome I've asked several friends about the truth of what one has been always hearing of in england that the venetian gondoliers sing tassos and areostos verses in the streets at night sometimes quarreling with each other concerning the merits of their favorite poets but what I have been told since I came here of their attachment to their respective masters and secrecy when trusted by the venetian love affairs seems far more probable as they are proud to access when they serve a nobleman of high birth and will tell you within air of importance that the house of memo monk niko or graharola has been served by their ancestors for these 80 or perhaps a hundred years transmitting family pride thus from generation to generation even when that pride is but reflected only like the mock rainbow of a summer sky but while I'm writing this peevish reflection in my room I hear some voices under my window answering each other upon the grand canal it is it is the gondolieres sure enough and they are at this moment singing to an odd sort of tune but in no unmusical manner the flight of eriminia from tassos Jerusalem I propose singing we were this evening carried to a well-known conservatory called the mendicanti who performed an oratorio in the church with great and I dare say deserved applause it was difficult for me to persuade myself that all the performers were women till watching carefully our eyes convinced us as they were but slightly graded the sight of girls however handling the double base and blowing into the bassoon did not much please me and the deep-turned voice of her who sung the part of so seemed an odd unnatural thing enough what I found most curious and pretty was to hear Latin verses of the old leonine race broken into eight and six and sung in rhyme by these women as if they were heirs of metastasio all in their dulcified pronunciation too for the patois runs equally through every language when spoken by venetian well these pretty sirens were delighted to seize upon us and pressed our visit to their parlor with the sweetness that I know not who would have resisted we had no such intent and amply did their performance repay my curiosity for visiting venetian beauties so justly celebrated for their seducing manners and soft address they accompanied their voices with the fortepiano and sung a thousand buffo songs with all that gave a luptuousness for which their country is renowned the state of music in italy if one may believe those who want to know it best is not what it was the manner of singing is much changed I'm told and to some affectations have been suffered to encroach upon their natural graces among the persons who exhibited their talents at the counters of rosinbergs last week our country woman's performance was most applauded but when I name lady cladges no one will wonder it is said that painting is now but little cultivated among them Rome will however be the place for such inquiries angelica kaufmann being settled there seems a proof of their taste for living merit and if one thing more than another revins his italian candor and true good nature it is perhaps their generous willingness to be ever happy in acknowledging foreign excellence and their delight in bringing forward the eminent qualities of every other nation never incidentally wanting or bragging of their own unlike to this is the national spirit and confined ideas of perfection inherent in a gallic mind whose soul politeness is an applique stuck upon the coat but never embroidered into it among the noble senators of venice meantime many good scholars many bellet converses and what is more valuable many thinking men may be found and found hourly who employ their powers wholly in care for the state and make their pleasure like true patriots out of her felicity the ladies indeed appear to study but one science quote and where the lesson taught is but to please can pleasure seem a fault unquote like all sensualists however they fail at the end proposed from hurry to obtain it and consumed those charms which alone can procure them continuance or change of admirers they enter their health too irreparably and that in their earliest youth a few remain unmarried till 15 and at 30 have a one and faded look on the good part see please easy on this a file they do not taste their pleasures here they swallow them whole said madame la president yesterday very judiciously to try venetian dames by english rules will be worse than all the tyranny complained of when some east indian was condemned upon the Coventry Act was letting his wife's nose a common practice in his country and perfectly agreeable to custom in the usage dpi here is no struggle for female education as with us no resources and study no duties of family management no bill of fair to be looked over in the morning no account book to be settled at noon no necessity of reading to supply without disgrace the evening's chat no laughing at the card table or twittering in the corner if elapses lingui has produced a mistake which malice never fails to record a lady in italy is sure of applause so she takes little pains to obtain it a venetian lady has in particular so sweet a manner naturally that she really charms without any settled intent to do so merely from that irresistible good humor and a malifluous tone of voice which sees the soul and detain it in despite of juno like majesty or manoeuvre like wit nor ever was there prince or shepherd paris i think was both who would not have bestowed his apple here meanwhile my countryman howl laments that the women at venice are so little but why so the diminutive progeny of vulcan the kabeers mysteriously adored of old were oversized below that of the least living woman if we believe herodotus and they were worshiped with more constant as well as more fervent devotion than this symmetrical godess of beauty herself a custom which prevails here of wearing little or no rouge and increasing the native paleness of their skins by guests lightly wiping the very white powder from their faces is a method no french woman of quantity would like to adopt it's surely the venetians are not behind hand in the art of gaining admirers and they do not like their painters depend upon coloring to ensure it nothing can be a greater proof of the little consequence which a dress gives to a woman than the reflection one must make on a venetian lady's mode of appearance in her genderlet without which nobody stirs out of the house in the morning it consists of a full black silk petticoat sloped just to train a very little on the ground and flounced with gauze of the same color a skeleton wire upon the head such as we used to make up hats throwing loosely over it a large piece of black mode or Persian so as to shade the face like curtain the front being trimmed with a very deep black lace or soufflé gauze infinitely becoming the thin silk that remains to be disposed of they roll back so as to discover the bosom fastening it with a puff before at the top of their stomacher and one small running it back from the shape tie it gracefully behind and let it hang in two long ends the evening ornament is a silk hat shaped like a man's and of the same color with the white tall work lining at most and sometimes one feather a great black silk cloak lined with white and perhaps a narrow border down below with the vast heavy round handkerchief of black lace which lies over the neck and shoulders and concealed shape and all completely here is surely little appearance of art no creping or frizzing the hair which is flat at the top and all of one length hanging in long curls about the back or sides as it happens no brown powder and no rouge at all thus without variety the souvenir lady can try to delight the eye and without much instruction too to charm the ear a source of thought very cut off beside in giving her no room to show taste in dress or invent new fancies in disposition of ornaments for tomorrow the government takes all that trouble off her hands knows every pin she wears and where to find her at any moment of the day or night meantime nothing conveys to a British observer a stronger emotion of loose living and life-sentience disillusionedness than the sight of one's servants gondoliers and other attendants on the scenes and circles of pleasure where you find them they never drunk dead would sleep up on the stairs or in their boats or in the open street for that matter like overswilled voters at an election in england or may trample on them if one will they hardly can be awakened and their companions who have more life left than them set the others literally on their feet to make them capable of obeying their masters or ladies call with all this appearance of levity however there is an unlimited attention to the affairs of state nor is any senator seem to come later on negligently to council next day however he may have amused himself all night end of chapter four part one chapter four part two of glimpses of Italian society in the 18th century by Hester Lynch Piozzi this LibriVox recording is in public domain Venice the site of the Buciantoro prepared for gala and the glories of Venice upon ascension day must now put an end to other observations we had the honor and comfort of seeing all from a galley belonging to a noble Venetian braggarton whose civility is to us was singularly kind as well as extremely polite his attentions did not cease with the morning show which we shared in common with numbers of fashionable people that filled his ship and part took of his profuse elegant refreshments but he followed us after dinner to the house of our English friends and took six of us together in a gay bar condoned with his arms and rode by eight gondoliers and superb liveries made up for the occasion to match the boat which was like them white blue and silver a flag of the same colors flying from the stern till we arrived at the Corso so they call the place of contention where the rowers exerted their skill and ingenuity and numberless oars dashing the waves at once make the only agitation of which the sea seems capable while ladies now no longer dressed in black but ornamented with all their jewels flowers etc displayed their beauties unveiled upon the water and covering the lagoons with gait and splendor bring to one's mind the games of Virgil and the galley of Cleopatra by turns the Butch and Toro holds 200 people and is heavy besides with statues columns etc the top covered with crimson velvet and the sides and livened by 21 oars on each hand musical performers attend in another barge while foreigners in gilded pajos increase the general show meantime the vessel that contains the doge etc carries him slowly up to sea where in the presence of his senators he drops a plain gold ring into the water with these words they sponsor us temare in sinumeri perpetuicue dominii note we espouse the oc in sign of true and perpetual dominion and note our weather was favorable and the people all seemed happy when the ceremony is put off from day to day it naturally damps the spirits and produces superstitious presages of an unlucky year nor is that strange for the season of storms or trolley to be passed in a climate so celebrated for mildness and equanimity the praises of Italian weather though we're a simny frequent among us seem however much confined to this island for ought I see who are more than tired with hearing their complaints of their own sky now that they are under it always too cold or too hot or a skilock wind or a rainy day or a hard frost hegele fin ai pensieri note which freezes even one's fancy end note or something to murmur about while they're only great nuisances pass unnoticed the heaps of dirt and crowds of beggars went past the streets and poison the pleasures of society while ladies are eating ice at a coffee house door while decent people are hearing mass at the altar while strangers are surveying the beauties of the place no peace no enjoyment can one obtain for the beggars numerous beyond credibility saucy and airy and odd in their manners and exhibiting such various lamenesses and horrible deformities in their figure that I can sometimes hardly believe my eyes but I'm willing to be told what is not very improbable that many of them come from a great distance to pass the season of ascension here at venice I never indeed saw anything so gently endured which it appeared so little difficult to remedy but though I hope it will be hard to find a place where more arms are asked for and less are given than in venice did I never saw refusals so pleasantly softened as by the manners of the high Italians towards the low ladies in particular are so soft mouthed so tender and applying to those who have their lot cast far below them that one feels one's own harsher disposition corrected by their sweetness and when they called my maid sister in good time pressing her hand with affectionate kindness it melted me though I feared from time to time there must be hypocrisy at bottom of such sugared words till I caught a lady of condition yesterday turning to the window and praying fervently for the girl's conversion to Christianity all from a tender and pious emotion of her gentle heart a snobwithstanding their caresses no man is more firmly persuaded of a mathematical truth than they are of mine and my maids living in a state of certain and eternal reprobation note but they really shame even us end note say they quite in the spirit of the old Romans who thought all nations barbarous except their own a woman of quality near whom I sat at the fine ball bagged and made two nights ago in honor of this gay season inquired how I had to pass the morning I named several churches I had looked into particularly that which they esteem beyond the rest as a favorite work of Palladio and called the Redentore you do very right says she to look into our church just as you have none in England I know but then you have so many other fine things such charming steel buttons for example pressing my hand to show that she meant no offense for she added keep pencil do na maniere keep pencil do notre note one person is of one mind you know another of another end note here are many theaters the worst infinitely superior to ours the best as far below those of Milan and urine but then here are other diversions and everyone's dependence for pleasure is not placed upon the opera they have now thrown up a sort of temporary wall of painted canvas in an oval form within St Mark's place profusely illuminated around the new formed walk which is covered in at the top and adorned with shops around the right hand side with pillars to support the canopy the lamps etc on the left hand this open ranala so suited to the climate is exceedingly pleasing here is room to sit to chat to saunter up and down from two o'clock in the morning when the opera ends till a hot sun sends us all home to rest for late hours must be complied with the venice or you can have no diversion at all as the earliest casino belonging to your soberest friends has not a candle lighted in it till past midnight it strikes a person who has lived some months in other parts of Italy to see so very few clergymen at venice and none hardly have much the look of an era of a man of fashion the land though such heavy complaints are done he made there of encroachments on church power and depredations on church opulence still swarms with ecclesiastics and in an assembly of 30 people there are never fewer than 10 or 12 at the very least but here it should seem as if the political cry of warri preti note out with the clergy end note which is said largely in the council chamber before any voters suffered to pass into a law were carried in the conversation rooms too for a priest is here less frequent than a clergyman at london and those one sees about are almost all ordinary men decent and humble in their appearance of a bashful distant carriage like the person of a parish in north wales or le curé du village in the south of france and to seem no way related to a nabata of malin or durin still less to monsieur la baie at paris though this republic has long maintained a sort of independency from the court of rome having shown themselves weary of the Jesuits 200 years before any other potentate dismissed them for many of the venetian populace followed them about crime and that they and that they need to be that they might put on that they know to be gone be gone i think take nor turn and on and note and although there is a patriarch here who takes care of church matters and is attentive to keep his clergy from ever meddling with or even mentioning affairs of state as in such a case the republic would not scruple punishing them as laymen yet has venice kept as they call it some peter's boat from sinking more than once when she saw the pope's territories endangered or his sovereignty insulted nor is there any city more eminent for the decency with which divine services administered or the devout and decorous behavior of individuals at the time any sacred office is performing she has ever behaved like a true christian potentate keeping her faith firm and her honor scrupulously clear in all treaties and conventions with other states fewer instances being given a venetian false sort of treachery towards the neighboring nations than of any other european power accepting only britain her truly beloved ally with whom she never had a difference and whose cause was so warmly espoused last war by the inhabitants of this friendly state that numbers of young nobility were willing to run a volunteering in her defense but that the laws of venice forbid her nobles ranging from home without leave given from the state it was therefore not an ill saying though an old one perhaps that the government of venice was rich and consolidatory like its treacle being compounded nicely of all the other forms a grain of monarchy a scruple of democracy a drum of oligarchy and an ounce of aristocracy as the terriaca so much esteemed is said to be a composition of the four principal drugs but can never be got genuine except here at the original dispensary indeed the longevity of this incomparable commonwealth there's a certain proof of its temperance exercise and cheerfulness the great preservatives in everybody politic as well as natural nor should the love of peace be left out of herologium who has so often reconciled contending princes that to an escape her some centuries ago due praise for her specific disposition so necessary to the health of a commercial state and called her city churilis prudencia of china another reason may be found for the long continued prosperity of venice in her constant adherence to a precept the neglect of which must at length shake or rather loosen the foundations of every state for it is a maxim here handed down from generation to generation that change breeds more mischief from its novelty than advantage from its utility the patriotism inherent in the breasts of individuals makes another strong cause of this state's exemption from decay they say themselves that the soul of old rome has transmigrated to venice and that every gully which goes into action considers itself as charged with the fate of the commonwealth duccia decorum is pro patria moris seems a sentence grown obsolete in other italian states but it's still in full force here and i doubt not but the high born and high sold ladies of this day would willingly as did their generous ancestors in 1600 parked with their rings bracelets every ornament to make ropes for those ships which defend their dearer country the perpetual state of warfare maintained by this nation against the tokes has never lessened nor cooled the vicinity to turkey has ever made them contract some similarity of manners for what except being imbued with turkish notions can account for the people's rage here young and old rich and poor to pour down such quantities of coffee i have already had seven cups today and feel frightened less we should some of us be killed with so strange in abuse of it on the opposite shore across the adiatic opium is taken to counteract its effects but these definitions have no notion of sleep being necessary to their existence i believe some or other of them seem constantly emotion and there really is no hour of the four and twenty in which the town seems perfectly still and quiet i'm persuaded if one were to live here which could not be for long i think you should forget the use of sleep fought with the market folks bringing up the boats from terra firma loaded with every produce of nature neatly arranged in these flat bottom conveyances the coming up of which begins about three o'clock in the morning and ends about six the gondoliers rowing home their masters and ladies about that hour and so on till late the common business of the town which is then time to begin the state affairs and pregoi which often like our house of commons sit late and detain many gentlemen from the circles of mourning amusements that i find very entertaining particularly the street orators and mountabanks in piazza san maracle the shops and stalls where chickens ducks etc sold by auction comically enough to the highest bidder a flourishing fellow with a hammer in his hand shining away in character of auctioneer the crowds which fill the courts of judicat who have in any cause of consequences to be tried the glamorous voices keen observations poignant sarcasms and acute contentions carried on by the advocates who seem more awake or in their own phrase is velty than all the rest all these things take up so much time that 24 hours do not suffice for the business and diversions of venice with dinner must be eaten as in other places though i can scarcely find a minute to spare for it while such fish wets one's knife and fork as i most certainly did never see before that does i suppose are not to be seen in any sea but this in such perfection fresh sturgeon ton as they call it and fresh anchovies largest herrings and dressed like sprouts in london incomparable turbids like those of tour bay exactly and plentiful as they're with enormous pipers a what one principally eats here the fried liver without which an otanian hardly can go on from day to day is so charmingly dressed up the land that i grew to like it as well as they but at venice it is sad stuff and they call it the gal well the ladies who hardly ever done at all rise about seven in the evening when the gentlemen i just got ready to attend them and sit sipping their chocolate on a chair at the cuppy house door with great tranquility chatting over the common topics of the times nor do they appear half so shy of each other as the melanese ladies seldom seem to have any pleasure in the soft converse of a female friend but though certainly no women can be more charming than these venetian dames they have forgotten the old mythological fable that the youngest of the graces was married to sleep there are men here however who because they're not quite in the gay world keep themselves awake all nights at study and much has been told me of a collection of books belonging to a private scholar pinnelli who goes very little out just worthy a tent of examination all literary topics are pleasing the disgusted querines casino where everything may be learned by the conversation of the company as dr johnson said of his literary club but more agreeably because women are always half the number of persons admitted here one evening our society was amused by the entrance of a foreign nobleman exactly what we shot in london emphatically call a character learned loud and ever-bearing though of a carriage that impressed great esteem i have not often listened to so well furnished a talker nor one more capable of giving great information he had seen the pyramids of egypt he told us had climbed Mount Horrib and visited Damascus but possessed the art of detaining our attention more in himself than on the things or places he harangued about for conversation that can scarcely be called where one man holds the company suspended on his account of matters pompously though instructively related he stayed here a very little while among us is a native of france a grandee of spain a man of uncommon talents and a traveler i should be sorry never to meet him more and not the thing to which i was this morning witness has called my thoughts away to a curious train of reflections upon the animal race and how far they may be made companionable and intelligent the famous fernand betitoni so well known in london by his long residents among us and from the undisputed merit of his compositions now inhabits his native city and being fond of dumb creatures as we call them took to petting pigeon one of the few animals that can live at venus where as i observed scarcely any quadrupeds can be admitted or would exist with any degree of comfort to themselves this creature has however by keeping his master company i trust obtained so perfect an ear and taste for music that no one who sees his behavior can dart for a moment of the pleasure he takes in hearing mr. Bertoni play and sing for as soon as he sits down to the instrument colombo begins shaking his wings perches on the piano forte and expresses the most indubitable emotions of delight if however he or anyone else strike a note pulse will make any kind of discord upon the keys the dove never fails to show evident tokens of anger and distress and if teased too long grows quite enraged pecking the offenders' legs and fingers in such a manner as to leave nothing less doubtful than the sincerity of his resentment senora cecilia juliani a scholar of Bertoni's who has received some overtures from the london theater lately will if she ever arrives here bear testimony to the truth of an assertion very difficult to believe and which i should hardly myself give credit where i not witness to it every morning that i chose to call and confirm my own belief a friend present protested he should feel afraid to touch the harpsichord before so nice a critic and though we all laughed at the assertion Bertoni to create he never knew the bird's judgment fail and that he often kept him out of the room for fear of his affronting or tormenting those who came to take musical instructions with regard to other actions of life i saw nothing particular in the pageant but his tameness and strong attachment to his master for though never winged and only clipped a very little he never seeks to range away from the house or quit his master's service i do think the turkish sailor they have an admirable account of a carnival when he told his mohammedan friends at his return that those poor questions were all disordered in their senses and nearly in a state of utter madness while he remained among them till one day on a sudden they luckily found out a certain gray powder that cured such symptoms and laying it on their heads one wednesday morning the wits of all the inhabitants were happily restored at a stroke the people grew sober quiet and composed and went about their business just like other folks he meant the ashes stood on the heads of all one meets in the streets through many a catholic country when all masquerading money making etc subside for 40 days and give from the force of the contrast a greater appearance of devotion and decorous behavior in venice than almost anywhere else during lent the venetians to confess the truth i'm not quite so strenuously bent on the unattainable felicity of finding every man in the same mind as others of the itanians are and one great reason why they are more gay and less malignant have fewer strong prejudices than others of their countrymen is mainly because they are happier most of the second rank and i believe all of the first rank among them have some share in governing the rest it is therefore necessary to exclude ignorance and natural to encourage social pleasures each individual feels his own importance and scorns to contribute to the degradations of the whole by indulging a gross depravity of manners or at least of principles every person lifted one degree from the lowest finds it in his interest as well as duty to love his country and lend his little support to the general fabric of a state they all know how to respect by the very vulgar willingly perform the condition exacted and punctually pay obedience for protection they have an unlimited confidence in their rulers who live amongst them and can desire only their utmost good how they are governed comes seldom into their heads to inquire can they pencil look note let him look to that end note says a low venetian if you ask him and humorously points that are chlorissimo passing by while you talk they have indeed all the reason to be certain that where the power is divided among such numbers one will be sure to counteract another if mischief towards the whole be intended the subjects of this republic resident in the capital are less savage and more happy than those who live upon the terra firma where many outrages are still committed disgraceful to the state from the mere facility offenders find either in escaping to the dominion of other princes or a finding shelter at home when the madly bestowed protection these old barons on the continent cease not yet to give to ruffians who profess their service and acknowledge dependence upon them in the town however little is known of these enormities and less is talked on and what information has come to my ears of the murders done at bracer and bergamot was given me at malan where blamvious accounts of that country they've written so long ago did not fail to receive confirmation from the lips of those who knew perfectly well what they were talking about and i'm told that labia Giovanni labia the new podesta center bracia has worked wonderful reformation among the inhabitants of that territory where i'm ashamed to relate the computation of subjects lost to the state by being killed in cold blood during the years 70 80 and 70 81 i see that i have said more about venus where i have lived five weeks than about malan where i stayed five months on saturday next i am to forsake but i hope not forever this gay this gallant city so often described so certainly admired seen with rapture quitted with regret seat of enchantment headquarters of pleasure farewell leave us as we ought to be leave the britains rough and free it was on the 21st of may then that we returned up the brenten a barge to padua stopping from time to time to give refreshment to our conductors and their horse which draws on the side as one sees them at richmond where the banks are scarcely more beautifully adorned by art than here by nature though the brenta is a much narrower river than the thames at richmond and its fillers have just been celebrated far less frequent the sublimity of their architecture however the magnificence of their orangeries the happy construction of the cool arcades and the general era of festivity which breeds upon the banks of this truly wizard stream planned to be dancing not weeping willows to which on a bright evening the lads and lasses run for shelter from the sunbeams it for g'dud salaches it's equal but ante we darey note while tripping to the wood my wanton highs she wishes to be seen before she flies end note willows that are i suppose peculiar to itself and best described by monsieur de voltea whose poco corante the venetian senator incandide that possesses all delights in his villa upon the banks of the brenta it's a very lively portrait and will be natural too but the voltea as a frenchman could not forbid making his character speak in a very unitalian manner boasting of his felicity in a style they never use but they are really no puffers no vauntas of that which they possess make no disgraceful comparisons between their own rarities and the want of them in other countries nor offend you as the french do with false pity and hateful consolations if anything in england seem to excite their wonder and ill-placed compassion it is our coal fires which they persist in thinking strangely unwholesome and melancholy proof that we are grievously devoid of wood before we can prevail upon ourselves to dig the boulds of old earth for fuel at the hazard of our precious health if not of its certain loss nor could i convince the wisest man i tried out that wood burnt to chalk is a real poison while it will be difficult by any process of chemistry to force much evil out of coal there's steadily of opinion that consumptions are occasioned by these fires and that all the subjects of great britain are consumptively disposed maybe because those who are so going to italy for change of air though i never heard that the wood smoke helped their breath or a brazier pull of ashes under the table their appetite meanwhile whoever seeks to convince instead of persuading italian will find he has been employed in a sifian labor the stone may roll to the top but it sure to return and rested his feet who had courage to try the experiment logic is a science they love not and i think steadily refused to cultivate nor is argument a style of conversation they naturally affect as lady mbeth says question enrages him and the dialogues of sequities would do them be as disgusting as the violence of zan tippy now then i must leave this lovely state of venice where if the poppers in every town of it did not crowd about one tormenting passengers with unextinguishable clamor and surrounding them with sights of horror unfit to be surveyed by any eyes except those of a surgeon who should alleviate their anguish or at least conceal their truly unspeakable distresses won't you break one's heart almost at the thought of quitting people who show such tenderness towards their friends that less than ocular conviction would scarce persuade me to believe such wandering misery could remain disregarded among the most amiable and pleasing people in the world his excellency bragging half promised me that some steps should be taken at venice at least to remove a nuisance so disgraceful and said that when i came again i should walk about the town in white satin slippers and never see a beggar from one end of it to the other end of chapter four part two chapter five of glimpses of italian society in the 18th century by Hester Lenczpiodzi this slippery box recording is in the public domain Ferrara and Bologna Ferrara may 1785 the road from Padua Hither is not a good one but so adorned one cares not much whether it is good or no so sweetly are the mulberry trees planted on each side with vines richly festooning up and down them the zip for the decoration of a dance at the opera one really expects the flower girls with baskets or garlands and scarcity can persuade oneself that all is real never sure was anything more rejoicing to the heart than this lovely season in this lovely country the city of Ferrara too is a fine one Ferrara la civile the italians call it but it seems rather to mirrored the epithet solenne so stately out its buildings so wide and uniform its streets my pen was just upon the point of praising its cleanliness too till i reflected there was nobody to dirty it i looked half an hour before i could find one beggar a bad account of poor Ferrara but it brought to my mind how unreasonably my daughter and myself had laughed seven years ago at reading in an extract from some of the foreign cassettes how the famous improvisatore talasi who was in england about the year 1770 and entertained with his justly admired talents the literati at london had published an account of his visit to mr trail at a villa eight miles from westminster bridge during that time when he had the good fortune he said to meet many celebrated characters at his country seat and the modification which nearly overbalanced it to miss seeing the immortal garak then confined by illness in all this however there was nothing ridiculous but we fancy it is description of a stritten village truly so when we read that he called it rogore as a populato at admino quote a populace and delightful place end quote an expression apparently poppers and inadequate to the subject but the jest disappeared when i got into his town a place which perhaps may be said to possess every other excellence but that of being populato at admino and i sincerely believe that no Ferrara man could have missed making the same or like observation as in this finely constructed city the grass literally grows in the street what do i hear that the state of the air and water is such as is likely to tempt new inhabitants how much then and how reasonably must he have wondered and how easily must he have been led to express his wonder at seeing a village no bigger than that of stretum contain a number of people equal as i doubt not what it does to all the dwellers in Ferrara mr. Talazi is reckoned in his own country a man of great genius in ours he was as i recollect received with much attention as a person able and willing to give us demonstration that improvise verses might be made and sung extra perenniously to some well-known tune generally one which admits of and requires very long lines that so alternate rhymes may not be improper as they give more time to think forward and to gain a moment for composition of this power many till they saw it done did not believe the existence and many after they had seen it done persisted in saying perhaps in thinking that it could be done only in italian i cannot however believe that they possess any exclusive privileges or supernatural gifts they were to be hard to find one who thinks better of them than i do but spanish can sing seguideas under the mistresses window well enough and our welch people can make the harpers sit down in the church out after service is over and placing themselves around him come on to the instrument to go over some old song tune when having listened a while one of the company forms a stanza verses which run to it in well-adapted measure and as he ends another begins continuing the tale or retorting the satire according to the style in which the first began it all this too in a language less perhaps than any other melodious to the ear though howl found out a resemblance between their prosody and that of italian writers in the early days when they held ignominations or the enforcement of consonant words and syllables one upon the other to be elegant in a more eminent degree than they do now for example in welch tucris todiris tiaderin gult et cetera in italian dunne odanna che fello affronta affronta in server salvo ame with a thousand more the whole secret of improvisation however seems to consist in this that extemporary verses are never written down and one may easily conceive that much make of well with a good voice in singing which no one would read if they were once registered by the pen i have already asserted that the italians are not a laughing nation we're ridiculed to step in among them many innocent pleasures would soon be lost and this among the first for who would risk the making impromptu poems of paris for satire et péciflage in every coterie comme il faut quote to draw upon oneself the ridicule of every polite assembly end quote or in london at the hazard of being taken off and held up for a laughing stock at every print seller's window a man must have good courage and he learned before he ventures at diverting a little company by such devices by one would yawn and one would whisper a third would walk gravely out of the room and say to his friend upon the stairs my sure we had better read our old poets at home than be called together like fools to hear what comes up most in such a one said about his Daphne in good time why i've been tired of Daphne since i was 14 years old but the best jest of all would to see an ordinary fellow a strolling player for example set seriously to make a repeat versus in our streets or squares concerning his sweetheart's cruelty when he would be in more danger than that of the mob and the magistrates who of the first to not throw dirt at him and drive him home quickly would come themselves and examine into his sanity and if they found him not statutorily mad permit him for a vagrant bologna this fat bologna has a tristful look from the numberless priests friars and women all dressed in black who fill the streets and to stop on a sudden to pray when i see nothing done to call forth immediate addresses to heaven extremes do certainly meet however and my lord peter in this place is so like his fanatical brother jack that i know not what has come to him tomorrow is the day of corpus domini why it should be preceded by such dismal ceremonies i know not there is nothing melancholy in the idea but we shall be sure of a magnificent procession so it was too and wonderfully well attended noblemen and ladies with tapers in their hands and their trains borne by well-dressed pages had a fine effect all still in black quote black but such as in esteem prince memdon's sister might be seen with sable stole of cypress lawn over their decent shoulders drawn end quote i never saw a spectacle so stately so solemn a show in my life before i was much less tired of the long continued march than were my raman catholic companions our inn is not a good one the pedigrino is engaged for the king of naples and his train the place we are housed in is full of bugs and every odious vermin no wonder surely where such oven like porticoes catch and retain the heat as if constructed on set purpose so to do the montanola at night was something of a relief but contrary to every other result of a company the less that is frequented the gayer it appears the nature there has been lavish of her bounties which seemed disregarded by the bolognese who are luckily find out that there is a burying ground within view double-dose small distance really and planting themselves over against that they stand or kneel for many minutes together in whole rows praying as i understand it for the souls which once animated the bodies of the people whom they believed to lie entered there all this too even at the hours dedicated to amusement cardinal born compagny the legged sent from rome here is gone home and the vice legged officiated in his place much to the consolation of the inhabitants who observed with little delight or gratitude his endeavors to improve their trade or his care to maintain their privileges but his natural disinclination to hypocritical manners or what we so emphatically call can't gave them an aversion to his person and dislike of his government which he might have prevented by formality of look and very trifling compliances but everything helps to prove that if you would please people it must be done their way not your own here are some charming manufacturers in this town and i fear it requires much self-denial in an english woman not too long at least for the fine crape stiffenies etc which might here be bought i know not how cheap and would make one so happy in london or at bath but these custom house officers these hard to carve as the french comically call them will not let a ribbon pass such is the restless jealousy of little states and such their unremitted attention to keep the goods made in one place out of the gates of another few things upon a journey contribute to torment and disgust one more than the teasing inquiries of the door of every city who one is what one's name is what one's rank in life or employment is that so all may be written down and carried to the chief magistrate for his information who immediately dispatches the proper person to examine whether you gave in a true report were you large why you came how long do you mean to stay with 20 more inquisitive speeches which to a subject of more liberal governments must necessarily appear impertinent as frivolous and make all my hopes of bringing home the most trifling presence for a friend abortive so there is an end to that felicity and we must sit like the girl at the fair described by gay with a coin nymph quote knives combs and scissors spies and looks on dimples with desiring eyes end quote a church situated on the only hill one can observe for miles is dedicated to the Madonna's st. Luke as it is called before the figure of the Madonna I did see some men kneel with a truly idolatrous devotion that it was painted by st. Luke is believed by them all the girls who sitting clustered at the chapel doors as one goes up singing hymns in praise of the virgin Mary pleased me much as it was a mode of veneration inoffensive to religion and agreeable to the fancy but seeing them bowed down to that black figure in open defiance of the decalogue shocked me why all the very very early pictures of the virgin and many of our blessed savior himself done in the first stages of christianity should be black or at least tawny is to me wholly incomprehensible nor could I ever yet obtain an explanation of its cause for men of learning or from connoisseurs whilst I perambulated the palaces of the bolognese nobility gloomy those spacious and melancholy those splendid I could not but admire it Richardson's judgment when he makes his beautiful bigot his interesting clementina an inhabitant of superstitious bologna the unconquerable attachment she shows to original prejudices and the horror of what she has been taught to consider as heresy could scarcely have been attributed so happily to the dweller in any town but this where I hear nothing but the sound of people saying their rosaries and to see nothing in the street but people turning their beads but the king of naples has arrived and that attention which wits and scholars can retain for centuries may not be unjustly paid princes while they last our bolognese have hit upon an odd method of entertaining him however no other than making a representation of Mount Vesuvius on the montanola or place of evening resort hoping at least to treat him with something new I try where the king of England to visit these tarry bolognese surely they would show him westman's bridge with a view of the archbishop's palace at Lambert on one side of the river and a Somerset house on the other a pretty throne or state box was soon got in order that it was and the motion excited by carrying the fireworks to have them prepared for the evening show gave life to the morning which hung less heavily than usual nor did the people recollect the church yard at a distance while the merry king of naples was near them his majesty appeared perfectly contented and good-humoured and happy with whatever was done for his amusement I remember his behavior of Milan though too well to be surprised at his pleasantness of disposition when my maid was delighted to see him dance among the girls at a festa di ballo and once I retired early myself and sent her back to enjoy it all in my domino he played at cards too when at Milan I recollect in the common ridotto chamber at the theater and played for common sums so as to charm everybody with his kindness and affability I am glad however that we shall now be soon released from this upon the whole disagreeable town where there is the best possible food too for body and mind where the inhabitants seem to think only of the next world and do little to amuse those who have not yet quite done with this if they are sincere meantime God will bless them with a long continuous of the appellation they so justly deserve and those travelers who pass through will find some amends in the rich cream and incomparable dinners every day for the insects that devour them every night and will if their wise seek compensation from the company of the half-animated pictures that crowd the palaces and churches for the half-dead inhabitants who kneel in the streets of Bologna end of chapter five chapter six part one of glimpses of Italian society in the 18th century by Hester Lynch Piazzi this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Florence we slept nowhere except perhaps in the carriage between our last residence at Bologna and this delightful city to which we passed apparently through a new region of the earth or even air lamboring up mountains covered with snow interviewing with amazement the little valleys between where after quitting the summer season all glowing with heat and the spread into Virger we found cherry trees in blossom oaks and walnuts scarcely beginning to bud these mountains are however much below those of Savoy for dignity and beauty of appearance though high enough to be troublesome and barren enough to be desolate we arrived late at our in an English one they say it is and many of the last miles were passed very pleasantly by my maid and myself in anticipating the comforts we should receive by finding ourselves among our own country folks in good time and why once more eating sleeping etc all in the English way as her phrase is accordingly here are small low beds again soft and clean and down pillows here are current tarts which the Italians scorn to touch but which we are happy and delighted to pay not ten but twenty times their value for because a current tart is so much in the English way and here are beans and bacon in a climate where it is impossible that bacon should be either wholesome or agreeable and one eats infinitely worse than one did at Milan venison bologna and infinitely dearer too but that makes it still more completely in the English way the fruits in this place begin to astonish me such cherries did i never yet see or even here tell of as when i caught the lucky de plus weighing two of them in a scale to see if they came to announce these are in the london street phrase cherries like plums in size at least but in flavor they far exceed them being exactly of the kind that we call bleeding hearts hard to the bite and parting easily from the stone which is proportionately small figs too are here in such perfection that it is not easy for an English gardener to guess at their excellence for it is not by superior size but taste and color that they are distinguished small and green on the outside a bright full crimson within and we eat them with the raw ham and truly delicious is the dainty by raw ham i mean ham cured not boiled or roasted it is no wonder though that fruits should mature in such a summer as this is which to give a just notion of its penetrating fire i will take leave to tell my country women it is so violent that i use no other method of heating the pinching irons to curl my hair than that of poking them out of a south window with the handle shut in and the glass is darkened to keep us from being actually fired in its beams before i leave off speaking about the fruit i must add that both thick and cherry are produced by standards that the strawberries here are small and high flavored like our woods and that there are no other england affords greater variety in that kind of fruit than any nation and as to peaches nectarines or green-gauge plums i have seen none yet lady koover has made us a present with small pineapple but the italians have no taste to it here is sun enough to ripen them without hothouses i'm sure though they're repeatedly told us that manana venus that this was the coolest place to pass the summer in because of the apennine mountains shading us from the heat which they confess to be intolerable with them here however they inform us that it is madness to retire into the country as english people do during the hot season for as there is no shade from high timber trees one is spit to death by animals gnats in particular which here are excessively troublesome even in the town notwithstanding we scatter vinegar and use all the arts in our power but the ground floor is coldest and everybody struggles to get themselves a terreno as they call it lorence is full just now and mr john filiazzi an intelligent gentleman who lives here and is well acquainted with both nations says that all the genteel people come to take refuge from the country to florence in july and august as the subjects of great britain run to the country from the heats of london or bath the flowers too how rich they are in scent here how brilliant in color how magnificent in size wall flowers perfuming every street and even every passage while pinks and single carnations grow beside them with no more soil than they require themselves and from the tops of houses where you least expect it an aromatic flavor highly gratifying is diffused the jasmine is large broad-leaved and beautiful as an orange flower but i've seen no roses equal to those at litchfield where on one tree i recollect counting 84 within my own reach it grew against the house of dr dywin such a profusion of sweets made me inquire yesterday morning for some scented permatum and they brought me accordingly one pot smelling strong of garden mint the other of brew and tansy thus do the inhabitants of every place forfeit offling away those pleasures which the inhabitants of another place think they would use in a much wiser manner had providence bestowed the blessing upon them a young millenese i once whom i met in london saw me treat a hatter that lives in pal malwood with respect due to his merit when the man was gone prime madam says the adhanim is this a grand rikone put note heavy first fellow and put note is perhaps replied i worth 20 or 30 000 pounds i do not know what ideas you annex to a grand rikone oh saintissima revergine exclaims the youth savesi io mai 70 000 zekini non so po troppo cosa ne farai ma questo è chiaro non venderai mai capelli put note oh dear me had i won 70 000 to sequence in my pocket i would tear cannot think myself but i should do with them all but this at least is certain i would not sell hats in footnote june the 24th 1785 st john the baptist is the tutelary saint of this city and upon this day of course all possible rejoicings are made after attending divine service in the morning we were carried to a house whence we could conveniently see the procession pass by it was not solemn and stately as that i saw a bologna neither was it gaudy and jocke and like the show made at venice upon saint george's day but consisted chiefly in vast heavy pageants or a sort of temporary building set on wheels and drawn by oxen some and some by horses others carried upon things made not unlike a chairman's horse in london and supported by men were priests in various colored dresses according to their several stations in the church and to distinguish the parishes etc to which they belong follow singing in praise of the saint here is much emulation showed too i am told in these countries where religion makes the great and almost the soul amusement of men's lives who shall make most figure on saint on the baptist day produce most music and go to most expense for all these purposes subscriptions are set on foot for ornamenting and venerating such a picture statue etc which are then added to the procession by the managers and called a confraternity in honor of the blessed virgin the angel Raphael or who comes into the heads the lady of the house where we went to part take the diversion was not wanting in her part it could not be fewer than 150 people assembled in her rooms but not crowded as we should have been in england for the apartments in italy are all high and large and run in suites like one sted house in essics or devonshire house in london exactly but larger still and with immense balconies and windows not sashes which move all away and give good room and air the ices refreshments that said to were all excellent in their kinds and liberally dispensed the ladies seem to do the honors of her house with perfect good humor and everybody being full dressed they're so early in the morning added to the general effect of the whole here i had the honor of being introduced to cardinal coracini who put me a little out of countenance by saying suddenly well madam we never saw one of us red-legged partridges before i believe but you are going to roam i hear where you will find such fellows as me no rarities the truth is i'd seen the amiable prince torini at malan who was a cardinal and who had taken delight in showing me prodigious civilities nothing ever struck me more than his abrupt entrance one night at our house when we had a little music and everybody stood up the moment he appeared the prince however walked forward to the harpsichord and blessed my husband in a manner the most graceful and affecting then sat the amusement out and returned the next morning to breakfast with us when he indulged us with two hours conversation at least adding the kindest and most pressing invitations to his country seat among the mountains of rianza when we shall return from our tour of italy in the spring of 1786 Florence therefore was not the first place that showed me a cardinal in the afternoon we all looked out of our windows which face the street not mine as they happily command the view of the river the kashini woods etc and from them enjoyed a complete sight of an italian horse race or after the coaches have paraded up and down sometime to show the equipage libraries etc all have on a sudden notice to quit the scene of action and all do quit it in such a manner as is surprising the street is now covered with sawdust and made fast at both ends the starting post is adorned with elegant boots lined with red velvet for the court and first nobility at the other end a piece of tapestry is hung to prevent the creatures from dashing their brains out when they reach the goal dozens and ten thousands of people on foot fill the course that it is a standing wonder to me still that numbers are not killed the prizes are now exhibited to view quite in the old classical style a piece of crimson damask for the winner perhaps a small silver basin endure for the second and so on leaving no performer unrewarded and at last come out to concorenti without riders but with a narrow leather strap hung across their backs which has a lump of ivory fastened to the end of it all set full of sharp spikes like a hedgehog and this goes them along while galloping worse than any spurs could do because the faster they run the more this odd machine keeps jumping up and down and pricking their sides ridiculously enough and it makes one laugh to see that some of them are provoked by it not to run at all but to set about plunging in order to rid themselves of the inconvenience instead of driving forward to divert the mob who leap and shout and caper with delight and lash the laggers along with great indignation indeed and with the most comical gestures i never saw horses in so drollous state of degradation before for they are all striped or spotted or painted of some color to distinguish them each from other and nine or ten often start at a time to the great danger of lookers on i think but exceeding me to my entertainment who have the comfort of mrs greatheads company and the advantage of seeing all safely from her well-situated terreno or ground floor the chariot race was more splendid but less diverting this was performed in the piazza or square an unpaved open place not bigger than covent garden i believe and the ground strangely uneven the cars were light and elegant one driver and two horses to each the first very much upon the principle of the antique chariots described by old poets and the last trapped showily in various colors adapted to the carriages that people might make their bets accordingly upon the pink the blue the green etc i was exceedingly amused with seeing what so completely revived all classic images and seemed so little altered from the classic times cavalier delchi and reply to my expressions of delight told me that the same spirit still subsisted exactly but that in order to prevent accidents arising from the disputance endeavors to overturn or circumvent each other it was now sunk into a mere appearance of a contest for that all the chariots belonged to one man he would doubtless be careful enough that his coatman should not go to sparring at the hazard of their horses the bus was carried on to the end however and the winners spread his velvet in triumph and drove around the course to enjoy the acclimations and caresses of the crowd we had another and another just such a race for three or four evenings together and they got an english cocktail nag and sent him to the business as they said he was trained to it but i don't recollect his making a more brilliant figure than his painted and chalked neighbors of the continent we will not be prejudiced however that the florentines know how to manage horses is certain if they would take the trouble last night's theater exhibited a proof of skill which might shame massively and all his rivals count budsy having been prevailed on to lend his four beautiful chestnut favorites from his own carriage to draw a pageant upon the stage i saw them yesterday evening harness stall abreast their own master and a dancer's habit i was told guiding them himself and personating the sid which was the name of the ballet if i remember right making his horses go clear around the stage and turning at the lamps of the orchestra with such dexterity, torsility and grace that they seemed rather to enjoy than feel disturbance at the deafening noise of instruments the repeated boasts of applause and the hollow sound of their own hoofs upon the boards of a theater i had no notion of such discipline and thought the praises they're very loud not ill bestowed as it is surely one of man's earliest privileges to replenish the earth with animal life and to subdue it i have for my own part generally speaking little delight in the obstreperous clamors of these heroic pantomimes their battles are so noisy and the acclimations of the spectators so distressing to weak nerves i dread an italian theater it distracts me and always the same things so ebri and every night how tedious it is this font of variety in the common pleasures of italy though and that surprising content with which a nation so sprightly looks on the same stuff and laughs at the same joke for months and months together is perhaps less despicable to a thinking mind than the affectation of weariness and disgust where probably it has not felt at all and where a gay heart often lurks under a clouded countenance put on to deceive spectators into a notion of his philosophy who wears it and what is worse who wears it chiefly as a mark of distinction cheaply obtained when either science, wit or courage are now found necessary to form a man of fashion in italy so far at least as i have gone there is no impertinent desire of appearing what one is not no searching for talk and torturing expression to vary its phrases with something new and something fine or else sinking into silence from despair of diverting the company and taking up the opposite method contriving to impress them with an idea of bright intelligence concealed by modest doubts of our own powers and stifled by deep thought upon abstruse and difficult topics to get rid of all these deep laid schemes of enjoyment where to take our breakfast we project a scheme nor drink our tea without a stratagem like the lady and dr young the surest method is to drop into italy we're a conversation at venice of lorrance after the society of london or the petit soupe de paris where in their own phrase un tableau n'attend pas l'autre footnote one picture don't wait for another end footnote it's like taking a walk in ham gardens or the leses after the parterre de Versailles et i terratie de genoa we are affected in the house but natural in the gardens italiens are natural in society affected and constrained in the disposition of their grounds no one however is good or bad or wise or foolish without a reason why restraint is made for man and where religious and political liberty is enjoyed to its full extent as in great britain the people will forge shackles for themselves and lay the oak heavy on society to which on the contrary italiens give a loose as compensation for their want of freedom in affairs of church or state i was observing that restraint was necessary to man i have now learned a notion that noise is necessary too the collateral made here in the piazza del duomo where you sit in your carriage at a coffee house store and chat with your friends according to italian custom well one eats ice and another calls for lemonade to while away the time of the dinner the noise made then and there i say is beyond endurance half lorantines have nothing on earth to do yet a dozen fellows crying chambelli little cakes across the square assisted by beggars who lie upon the church steps and pray or rather promised to pray as loud as their lungs will let them for the anime sante di purgatorio footnote holy cells in purgatory and footnote ballad singers mean time endeavoring to drown these clamors in their own and gentlemen servants disputing of the doors whose master shall be first served ripping up the pedigrees of each to prove superior claims for a biscuit or macaroni to make such an intolerable clatter among them that one cannot for one's life hear one another speak and i did say just now that it were as good livered breast or portsmouth when the rival fleets were fitting out as here a real tranquility subsists under a bustle merely imaginary our grand duke lives with little state for what i can observe here but where there is least pomp there is commonly most power for a man must have something for said they don't mind jay footnote to make himself amends and footnote as the french express it and this gentleman possessing the solide has no care for that clink on i try he tells his subjects when to go to bed and who to dance with till the hour he chooses they should retire to rest with exactly that sort of old-fashioned paternal authority that fathers used to exercise over their families in england before commerce had run her leveling plow overall ranks and annihilated even the name of subordination if you hear of any person living long in florence without being able to give a good account of his business there the duke warns him to go away and if he loiter after such a warning given sends him out does any nobleman shine in pompous equipage or splendid table the grand duke inquires soon into his pretensions and scruples not to give personal advice and add grave reproofs with regard to the management of each individual's private affairs the establishment of their sons marriage of their sisters etc when they appeared to complain of this behavior to me i know not reply to i what to answer when it's always read and heard that the sovereigns ought to behave in despotic governments like the fathers of their family and the archbishop of combray inculcates no other conduct in this when advising his pupil air to the crown of france yes madam replied one of my auditors with an acuteness truly Italian but this prince is our father-in-law the truth is much of an english traveler's pleasure is taken off at florence by the incessant complaints of a government he does not understand and of oppressions he cannot remedy it is so dull to hear people lament the want of liberty to which i question whether they have any pretensions and without ever knowing whether it is the tyranny or the tyrant they complain of tedious however and most uninteresting other accounts of grievances which are subject to great britain as much as do to comprehend and more to pity as they are now all heartbroken because they must say their prayers in their own language and not in latin which how it can be construed into misfortune a tuscan alone can tell lord cork has given us many pleasing anecdotes of those who were formerly princess in this land had they are sovereign of the old medici family they would go to bed when he bit them quietly enough i believe and say their prayers in what language he would have them tis in our parliamentary phrase the men not the measures that offend them and while they pretend to whine as if despotism displeased them they detest every republican state feel envy towards venice and contempt for luka end of chapter six part one