Bologna, June 14th, 1830
I went yesterday morning to Pratolino to see the statue of the genius of the Apennines, by John of Bologna, six miles from Florence. Pratolino was the favourite residence of the famous Bianca Capello. The house has been pulled down. It is in a very pretty English garden belonging to the Grand Duke, and, I think, amazingly MEZZOFANTI grand, but disgraced by presiding over a duck pond. They told me that if he stood up (and he looks as if he could if he would) he would be thirty braccia in height. I went into his head, and surveyed him on all sides. He ought to be placed over some torrent, or on the side of a mountain; but as he is, from a little distance (whence the ducks and their pond are not visible) he is sublime. Myriads of fire-flies sparkled in every bush; they are beautiful in a night journey, flitting about like meteors and glittering like shooting stars.
Dined with Lady Normanby at Sesto, set off at half-past eight, and arrived here at nine this morning. The first thing I did was to present my letter to Madame de Marescalchi from her sister, the Duchesse de Dalberg, who received me graciously and asked me to dinner; the next to call on Mezzofanti at the public library, whom I found at his desk in the great room, surrounded by a great many people reading. He received me very civilly, and almost immediately took me into another room, where I had a long conversation with him. He seems to be between fifty and sixty years of age, short, pale, and thin, and not at all remarkable in countenance or manner. He spoke English with extraordinary fluency and correctness, and with a very slight accent. I endeavoured to detect some inaccuracy of expression, but could not, though perhaps his phraseology was occasionally more stiff than that of an Englishman would be. He gave me an account of his beginning to study languages, which he did not do till he was of a mature age. The first he mastered were the Greek and Hebrew, the latter on account of divinity, and afterwards he began the modern languages, acquiring the idioms of each as he became acquainted with the parent tongue. He said that he had no particular disposition that way when a child, and I was surprised when he said that the knowledge of several languages was of no assistance to him in mastering others; on the contrary, that when he set to work at a fresh language he tried to put out of his head all others. I asked him of all modern languages which he preferred, and which he considered the richest in literature. He said, ‘Without doubt the Italian.’ He then discussed the genius of the English language, and the merits of our poets and historians, read, and made me read, a passage of an English book, and then examined the etymology and pronunciation of several words. He has never been out of Italy, or further in it than Leghorn, talks of going to Rome, but says it is so difficult to leave his library. He is very pleasing, simple, and communicative, and it is extraordinary, with his wonderful knowledge, that he should never have written and published any work upon languages. He asked me to return if I stayed at Bologna. The library has a tolerable suite of apartments, and the books, amounting to about 80,000 volumes, are in excellent order. One thousand crowns a year are allowed for the purchase of new books.
The Bolognese jargon is unintelligible. A man came and asked him some questions while I was there in a language that was quite strange to me, and when I asked Mezzofanti what it was, he said Bolognese, and that, though not harmonious, it was forcible and expressive. Afterwards to the gallery, which contains the finest pictures in Italy, though only a few: the Guidos and Domenichinos are splendid. I think Domenichino the finest painter that ever existed.