Extract XIII
Rome.
Reflections on reading Du Cerceau’s Account of the Conspiracy of Rienzi, in 1347.—The Meeting of the Conspirators on the Night of the 19th of May.—Their Procession in the Morning to the Capitol.—Rienzi’s Speech.
’Twas a proud moment—even to hear the words
Of Truth and Freedom mid these temples breathed,
And see once more the Forum shine with swords
In the Republic’s sacred name unsheathed—
That glimpse, that vision of a brighter day
For his dear ROME, must to a Roman be,
Short as it was, worth ages past away
In the dull lapse of hopeless slavery.
’Twas on a night of May, beneath that moon
Which had thro’ many an age seen Time untune
The strings of this Great Empire, till it fell
From his rude hands, a broken, silent shell—
The sound of the church clock near ADRIAN’S Tomb
Summoned the warriors who had risen for ROME,
To meet unarmed,—with none to watch them there,
But God’s own eye,—and pass the night in prayer.
Holy beginning of a holy cause,
When heroes girt for Freedom’s combat pause
Before high Heaven, and humble in their might
Call down its blessing on that coming fight.
At dawn, in arms went forth the patriot band;
And as the breeze, fresh from the TIBER, fanned
Their gilded gonfalons, all eyes could see
The palm-tree there, the sword, the keys of Heaven—
Types of the justice, peace and liberty,
That were to bless them when their chains were riven.
On to the Capitol the pageant moved,
While many a Shade of other times, that still
Around that grave of grandeur sighing roved,
Hung o’er their footsteps up the Sacred Hill
And heard its mournful echoes as the last
High-minded heirs of the Republic past.
’Twas then that thou, their Tribune,1 (name which brought
Dreams of lost glory to each patriot’s thought,)
Didst, with a spirit Rome in vain shall seek
To wake up in her sons again, thus speak:—
“ROMANS, look round you—on this sacred place
“There once stood shrines and gods and godlike men.
“What see you now? what solitary trace
“Is left of all that made ROME’S glory then?
“The shrines are sunk, the Sacred Mount bereft
“Even of its name—and nothing now remains
“But the deep memory of that glory, left
“To whet our pangs and aggravate our chains!
“But shall this be?—our sun and sky the same,—
“Treading the very soil our fathers trod,—
“What withering curse hath fallen on soul and frame,
“What visitation hath there come from God
“To blast our strength and rot us into slaves,
“Here on our great forefathers’ glorious graves?
“It cannot be—rise up, ye Mighty Dead,—
“If we, the living, are too weak to crush
“These tyrant priests that o’er your empire tread,
“Till all but Romans at Rome’s tameness blush!
“Happy, PALMYRA, in thy desert domes
“Where only date-trees sigh and serpents hiss;
“And thou whose pillars are but silent homes
“For the stork’s brood, superb PERSEPOLIS!
“Thrice happy both, that your extinguisht race
“Have left no embers—no half-living trace—
“No slaves to crawl around the once proud spot,
“Till past renown in present shame’s forgot.
“While ROME, the Queen of all, whose very wrecks,
“If lone and lifeless thro’ a desert hurled,
“Would wear more true magnificence than decks
“The assembled thrones of all the existing world—
“ROME, ROME alone, is haunted, stained and curst,
“Thro’ every spot her princely TIBER laves,
“By living human things—the deadliest, worst,
“This earth engenders—tyrants and their slaves!
“And we—oh shame!—we who have pondered o’er
“The patriot’s lesson and the poet’s lay;2
“Have mounted up the streams of ancient lore,
“Tracking our country’s glories all the way—
“Even we have tamely, basely kist the ground
“Before that Papal Power,—that Ghost of Her,
“The World’s Imperial Mistress—sitting crowned
“And ghastly on her mouldering sepulchre!3
“But this is past:—too long have lordly priests
“And priestly lords led us, with all our pride
“Withering about us—like devoted beasts,
“Dragged to the shrine, with faded garlands tied.
“’Tis o’er—the dawn of our deliverance breaks!
“Up from his sleep of centuries awakes
“The Genius of the Old Republic, free
“As first he stood, in chainless majesty,
“And sends his voice thro’ ages yet to come,
“Proclaiming ROME, ROME, ROME, Eternal ROME!”
Extract XIV
Rome.
Fragment of a Dream.—The great Painters supposed to be Magicians.—The Beginnings of the Art.—Gildings on the Glories and Draperies.—
Improvements under Giotto, etc.—The first Dawn of the true Style in Masaccio.—Studied by all the great Artists who followed him.—Leonardo da Vinci, with whom commenced the Golden Age of Painting.—His Knowledge of Mathematics and of Music.—His female heads all like each other.—
Triangular Faces.—Portraits of Mona Lisa, etc.—Picture of Vanity and Modesty.—His chef-d’oeuvre, the Last Supper.—Faded and almost effaced.
Filled with the wonders I had seen
In Rome’s stupendous shrines and halls,
I felt the veil of sleep serene
Come o’er the memory of each scene,
As twilight o’er the landscape falls.
Nor was it slumber, sound and deep,
But such as suits a poet’s rest—
That sort of thin, transparent sleep,
Thro’ which his day-dreams shine the best.
Methought upon a plain I stood,
Where certain wondrous men, ’twas said,
With strange, miraculous power endued,
Were coming each in turn to shed
His art’s illusions o’er the sight
And call up miracles of light.
The sky above this lonely place,
Was of that cold, uncertain hue,
The canvas wears ere, warmed apace,
Its bright creation dawns to view.
But soon a glimmer from the east
Proclaimed the first enchantments nigh;1
And as the feeble light increased,
Strange figures moved across the sky,
With golden glories deckt and streaks
Of gold among their garments’ dyes;2
And life’s resemblance tinged their cheeks,
But naught of life was in their eyes;—
Like the fresh-painted Dead one meets,
Borne slow along Rome’s mournful streets.
But soon these figures past away;
And forms succeeded to their place
With less of gold in their array,
But shining with more natural grace,
And all could see the charming wands
Had past into more gifted hands.
Among these visions there was one,3
Surpassing fair, on which the sun,
That instant risen, a beam let fall,
Which thro’ the dusky twilight trembled.
And reached at length the spot where all
Those great magicians stood assembled.
And as they turned their heads to view
The shining lustre, I could trace
The bright varieties it threw
On each uplifted studying face:4
While many a voice with loud acclaim
Called forth, “Masaccio” as the name
Of him, the Enchanter, who had raised
This miracle on which all gazed.
’Twas daylight now—the sun had risen
From out the dungeon of old Night.—
Like the Apostle from his prison
Led by the Angel’s hand of light;
And—as the fetters, when that ray
Of glory reached them, dropt away.5
So fled the clouds at touch of day!
Just then a bearded sage came forth,6
Who oft in thoughtful dream would stand,
To trace upon the dusky earth
Strange learned figures with his wand;
And oft he took the silver lute
His little page behind him bore,
And waked such music as, when mute,
Left in the soul a thirst for more!
Meanwhile his potent spells went on,
And forms and faces that from out
A depth of shadow mildly shone
Were in the soft air seen about.
Tho’ thick as midnight stars they beamed,
Yet all like living sisters seemed,
So close in every point resembling
Each other’s beauties—from the eyes
Lucid as if thro’ crystal trembling,
Yet soft as if suffused with sighs,
To the long, fawn-like mouth, and chin,
Lovelily tapering, less and less,
Till by this very charm’s excess,
Like virtue on the verge of sin,
It touched the bounds of ugliness.
Here lookt as when they lived the shades
Of some of Arno’s dark-eyed maids—
Such maids as should alone live on
In dreams thus when their charms are gone:
Some Mona Lisa on whose eyes
A painter for whole years might gaze,7
Nor find in all his pallet’s dyes
One that could even approach their blaze!
Here float two spirit shapes,8 the one,
With her white fingers to the sun
Outspread as if to ask his ray
Whether it e’er had chanced to play
On lilies half so fair as they!
This self-pleased nymph was Vanity—
And by her side another smiled,
In form as beautiful as she,
But with that air subdued and mild,
That still reserve of purity,
Which is to beauty like the haze
Of evening to some sunny view,
Softening such charms as it displays
And veiling others in that hue,
Which fancy only can see thro’!
This phantom nymph, who could she be,
But the bright Spirit, Modesty?
Long did the learned enchanter stay
To weave his spells and still there past,
As in the lantern’s shifting play
Group after group in close array,
Each fairer, grander, than the last.
But the great triumph of his power
Was yet to come:—gradual and slow,
(As all that is ordained to tower
Among the works of man must grow,)
The sacred vision stole to view,
In that half light, half shadow shown,
Which gives to even the gayest hue
A sobered, melancholy tone.
It was a vision of that last,9
Sorrowful night which Jesus past
With his disciples when he said
Mournfully to them—“I shall be
“Betrayed by one who here hath fed
“This night at the same board with me.”
And tho’ the Saviour in the dream
Spoke not these words, we saw them beam
Legibly in his eyes (so well
The great magician workt his spell),
And read in every thoughtful line
Imprinted on that brow divine.
The meek, the tender nature, grieved,
Not angered to be thus deceived—
Celestial love requited ill
For all its care, yet loving still—
Deep, deep regret that there should fall
From man’s deceit so foul a blight
Upon that parting hour—and all
His Spirit must have felt that night.
Who, soon to die for human-kind,
Thought only, mid his mortal pain,
How many a soul was left behind
For whom he died that death in vain!
Such was the heavenly scene—alas!
That scene so bright so soon should pass
But pictured on the humid air,
Its tints, ere long, grew languid there;10
And storms came on, that, cold and rough,
Scattered its gentlest glories all—
As when the baffling winds blow off
The hues that hang o’er Terni’s fall,—
Till one by one the vision’s beams
Faded away and soon it fled.
To join those other vanisht dreams
That now flit palely ‘mong the dead,—
The shadows of those shades that go.
Around Oblivion’s lake below!
Notes
1 Rienzi.
2 The fine Canzone of Petrarch, beginning “Spirto gentil,” is supposed, by Voltaire and others, to have been addressed to Rienzi; but there is much more evidence of its having been written, as Ginguené asserts, to the young Stephen Colonna, on his being created a Senator of Rome.
3 This image is borrowed from Hobbes, whose words are, as near as I can recollect:—“For what is the Papacy, but the Ghost of the old Roman Empire, sitting crowned on the grave thereof?”
1 The paintings of those artists who were introduced into Venice and Florence from Greece.
2 Margaritone of Orezzo, who was a pupil and imitator of the Greeks, is said to have invented this art of gilding the ornaments of pictures, a practice which, though it gave way to a purer taste at the beginning of the 16th century, was still occasionally used by many of the great masters: as by Raphael in the ornaments of the Fornarina, and by Rubens not unfrequently in glories and flames.
3 The works of Masaccio.—For the character of this powerful and original genius, see Sir Joshua Reynolds’s twelfth discourse. His celebrated frescoes are in the church of St. Pietro del Carmine, at Florence.
4 All the great artists studies, and many of them borrowed from Masaccio. Several figures in the Cartoons of Raphael are taken, with but little alteration, from his frescoes.
5 “And a light shined in the prison … and his chains fell off from his hands.”—Acts.
6 Leonardo da Vinci.
7 He is said to have been four years employed upon the portrait of this fair Florentine, without being able, after all, to come up to his idea of her beauty.
8 Vanity and Modesty in the collection of Cardinal Fesch, at Rome. The composition of the four hands here is rather awkward, but the picture, altogether, is very delightful. There is a repetition of the subject in the possession of Lucien Bonaparte.
9 The Last Supper of Leonardo da Vinci, which is in the Refectory of the Convent delle Grazie at Milan.
10 Leonardo appears to have used a mixture of oil and varnish for this picture, which alone, without the various other causes of its ruin, would have prevented any long duration of its beauties. It is now almost entirely effaced.