The Works of Lord Byron Volume II Part 73

1650), a.s.signs the outrage to a party of Venetians who "broke open Petrarch's tomb, in 1630, and took away some of his bones, probably with the object of selling them." Hobhouse, in _note_ ix., says, "that one of the arms was stolen by a Florentine," but does not quote his authority.

(See the notes to H. F. Tozer's _Childe Harold_, p. 302.)]

[439] [Giovanni Boccaccio was born at Paris (or Certaldo) in 1313, pa.s.sed the greater part of his life at Florence, died and was buried at Certaldo, whence his family are said to have sprung, in 1375. His sepulchre, which stood in the centre of the Church of St. Michael and St. James, known as the Canonica, was removed in 1783, on the plea that a recent edict forbidding burial in churches applied to ancient interments. "The stone that covered the tomb was broken, and thrown aside as useless into the adjoining cloisters" (_Handbook for Central Italy_, p. 171). "Ignorance," pleads Hobhouse, "may share the crime with bigotry." But it is improbable that the "hyaena bigots," that is, the ecclesiastical authorities, were ignorant that Boccaccio was a bitter satirist of Churchmen, or that "he transferred the functions and histories of Hebrew prophets and prophetesses, and of Christian saints and apostles, nay, the highest mysteries and most awful objects of Christian Faith, to the names and drapery of Greek and Roman mythology."--(Unpublished MS. note of S. T. Coleridge, written in his copy of Boccaccio's _Opere_, 4 vols. 1723.) They had their revenge on Boccaccio, and Byron has had his revenge on them.]

[my]

_Boccaccio to his parent earth, bequeathed_ _The dust derived from thence--doth it not lie_ _With many a sweet and solemn requiem breathed_ _O'er him who formed the tongue of Italy_ _That music in itself whose harmony_ _Asks for no tune to make it song; No--torn_ _From earth--and scattered while the silent sky_ _Hushed its indignant Winds--with quiet scorn_ _The Hyaena bigots thus forbade a World to mourn_.-- [D. erased.]

[440] {374} [Compare _Beppo_, stanza xliv.--

"I love the language, that soft b.a.s.t.a.r.d Latin, Which melts like kisses from a female mouth, And sounds as if it should be writ on satin, With syllables which breathe of the sweet South."

Compare, too, the first sentence of a letter which Byron wrote "on a blank leaf of the volume of 'Corinne,'" which Teresa [Guiccioli] left in forgetfulness in a garden in Bologna: "Amor Mio,--How sweet is this word in your Italian language!" (_Life of Lord Byron_, by Emilio Castelar, P.

145).]

[441] [By "Caesar's pageant" Byron means the pageant decreed by Tiberius Caesar. Compare _Don Juan_, Canto XV. stanza xlix.--

"And this omission, like that of the bust Of Brutus at the pageant of Tiberius."

At the public funeral of Junia, wife of Ca.s.sius and sister of Brutus, A.D. 22, the busts of her husband and brother were not allowed to be carried in the procession, because they had taken part in the a.s.sa.s.sination of Julius Caesar. But none the less, "Praefulgebant Brutus et Ca.s.sius eo ipso quod effigies eorum non videbantur" (Tacitus, _Ann._, iii. 76). Their glory was conspicuous in men's minds, because their images were withheld from men's eyes. As Tacitus says elsewhere (iv.

26), "Negatus honor gloriam intendit."]

[mz] {375} _Shelter of exiled Empire_----.--[MS. M. erased.]

[442] [The inscription on Ricci's monument to Dante, in the Church of Santa Croce--"A majoribus ter frustra decretum" --refers to the vain attempts which Florence had made to recover the remains of her exiled and once-neglected poet.]

[443] ["I also went to the Medici chapel--fine frippery in great slabs of various expensive stones, to commemorate fifty rotten and forgotten carca.s.ses. It is unfinished, and will remain so" (Letter to Murray, April 26, 1817). The bodies of the grand-dukes lie in the crypt of the Cappella dei Principi, or Medicean Chapel, which forms part of the Church of San Lorenzo. The walls of the chapel are encrusted with rich marbles and "stones of price, to garniture the edifice." The monuments to Giuliano and Lorenzo de' Medici, son and grandson of Lorenzo the Magnificent, with Michael Angelo's allegorical figures of Night and Morning, Aurora and Twilight, are in the adjoining Cappella dei Depositi, or Sagrestia Nuova.]

[444] {376} [The Duomo, crowned with Brunelleschi's cupola, and rich in sculpture and stained gla.s.s, is, as it were, a symbol of Florence, the shrine of art. Browning, in his inspired vision of St. Peter's at Rome in _Christmas Eve_, catches Byron's note to sound a loftier strain--

"Is it really on the earth This miraculous dome of G.o.d?"

"It is somewhere mentioned that Michael Angelo, when he set out from Florence to build the dome of St. Peter's, turned his horse round in the road to contemplate that of the cathedral, as it rose in the grey of the morning from among the pines and cypresses of the city, and that he said, after a pause, 'Come te non voglio! Meglio di te non posso.' He never, indeed, spoke of it but with admiration; and, if we may believe tradition, his tomb, by his own desire, was to be so placed in the Santa Croce as that from it might be seen, when the doors of the church stood open, that n.o.ble work of Brunelleschi."--Rogers's _Italy: Poems_, ii.

315, note to p. 133, line 5--"Beautiful Florence."]

[445] {377} [Byron, contrary to traditional use (see Wordsworth's sonnet, "Near the Lake of Thrasymene;" and Rogers's _Italy_, see note, p. 378), sounds the final vowel in Thrasymene. The Greek, Latin, and Italian equivalents bear him out; but, most probably, he gave Thrasymene and himself an extra syllable "vel metri vel euphoniae causa."]

[na] _Where Courage perished in unyielding files_.--[MS. M.]

[446] ["Tantusque fuit ardor armorum, adeo intentus pugnae animus, ut eum motum terrae, qui multarum urbium Italiae magnas partes, prostravit, avert.i.tque cursu rapidos amnes, marce fluminibus invexit, montes lapsu ingenti proruit, nemo pugnantium senserit" (Livy, xxii. 5). Polybius says nothing about an earthquake; and Ihne (_Hist, of Rome_, ii.

207-210) is also silent; but Pliny (_Hist. Nat._, ii. 84) and Coelius Antipater (ap. Cic., _De Div._, i. 35), who wrote his _Annales_ about a century after the battle of Lake Thrasymenus (B.C. 217), synchronize the earthquake and the battle. Compare, too, Rogers's _Italy_, "The Pilgrim:" _Poems_, 1852, ii. 152--

"From the Thrasymene, that now Slept in the sun, a lake of molten gold, And from the sh.o.r.e that once, when armies met, Rocked to and fro unfelt, so terrible The rage, the slaughter, I had turned away."

Compare, too, Wordsworth's sonnet (No. xii.), "Near the Lake of Thrasymene" (_Works_, 1888, p. 756)--

"When here with Carthage Rome to conflict came, An earthquake, mingling with the battle's shock, Checked not its rage; unfelt the ground did rock, Sword dropped not, javelin kept its deadly aim,-- Now all is sun-bright peace."]

[nb]

_Fly to the clouds for refuge and withdraw_ _From their unsteady nests_----.--[MS. M.]

[nc] {379} _Made fat the earth_----.--[MS. M. erased]

[447] No book of travels has omitted to expatiate on the temple of the c.l.i.tumnus, between Foligno and Spoleto; and no site, or scenery, even in Italy, is more worthy a description. For an account of the dilapidation of this temple, the reader is referred to _Historical Ill.u.s.trations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold_, p. 35.

[448] [Compare Virgil, _Georg_., ii. 146--

"Hinc albi, c.l.i.tumne, greges et maxuma taurus Victima, saepe tuo perfusi flumine sacro."

The waters of certain rivers were supposed to possess the quality of making the cattle which drank from them white. (See Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, ii. 103; and compare Silius Italicus, _Pun._, iv. 545, 546--

" ...et patulis c.l.i.tumnus in arvis Candentes gelido perfundit flumine tauros.")

For a charming description of c.l.i.tumnus, see Pliny's letter "Romano Suo," _Epist._, viii. 8: "At the foot of a little hill covered with old and shady cypress trees, gushes out a spring, which bursts out into a number of streamlets, all of different sizes. Having struggled, so to speak, out of its confinement, it opens out into a broad basin, so clear and transparent, that you may count the pebbles and little pieces of money which are thrown into it.... The banks are clothed with an abundance of ash and poplar, which are so distinctly reflected in the clear water that they seem to be growing at the bottom of the river, and can easily be counted.... Near it stands an ancient and venerable temple, in which is a statue of the river-G.o.d c.l.i.tumnus."--_Pliny's Letters_, by the Rev. A. Church and the Rev. W. J. Brodribb, 1872, p.

127.]

[449] {380} [The existing temple, now used as a chapel (St. Salvatore), can hardly be Pliny's _templum prisc.u.m_. Hobhouse, in his _Historical Ill.u.s.trations_, pp. 37-41, defends the antiquity of the "facade, which consists of a pediment supported by four columns and two Corinthian piers, two of the columns with spiral fluting, the others covered with fish-scaled carvings" (_Handbook for Central Italy_, p. 289); but in the opinion of modern archaeologists the whole of the structure belongs to the fourth or fifth century of the Christian era. It is, of course, possible, indeed probable, that ancient materials were used when the building was reconstructed. Pliny says the "numerous chapels" dedicated to other deities were scattered round the shrine of c.l.i.tumnus.]

[nd] _Upon a green declivity_----.--[MS. M.]

[450] {381} ["On my way back [from Rome], close to the temple by its banks, I got some famous trout out of the river c.l.i.tumnus, the prettiest little stream in all poesy."--Letter to Murray, June 4, 1817.]

[ne] _There is a course where Lovers' evening tales_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[451] [By "disgust," a prosaic word which seems to mar a fine stanza, Byron does not mean "distaste," aversion from the nauseous, but "tastelessness," the inability to enjoy taste. Compare the French "Avoir du degout pour la vie," "To be out of conceit with life." Byron was "a lover of Nature," but it was seldom that he felt her "healing power," or was able to lose himself in his surroundings. But now, for the moment, he experiences that sudden uplifting of the spirit in the presence of natural beauty which brings back "the splendour in the gra.s.s, the glory in the flower!"]

[nf] {382} _Making it as an emerald_----.--[D.]

[ng] _Leaps on from rock to rock--with mighty bound_.--[MS. M.]

[452] {383} I saw the Cascata del Marmore of Terni twice, at different periods--once from the summit of the precipice, and again from the valley below. The lower view is far to be preferred, if the traveller has time for one only; but in any point of view, either from above or below, it is worth all the cascades and torrents of Switzerland put together: the Staubach, Reichenbach, p.i.s.se Vache, fall of Arpenaz, etc., are rills in comparative appearance. Of the fall of Schaffhausen I cannot speak, not yet having seen it.

[The Falls of Reichenbach are at Rosenlaui, between Grindelwald and Meiringen; the Salanfe or p.i.s.se-Vache descends into the valley of the Rhone near Martigny; the Nant d'Arpenaz falls into the Arve near Magland, on the road between Cluses and Sallanches.]

[453] Of the time, place, and qualities of this kind of iris, the reader will see a short account, in a note to _Manfred_.[-1] The fall looks so much like "the h.e.l.l of waters," that Addison thought the descent alluded to by the gulf in which Alecto[-2] plunged into the infernal regions. It is singular enough, that two of the finest cascades in Europe should be artificial--this of the Velino, and the one at Tivoli. The traveller is strongly recommended to trace the Velino, at least as high as the little lake called _Pie' di Lup_. The Reatine territory was the Italian Tempe (Cicer., _Epist. ad Attic._, lib. iv. 15), and the ancient naturalists ["In lacu Velino nullo non die apparere arcus"] (Plin., _Hist. Nat._, lib. ii. cap. lxii.), amongst other beautiful varieties, remarked the daily rainbows of the lake Velinus. A scholar of great name has devoted a treatise to this district alone. See Ald. Manut., _De Reatina Urb Agroque_, ap. Sallengre, _Nov. Thes. Ant. Rom._, 1735, tom. i. p.773, _sq._

[The "Falls of the Anio," which pa.s.sed over a wall built by Sixtus V., and plunged into the Grotto of Neptune, were greatly diminished in volume after an inundation which took place in 1826. The New Falls were formed in 1834.]

[[-1] _Manfred_, act ii. sc. 1, note. This Iris is formed by the rays of the sun on the lower part of the Alpine torrents; it is exactly like a rainbow come down to pay a visit, and so close that you may walk into it: this effect lasts till noon.]

[[-2] "This is the gulf through which Virgil's Alecto shoots herself into h.e.l.l; for the very place, the great reputation of it, the fall of waters, the woods that encompa.s.s it, with the smoke and noise that arise from it, are all pointed at in the description ...

"'Est locus Italiae ...

... densis hunc frondibus atrum Urguet utrimque latus nemoris, medioque fragosus Dat sonitum saxis et torto vertice torrens.

Hic specus horrendum et saevi spiracula Ditis Monstrantur, ruptoque ingens Acheronte vorago Pestiferas aperit fauces.'

_aeneid_, vii. 563-570.

It was indeed the most proper place in the world for a Fury to make her exit ... and I believe every reader's imagination is pleased when he sees the angry G.o.ddess thus sinking, as it were, in a tempest, and plunging herself into h.e.l.l, amidst such a scene of horror and confusion."--_Remarks on several Parts of Italy_, by Joseph Addison, Esq., 1761, pp. 100. 101.

[nh] {385}