July 27th. [1858]
I seldom go out nowadays, having already seen Florence tolerably well, and the streets being very hot, and myself having been engaged in sketching out a Romance which, whether it will ever come to anything is a point yet to be decided. At any rate, it leaves me little heart for journalising and describing new things; and six months of uninterrupted monotony would be more valuable to me just now, than the most brilliant succession of novelties.
Yesterday, I spent a good deal of time in watching the setting-out of a wedding party from our door; the bride being the daughter of an English lady, the Countess of ----. After all, there was nothing very characteristic. The bridegroom is a young man of English birth, son of the Countess of St. G., who inhabits the third piano of this Casa del Bello. The very curious part of the spectacle was the swarm of beggars who haunted the street all day; the most wretched mob conceivable, chiefly women, with a few blind people, and some old men and boys. Among these the bridal party distributed their beneficence in the shape of some handsful of copper, with here and there a half paul intermixed; whereupon the whole wretched mob flung themselves in a heap upon the pavement, struggling, fighting, tumbling one over another, and then looking up to the windows with petitionary gestures for more and more, and still for more. Doubtless, they had need enough, for they looked thin, sickly, ill-fed, and the women ugly to the last degree. The wedding party had a breakfast above stairs, which lasted till four o'clock, and then the bridegroom took his bride in a barouche and pair, which was already crammed with his own luggage and hers He was a well-looking young man enough, in a uniform of French grey with silver epaulets; more agreeable in aspect than his bride, who, I think, will have the upper hand in their domestic life. I observed, that on getting into the barouche, he sat down on her dress, as he could not well help doing, and received a slight reprimand in consequence. After their departure, the wedding guests took their leave; the most noteworthy person being the Pope's Nuncio (the young man being son of the Pope's Chamberlain, and one of the Grand Duke's Noble Guard), an ecclesiastical personage in purple stockings, attended by two priests, all of whom got into a coach, the driver and footmen of which wore gold-laced cocked hats and other splendours.
To-day, I paid a short visit to the gallery of the Pitti Palace. I looked long at a Madonna of Raphael's, the one which is usually kept in the Grand Duke's private apartments, only brought into the public gallery for the purpose of being copied. It is the holiest of all Raphael's Madonnas, with a great reserve in the expression, a sense of being apart, and yet with the utmost tenderness and sweetness; although she drops her eyelids before her like a veil, as it were, and has a primness of eternal virginity about the mouth. It is one of Raphael's earlier works, when he mixed more religious sentiment with his paint than afterwards. Perugino's pictures give the impression of greater sincerity and earnestness than Raphael's, though the genius of Raphael often gave him miraculous vision.
I seldom go out nowadays, having already seen Florence tolerably well, and the streets being very hot, and myself having been engaged in sketching out a Romance which, whether it will ever come to anything is a point yet to be decided. At any rate, it leaves me little heart for journalising and describing new things; and six months of uninterrupted monotony would be more valuable to me just now, than the most brilliant succession of novelties.
Yesterday, I spent a good deal of time in watching the setting-out of a wedding party from our door; the bride being the daughter of an English lady, the Countess of ----. After all, there was nothing very characteristic. The bridegroom is a young man of English birth, son of the Countess of St. G., who inhabits the third piano of this Casa del Bello. The very curious part of the spectacle was the swarm of beggars who haunted the street all day; the most wretched mob conceivable, chiefly women, with a few blind people, and some old men and boys. Among these the bridal party distributed their beneficence in the shape of some handsful of copper, with here and there a half paul intermixed; whereupon the whole wretched mob flung themselves in a heap upon the pavement, struggling, fighting, tumbling one over another, and then looking up to the windows with petitionary gestures for more and more, and still for more. Doubtless, they had need enough, for they looked thin, sickly, ill-fed, and the women ugly to the last degree. The wedding party had a breakfast above stairs, which lasted till four o'clock, and then the bridegroom took his bride in a barouche and pair, which was already crammed with his own luggage and hers He was a well-looking young man enough, in a uniform of French grey with silver epaulets; more agreeable in aspect than his bride, who, I think, will have the upper hand in their domestic life. I observed, that on getting into the barouche, he sat down on her dress, as he could not well help doing, and received a slight reprimand in consequence. After their departure, the wedding guests took their leave; the most noteworthy person being the Pope's Nuncio (the young man being son of the Pope's Chamberlain, and one of the Grand Duke's Noble Guard), an ecclesiastical personage in purple stockings, attended by two priests, all of whom got into a coach, the driver and footmen of which wore gold-laced cocked hats and other splendours.
To-day, I paid a short visit to the gallery of the Pitti Palace. I looked long at a Madonna of Raphael's, the one which is usually kept in the Grand Duke's private apartments, only brought into the public gallery for the purpose of being copied. It is the holiest of all Raphael's Madonnas, with a great reserve in the expression, a sense of being apart, and yet with the utmost tenderness and sweetness; although she drops her eyelids before her like a veil, as it were, and has a primness of eternal virginity about the mouth. It is one of Raphael's earlier works, when he mixed more religious sentiment with his paint than afterwards. Perugino's pictures give the impression of greater sincerity and earnestness than Raphael's, though the genius of Raphael often gave him miraculous vision.
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