"Whose ashes-the vestiges of whose tomb are these? Here rests the dust of the poet, who sung flocks, tillage, and heroes." Both the Latin and punctuation are so bad, that for some time we were puzzled to make out the meaning of the inscription. On turning to "the Classical Tour" of Eustace for assistance, what was our astonishment to find a most egregious blunder even at the tomb of Virgil. Instead of giving the above lines, he places the following on the self. same tablet: "Mantua me genuit; Calabri rapuere: tenet nunc He introduces this old distich with the remark, that "the A de In one of my rambles to the Tomb of Virgil, I visited the monument of Sannazaro, the great Neapolitan poet, and secretary of Frederick II. of Arragon. It is in the church of Santa Maria del Porto, elevated upon the acclivity of Pausilypo, and overlooking the bay. A superb pile of white marble rises behind the High Altar. The front is enriched with a profusion of sculpture, which is in bad taste. In allusion to some of the poet's pastoral writings, the skulls of two sheep are placed among the ornaments in front! But this is not the most ridiculous of the embellishments. Upon the pedestal of the statues of Apollo and Minerva, some pious monk has placed labels bearing in large letters the names of David and Judith, thus forcibly converting the heathen divinities into Hebrew saints, without even a change of costume! The inscription on the tomb pretends to compare Sannazaro with Virgil; but it is enough to remark, that while comparatively few are acquainted with the former, the latter is read throughout the civilized world. Even the Neapolitan children lisp his name, and seem proud of showing his mausoleum. In the same church, on the right of the front door, is a picture of the archangel Michael trampling Satan under foot. The devil is represented with the face of a pretty Italian woman, who is said to have fallen in love with a certain bishop, whose name has escaped me; and he, gallant man, to show the heinousness of her passion, directed the artist to clap her head upon the shoulders of the fallen Spirit ! Thus have we arrived at the western extremity of the town, which some writers have pretended to say is twenty miles in circuit. But it would be just as rational to talk of the circumference of a lobster, with his legs inclusive; for it is spread over the hills, without walls, in an irregular form, and with long faubourgs branching out in all directions. In the rapid survey of its prominent features, it will have been seen, that few antiquities have been mentioned. The truth is, that Naples itself contains none, except what are found in the Museum. Though its foundation reaches back into the fabulous ages, the footsteps of the Siren Parthenope, amidst so many physical and moral convulsions, have been washed from the strand and obliterated from the hills. Even the site of the old city, before its destruction by the jealousy of the Cumæans, is not certainly known. Its first settlers were of Grecian origin, as its name imports; and some traces of their manners and customs are said to be still found among the peasantry. It does not appear to have attained to much magnitude or importance till the age of Augustus; and in the revolutions of modern Italy, its history is not very interesting, having done little else than change masters, without the display of any of those heroic virtues, which characterized the Republics of the north. Napoleon used to say, that the Neapolitans were the only people, out of whom he could not make soldiers. LETTER LXIII. OF NAPLES CONTINUED-CHURCHES--CATHEDRAL-MIRACLE May, 1826. With the exception of its charming scenery, its climate, and its interesting environs, Naples presents much fewer attractions to the traveller, than either Florence or Rome. The style of architecture is generally in bad taste, from the King's Palaces downward; and the churches will bear no comparison, either externally or internally, with VOL. II. 20 those upon the Tiber and the Arno. We visited the most celebrated of the three hundred, which the city contains! The Cathedral, notwithstanding its porphyry portals, its hundred columns of Egyptian granite, its Mosaic pavement, the embellishments of its high altar, and its candelabra of jasper, is a heavy, uninteresting building, presenting few objects to detain the visitant. It was our misfortune to miss the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius, the Patron of the city. One of the three annual miracles occurred a few days before our arrival. A surgeon in the United States Navy, alluded to in some of my former letters, witnessed the ceremony, and described it to us. It was a rare show, and the priests succeeded in the experiment to a charm, with peals of applause from the audience! In the opinion of our philosophical friend, the whole miracle is wrought by the natu ral warmth of the hand, operating upon the bottle, as upon a pulse-glass. A French juggler at the Café des Aveugles, would show off a hundred such tricks in a night. It is a moot point, whether the priests believe in this miracle or not. The faith of the multitude is undoubted, and their hopes of the year rise and fall with the thermometer, charged with the blood of the Saint! If it melts speedily, then prosperity awaits them; but if the fusion is obstinate, they rend the air with cries, believing that earthquakes, war, famine, and pestilence, are in store. With all their vices and moral degradation, there is not probably so superstitious a nation in christendom as the Neapolitans. Half of their time is occupied in marching about the streets, from church to church in ragged and masked processions, bawling the ora pro nobis. We were at several of their great religious festivals.* On these occasions, temporary altars were erected at short intervals along the Toledo and other principal streets, at which the priests officiated in turn, the assembled city kneeling upon the pavement. The windows and balconies of every house were hung with awnings and crimson banners; and galleries of ladies above, in full dresses and with angel faces, scattered showers of roses, for monks to trample upon, in their migrations from one altar to another. Females are not exempts in these mus ters. They do not indeed bear arms like the other sex, each * On the feast of Corpus Domini, one of the public squares was embowered with evergreens, and a two story Ionic temple erected pro tempore in the centre-the whole illuminated at night. of whom carries a lighted candle, chanting all the while. A line of servants on each side hold the hats of the priests, flanked by another line of boys catching the grease of the candles. The royal family join in the parade. A band of Austrian soldiers always precedes and closes these religious processions to keep them in order! Some one of the throng picked my pockets, while I was gazing to see the queen pass -the only accident of the kind which has befallen me in all sorts of crowds. The church of St. Sincero is decidedly the most interesting at Naples, on account of three curious specimens of the arts it contains, original both in design and execution. One of these is an image of the Saviour after his crucifixion, in white marble, with a veil thrown over the corpse, cut from the solid material. It appeared to me not only a novelty, but a masterpiece of sculpture, in form, feature, and attitude. But above all, the veil strikes the spectator with admiration. It is so true to nature, that its folds actually appear moistened with the sweat of death, and so transparent as not in the least to conceal the expression of the face. The other two statues are of similar workmanship. One of them represents Modesty, entirely covered with a marble veil, apparently as fine as lace, and wrought in a most exquisite manner. The statue itself is bad, being too gross for a less delicate goddess than Modesty a general fault in female figures among Italian artists, even to their Venuses, arising perhaps from the fulness of the originals. Some of our guide-books call the remaining statue "the victim of Vice extricating himself from a net, by aid of the Genius of good sense.". If this long label be correct, the Virtue is very oddly personified; for he appears in the questionable shape of the urchin Cupid, casting a sly look at the victim entangled in his meshes, raising a portion of the net with one hand, and with the other pointing to the globe, to express the ubiquity of his empire. The shoemaker who keeps the keys of the church, and who is perhaps a descendant of the one that criticised the work of Apelles, gave it as his decided opinion, that the winged boy is an angel-probably so christened like David and Judith, to qualify him for his present situation. In drapery and execution, this group is not inferior to the others. There are many sepulchral monuments in this church, and much good sculpture. The Studii Pubblici, or Royal Academy of the Arts, is such an immense building, and contains such a multiplicity of objects, that I almost recoil from the task of retracing its halls. A few only of the most interesting articles will be selected for notice. The Museum occupies two stories, ranged in long galleries round a spacious court, which is filled with antiquities, embracing numerous specimens of the fine arts, as well as utensils, illustrative of domestic life among the ancients. The apartments in the basement are appropriated chiefly to statuary, either in marble, bronze, or terra cotta, (baked earth.) Most of the articles in this endless collection were found in Herculaneum and Pompeii. In the hall to the left, on entering the front door, and after passing Jupiter and Juno, still claiming the right to preside over their quondam votaries, the visitant finds the whole family of the Balbi, two of them equestrian statues, in Greek marble--all disinterred from Herculaneum. There is no room for doubting the atiquity of these specimens of the arts. Here they are, just as they were taken from a bed of lava, in which they lay embalmed for some two thousand years. The mind reposes on them with confidence, as a connecting link between the ancient and modern world. It is not a little humiliating to the pride of man, prone to fancy the present age always the wisest, and to regard those that are past as comparatively barbarous, to contemplate these undoubted specimens of the fine arts, which the skill of the greatest masters of the present day could scarcely hope to equal. So has it been with painting, with architecture, with poetry, history, and eloquence. In the exhibition of genius, taste, and refinement, it may be asked with emphasis, what has the world gained since the Augustan ages of Greece and Rome?-In some of the above-mentioned departments, particularly in architecture, a declension is obvious; and every deviation from the Grecian orders has been a departure from taste. It is enough to say, that Canova at the height of his fame could not have fashioned a finer horse, than that on which the younger Balbus is seated. In the same gallery is the colossal Hercules, found in the Baths of Caracalla at Rome. The demigod is represented at the moment previous to his apotheosis, after having finished his labours. He is in the attitude of leaning on his club, and expresses great composure both in his face and position. On the pedestal is the label of the old Greek—“ Glycon, the Athenian, made it." |