Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals Volume I Part 33

"_Wednesday, March 24._ Vatican all the morning. Saw in returning a great number of priests with a white bag over the left shoulder and begging of the persons they met. This is another instance of begging and robbing confined to one cla.s.s.

"_Thursday, March 25._ _Festa_ of the Annunciation; Vatican shut. Doors open at eight of the Chiesa di Minerva; obtained a good place for seeing the ceremony. At half-past nine the cardinals began to a.s.semble; Cardinal Barberini officiated in robes, white embroidered with gold; singing; taking off and putting on mitres, etc.; jumping up and bowing; kissing the ring on the finger of the cardinal; putting incense into censers; monotonous reading, or rather whining, of a few lines of prayer in Latin; flirting censers at each cardinal in succession; cardinals bowing to one another; many attendants at the altar; cardinals embrace one another; after ma.s.s a contribution among the cardinals in rich silver plate. Enter the virgins in white, with crowns, two and two, and candles; they kiss the hem of the garment of one of the cardinals; they are accompanied by three officers and exit. Cardinals' dresses exquisitely plaited; sixty-two cardinals in attendance....

"Palazzo Simbaldi: At half-past eight the company began to a.s.semble in the splendid saloon of this palace, to which I was invited. The singers, about forty in number, were upon a stage erected at the end of the room; white drapery hung behind festoons with laurel wreaths (the walls were painted in fresco). Four female statues standing on globes upheld seven long wax-lights; the instrumental musicians, about forty, were arranged at the foot of these statues; _sala_ was lighted princ.i.p.ally by six gla.s.s chandeliers; much female beauty in the room; dresses very various.

"Signora Luigia Tardi sang with much judgment and was received with great applause. A little girl, apparently about twelve years old, played upon the harp in a most exquisite manner, and called forth _bravas_ of the Italians and of the foreigners bountifully.

"The manners of the audience were the same as those of fas.h.i.+onable society in our own country, and indeed in any other country; the display in dress, however, less tasteful than I have seen in New York. But, in truth, I have not seen more beauty and taste in any country, combined with cultivation of mind and delicacy of manner, than in our own. At one o'clock in the morning, or half-past six Italian time, the concert was over.

"_Sat.u.r.day, March 27._ On returning to dinner I found at the post-office, to my great joy, the first letter from America since I left it.

"_Sunday, March 28._ Pa.s.sion Sunday. Kept awake nearly all last night by a severe toothache; sent for a dentist and had the tooth extracted, for which he had the conscience to ask me three dollars--he took two. Was prevented by this circ.u.mstance from going to church this morning; went in the afternoon, and, after church, to St. Peter's; found all the crosses covered with black and all the pictures veiled. There were a great many in the church to hear the music which is considered very fine; some of it I was well pleased with, but it is by no means so impressive as the singing of the nuns at the Trinita di Monti, to which church we repaired at vespers.

"In St. Peter's we found a procession of about forty nuns; some of them were very pretty and their neat white headdresses, and kerchiefs, and hair dressed plain, gave a pleasing simplicity to their countenances.

Some, looked arch enough and far from serious.

"_Monday, March 29._ Early this morning was introduced to the Chevalier Horace Vernet, princ.i.p.al of the French Academy; found him in the beautiful gardens of the Academy. He came in a _neglige_ dress, a cap, or rather turban, of various colors, a parti-colored belt, and a cloak. He received me kindly, walked through the antique gallery of casts, a long room and a splendid collection selected with great judgment.

"_Wednesday, March 31._ Early this morning was waked by the roar of a cannon; learned that it was the anniversary of the present Pope's election. Went to the Vatican; the colonnade was filled with the carriages of the cardinals; that of the new English cardinal, Weld, was the most showy.

"_Thursday, April 1._ Went in the evening to the soiree of the Chevalier Vernet, director of the French Academy. He is a gentleman of elegant manners and sees at his soirees the first society in Rome. His wife is highly accomplished and his daughter is a beautiful girl, full of vivacity, and speaks English fluently.... During the evening there was music; his daughter played on the piano and others sang. There was chess, and, at a sideboard, a few played cards. The style was simple, every one at ease like our soirees in America. Several n.o.blemen and dignitaries of the Church were present."

On April 4, Palm Sunday, he attended the services at the Sistine Chapel, which he found rather tedious, with much mummery. Going from there to the cancellerie he describes the following scene:--

"Cardinal Giulio Maria della Somaglia in state on an elevated bed of cloth-of-gold and black embroidered with gold, his head on a black velvet cus.h.i.+on embroidered with gold, dressed in his robes as when alive. He officiated, I was told, on Ash Wednesday. Four wax-lights, two on each side of the bed; great throng of people of all grades through the suite of apartments--the cancellerie--in which he lived; they were very splendid, chiefly of crimson and gold. The cardinal has died unpopular, for he has left nothing to his servants by his will; he directed, however, that no expense should be spared in his funeral, wis.h.i.+ng that it might be splendid, but, unfortunately for him, he has died precisely at that season of the year (the Holy Week) when alone it is impossible, according to the church customs, to give him a splendid burial."

"_Wednesday, April 7._ Went to the Piazza Navone, being market-day, in search of prints. The scene here is very amusing; the variety of wares exposed, and the confusion of noises and tongues, and now and then a jacka.s.s swelling the chorus with his most exquisite tones.

"At three o'clock went to St. Peter's to see ceremonies at the Sistine Chapel. Cardinals asleep; monotonous bawling, long and tedious; candles put out one by one, fifteen in number; no ceremonies at the altar; cardinals present nineteen in number; seven yawns from the cardinals; tiresome and monotonous beyond description.

"After three hours of this most tiresome chant, all the candles having been extinguished, the celebrated _Miserere_ commenced. It is, indeed, sublime, but I think loses much of its effect from the fatigue of body, and mind, too, in which it is heard by the auditors. The _Miserere_ is the composition of the celebrated Allegri, and for giving the effect of wailing and lamentation, without injury to harmony, it is one of the most perfect of compositions. The manner of sustaining a strain of concord by new voices, now swelling high, now gradually dying away, now sliding imperceptibly into discord and suddenly breaking into harmony, is admirable. The imagination is alive and fancies thousands of people in the deepest contrition. It closed by the cardinals clapping their hands for the earthquake."

On April 8 (Holy Thursday), Morse went early with Mr. Fenimore Cooper and other Americans to St. Peter's. After describing some of the preliminary ceremonies he continues:--

"Having examined the splendid chair in which he was to be borne, and while he was robing in another apartment, we found that, although we might have a complete view of the Pope and the ceremonies before and after the benediction, yet the princ.i.p.al effect was to be seen below. We therefore left our place at the balcony, where we could see nothing but the crowd, and hastened below. On pa.s.sing into the hall we were so fortunate as to be just in season for the procession from the Sistine Chapel to the Pauline. The cardinals walked in procession, two and two, and one bore the host, while eight bearers held over him a rich canopy of silver tissue embroidered with gold.

"Thence we hastened to the front of St. Peter's, where, in the centre upon the highest step, we had an excellent view of the balcony, and, turning round, could see the immense crowd which had a.s.sembled in the piazza and the splendid square of troops which were drawn up before the steps of the church. Here I had scarcely time to make a hasty sketch, in the broiling sun, of the window and its decorations, before the precursors of the Pope, the two large feather fans, made their appearance on each side of the balcony, which was decorated with crimson and gold, and immediately after the Pope, with his mitre of gold tissue and his splendid robes of gold and jewels, was borne forward, relieving finely from the deep crimson darkness behind him. He made the usual sign of blessing, with his two fingers raised. A book was then held before him in which he read, with much motion of his head, for a minute. He then rose, extending both his arms--this was the benediction--while at the same moment the soldiers and crowd all knelt; the cannon from the Castle of St. Angelo was discharged, and the bells in all the churches rang a simultaneous peal.

"The effect was exceedingly grand, the most imposing of all the ceremonies I have witnessed. The Pope was then borne back again. Two papers were thrown from the balcony for which there was a great scramble among the crowd."

On Friday, April 9 (Good Friday), many of the ceremonies so familiar to visitors to Rome during Holy Week are described at length in the notebooks, but I shall omit most of these. The following note, however, seems worthy of being recorded:--

"On our way to St. Peter's I ought to have noticed our visit to a palace in which another cardinal (the third who has died within a few days) was lying in state--Cardinal Bertazzoli.

"It is a singular fact, of which I was informed, that about the same time last year three cardinals died, and that it was a common remark that when one died two more soon followed, and the Pope always created three cardinals at a time."

"_Friday, April 16._ At the Vatican all day. I went to the soiree of the Signor Persianis in the evening. Here I had the pleasure of meeting for the first line with the Chevalier Thorwaldsen, the great Danish sculptor, the first now living. He is an old man in appearance having a profusion of grey hair, wildly hanging over his forehead and ears. His face has a strong Northern character, his eyes are light grey, and his complexion sandy; he is a large man of perfectly una.s.suming manners and of most amiable deportment. Daily receiving homage from all the potentates of Europe, he is still without the least appearance of ostentation. He readily a.s.sented to a request to sit for his portrait which I hope soon to take.

"_Tuesday, April 27._ My birthday. How time flies and to how little purpose have I lived!!

"_Wednesday, April 28._ I have noticed a difference in manners between the English, French, and Americans. If you are at the house of a friend and should happen to meet Englishmen who are strangers to you, no introduction takes place unless specially requested. The most perfect indifference is shown towards you by these strangers, quite as much as towards a chair or table. Should you venture a word in the general conversation, they might or might not, as the case may be, take notice of it casually, but coldly and distantly, and even if they should so far relax as to hold a conversation with you through the evening, the moment they rise to go all recognition ceases; they will take leave of every one else, but as soon think of bowing to the chair they had left as to you.

"A Frenchman, on the contrary, respectfully salutes all in the room, friends and strangers alike. He seems to take it for granted that the friends of his friend are at least ent.i.tled to respect if not to confidence, and without reserve he freely enters into conversation with you, and, when he goes, he salutes all alike, but no acquaintance ensues.

"An American carries his civility one step further; if he meets you afterwards, in other company, the fact that he has seen you at this friend's and had an agreeable chit-chat is introduction enough, and, unless there is something _peculiar_ in your case, he will ever after know you and be your friend. This is not the case with the two former.

"The American is in this, perhaps, too unsuspicious and the others may have good reasons for their mode, but that of the Americans has more of generous sincerity and frankness and kindness in it.

"_Friday, April 30._ Painting all day except two hours at the Colonna Palace--Landi's pictures--horrible!! How I was disappointed. I had heard Landi, the Chevalier Landi, lauded to the skies by the Italians as the greatest modern colorist. He was made a chevalier, elected a member of the Academy at Florence and of the Academy of St. Luke in Rome, and there were his pictures which I was told I must by all means see. They are not merely bad, they are execrable. There is not a redeeming point in a single picture that I saw, not one that would have placed him on a level with the commonest sign-painter in America. His largest work in his rooms at present is the 'Departure of Mary Queen of Scots from Paris.' The story is not told; the figures are not grouped but huddled together; they are not well-drawn individually; the character is vulgar and tame; there is no taste in the disposal of the drapery and ornaments, no effect of _chiaroscuro._ It is flimsy and misty, and, as to color, the quality to which I was specially directed, if total disregard of arrangement, if the scattering of tawdry reds and blues and yellows over the picture, all quarrelling for the precedence; if leather complexions varied by those of chalk, without truth or depth or tone, const.i.tute good color, then are they finely colored. But, if Landi is a colorist, then are t.i.tian and Veronese never more to be admired. In short, I have never met with the works of an artist who had a name like Landi's so utterly dest.i.tute of even the shadow of merit. There is but one word which can express their character, they are _execrable!_

"It is astonis.h.i.+ng that with such works of the old masters before them as the Italians have, they should not perceive the defects of their own painters in this particular. Cammuccini is the only one among them who possesses genius in the higher departments, and he only in drawing; his color is very bad.

"A funeral procession pa.s.sed the house to-day. On the bier, exposed as is customary here, was a beautiful young girl, apparently of fifteen, dressed in rich laces and satins embroidered with gold and silver and flowers tastefully arranged, and sprinkled also with real flowers, and at her head was placed a coronet of flowers. She had more the appearance of sleep than of death. No relative appeared near her; the whole seemed to be conducted by the priests and monks and those hideous objects in white hoods, with faces covered except two holes for the eyes."

In early May, Morse, in company with other artists, went on a sketching trip to Tivoli, Subiaco, Vico, and Vara. This must have been one of the happiest periods of his life. He was in Italy, the cradle of the art he loved; he was surrounded by beauty, both natural and that wrought by the hand of man; he had daily intercourse with congenial souls, and home, with its cares and struggles, seemed far away. His notebooks are largely filled with simple descriptions of the places visited, but now and then he indulges in rhapsody. At Subiaco he comes upon this scene:--

"Upon a solitary seat (a fit place for meditation and study), by a gate which shut the part of the terrace near the convent from that which goes round the hill, sat a monk with his book. He seemed no further disturbed by my pa.s.sing than to give me the usual salutation.

"I stopped at a little distance from him to look around and down into the chasm below. It was enchanting in spite of the atmosphere of the sirocco.

The hills covered with woods, at a distance, reminded me of my own country, fresh and variegated; the high peaks beyond were grey from distance, and the sides of the nearer mountains were marked with many a winding track, down one of which a shepherd and his sheep were descending, looking like a moving pathway. No noise disturbed the silence but the distant barking of the shepherd's dog (as he, like a busy marshal, kept the order of his procession unbroken) mixing with the faint murmuring of the waterfall and the song of the birds that inhabited the ilex grove. It was altogether a place suited to meditation, and, were it consistent with those duties which man owes his fellow man, here would be the spot to which one, fond of study and averse to the noise and bustle of the world, would love to retire."

Returning to Rome on June 3, after enjoying to the full this excursion, from which he brought back many sketches, he found the city given over to ceremony after ceremony connected with the Church. Saint's day followed saint's day, each with its appropriate (or, from the point of view of the New Englander, inappropriate) pageant; or some new church was dedicated and the nights made brilliant with wonderful pyrotechnical displays. He went often with pleasure to the Trinita di Monti, where the beautiful singing of the nuns gave him special pleasure.

Commenting sarcastically on a display of fireworks in honor of St.

Francesco Caracciolo, he says:--

"As far as whizzing serpents, wheels, port-fires, rockets, and other varieties of pyrotechnic art could set forth the humility of the saint, it was this night brilliantly displayed."

And again, in describing the procession of the _Corpus Domini_, "the most splendid of all the church ceremonies," it is this which particularly impresses him:--

"Next came monks of the Franciscan and Capuchin orders, with their brown dresses and heads shaved and such a set of human faces I never beheld.

They seemed, many of them, like disinterred corpses, for a moment reanimated to go through this ceremony, and then to sink back again into their profound sleep. Pale and haggard and unearthly, the wild eye of the visionary and the stupid stare of the idiot were seen among them, and it needed no stretch of the imagination to find in most the expression of the worst pa.s.sions of our nature. They chanted as they went, their sepulchral voices echoing through the vaulted piazza, while the bell of St. Peter's, tolling a deep ba.s.s drone, seemed a fitting accompaniment for their hymns."

Later, on this same day, while watching a part of the ceremonies on the Gorso, he has this rather disagreeable experience:--

"I was standing close to the side of the house when, in an instant, without the slightest notice, my hat was struck off to the distance of several yards by a soldier, or rather a poltroon in a soldier's costume, and this courteous manoeuvre was performed with his gun and bayonet, accompanied with curses and taunts and the expression of a demon in his countenance.

"In cases like this there is no redress. The soldier receives his orders to see that all hats are off in this religion of force, and the manner is left to his discretion. If he is a brute, as was the case in this instance, he may strike it off; or, as in some other instances, if the soldier be a gentleman, he may ask to have it taken off. There was no excuse for this outrage on all decency, to which every foreigner is liable and which is not of infrequent occurrence. The blame lies after all, not so much with the pitiful wretch who perpetrates this outrage, as it does with those who gave him such base and indiscriminate orders."

CHAPTER XVII

JUNE 17, 1830--FEBRUARY 2, 1831

Working hard.--Trip to Genzano.--Lake of Nemi.--Beggars.--Curious festival of flowers at Genzano.--Night on the Campagna.--Heat in Rome.-- Illumination of St. Peter's.--St. Peter's Day.--Vaults of the Church.-- Feebleness of Pope.--Morse and companions visit Naples, Capri, and Amalfi.--Charms of Amalfi.--Terrible accident.--Flippancy at funerals.-- Campo Santo at Naples.--Gruesome conditions.--Ubiquity of beggars.-- Convent of St. Martino.--Masterpiece of Spagnoletto.--Returns to Rome.-- Faints portrait of Thorwaldsen.--Presented to him in after years by John Taylor Johnston.--Given to King of Denmark.--Reflections on the social evil and the theatre.--Death of the Pope.--An a.s.sa.s.sination.--The Honorable Mr. Spencer and Catholicism.--Election of Pope Gregory XVI.

During all these months Morse was diligently at work in the various galleries, making the copies for which he had received commissions, and the day's record almost invariably begins with "At the Colonna Palace all day"; or, "At the Vatican all day"; or wherever else he may have been working at the time.