Part 6 (1/2)

Yes, Mentone is beautiful, most undeniably beautiful; and for walks and drives perhaps it may bear away the palm from all rivals on that enchanted and enchanting Riviera. Five separate valleys, each carved out by its own torrent, with dry winter bed, converge upon the sea within the town precincts. Four princ.i.p.al rocky ridges divide these valleys with their chine-like backbone, besides numberless minor spurs branching laterally inland. Each valley is threaded by a well-made carriage-road, and each dividing ridge is climbed by a bridle-path and footway. The consequence is that the walks and drives at Mentone are never exhausted, and excursions among the hills might occupy the industrious pedestrian for many successive winters. What hills they are, too, those great bare needles and pinnacles of rock, worn into jagged peaks and points by the ceaseless rain of ages, and looking down from their inaccessible tops with glittering scorn upon the green lemon groves beneath them!

The next town on the line, Bordighera, is better known to the world at large as a Rivieran winter resort, though of a milder and quieter type, I do not say than Nice or Cannes, but than Mentone or San Remo. Bordighera, indeed, has just reached that pleasant intermediate stage in the evolution of a Rivieran watering-place when all positive needs of the northern stranger are amply supplied, while crowds and fas.h.i.+onable amus.e.m.e.nts have not yet begun to invade its primitive simplicity. The walks and drives on every side are charming; the hotels are comfortable, and the prices are still by no means prohibitive.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

San Remo comes next in order of the cosmopolitan winter resorts: San Remo, thickly strewn with spectacled Germans, like leaves in Vallombrosa, since the Emperor Frederick chose the place for his last despairing rally. The Teuton finds himself more at home, indeed, across the friendly Italian border than in hostile France; and the St. Gotthard gives him easy access by a pleasant route to these nearer Ligurian towns, so that the Fatherland has now almost annexed San Remo, as England has annexed Cannes, and America Nice and Cimiez. Built in the evil days of the Middle Ages, when every house was a fortress and every breeze bore a Saracen, San Remo presents to-day a picturesque labyrinth of streets, lanes, vaults, and alleys, only to be surpa.s.sed in the quaint neighboring village of Taggia.

This is the heart of the earthquake region, too; and to protect themselves against that frequent and unwelcome visitor, whose mark may be seen on half the walls in the outskirts, the inhabitants of San Remo have strengthened their houses by a system of arches thrown at varying heights across the tangled paths, which recalls Algiers or Tunis. From certain points of view, and especially from the east side, San Remo thus resembles a huge pyramid of solid masonry, or a monstrous paG.o.da hewn out by giant hands from a block of white free-stone. As d.i.c.kens well worded it, one seems to pa.s.s through the town by going perpetually from cellar to cellar.

A romantic railway skirts the coast from San Remo to Ala.s.sio and Savona.

It forms one long succession of tunnels, interspersed with frequent breathing s.p.a.ces beside lovely bays, ”the peac.o.c.k's neck in hue,” as the Laureate sings of them. One town after another sweeps gradually into view round the corner of a promontory, a white ma.s.s of houses crowning some steep point of rock, of which Ala.s.sio alone has as yet any pretensions to be considered a home for northern visitors.

VIII

GENOA

Early history--Old fortifications--The rival of Venice--Changes of twenty-five years--From the parapet of the Corso--The lower town--The Genoese palazzi--Monument to Christopher Columbus--The old Dogana--Memorials in the Campo Santo--The Bay of Spezzia--The Isola Palmeria--Harbor scenes.

Genova la Superba--Genoa the Proud--an epithet not inappropriate for this city of merchant princes of olden days, which was once the emporium of the Tyrrhenian, as was Venice of the Adriatic sea, and the rival of the latter for the commerce of the Eastern Mediterranean. No two cities, adapted to play a similar part in history, could be more unlike in their natural environments: Venice cl.u.s.tered on a series of mud banks, parted by an expanse of water from a low coast-line, beyond which the far-away mountains rise dimly in the distance, a fleet, as it were, of houses anch.o.r.ed in the shallows of the Adriatic; Genoa stretching along the sh.o.r.e by the deepening water, at the very feet of the Apennines, climbing up their slopes, and crowning their lower summits with its watch-towers. No seaport in Italy possesses a site so rich in natural beauty, not even Spezzia in its bay, for though the scenery in the neighborhood certainly surpa.s.ses that around Genoa, the town itself is built upon an almost level plain; not even Naples itself, notwithstanding the magnificent sweep of its bay, dominated by the volcanic cone of Vesuvius, and bounded by the limestone crags of the range of Monte S. Angelo. Genoa, however, like all places and persons, has had its detractors. Perhaps of no town has a more bitter sarcasm been uttered, than the well known one, which no doubt originated in the mouth of some envious Tuscan, when the two peoples were contending for the mastery of the western sea, and the maker of the epigram was on the losing side. Familiar as it is to many, we will venture to quote it again, as it may be rendered in our own tongue: ”Treeless hills, a fishless sea, faithless men, shameless women.” As to the reproach in the first clause, one must admit there is still some truth; and in olden days, when gardens were fewer and more land was left in its natural condition, there may have been even more point. The hills around Genoa undoubtedly seem a little barren, when compared with those on the Riviera some miles farther to the south, with their extraordinary luxuriance of vegetation, their endless slopes of olives, which only cease to give place to oak and pine and myrtle. There is also, I believe, some truth in the second clause; but as to the rest it is not for a comparative stranger to express an opinion. So far however as the men are concerned the reproach is not novel. Centuries since, Liguria, of which Genoa is the princ.i.p.al town, was noted for the cunning and treacherous disposition of its people, who ethnologically differ considerably from their neighbors. In Virgil's ”aeneid” a Ligurian chief shows more cunning than courage in a fight with an Amazon, and is thus apostrophized before receiving his death-blow from a woman's hand: ”In vain, O s.h.i.+fty one, hast thou tried thy hereditary craft.” The people of this part of Italy form one of a series of ethnological islands; where a remnant, by no means inconsiderable, of an earlier race has survived the invading flood of a stronger people. This old-world race--commonly called the Iberian--is characteristically short in stature, dark in hair, eyes, and complexion. Representatives of it survive in Brittany, Wales, Ireland, the Basque Provinces, and other out-of-the-way corners of Europe; insulated or pressed back, till they could no farther go, by the advance of the Aryan race, by some or other representative of which Europe is now peopled. On the Ligurian coast, however, as might be expected, in the track of two thousand years of commerce and civilization, the races, however different in origin and formerly naturally hostile, have been almost fused together by intermarriage; and this, at any rate in Genoa, seems to have had a fortuitous result in the production of an exceptionally good-looking people, especially in the case of the younger women. I well remember some years since, when driving out on a summer evening on the western side of Genoa, to have pa.s.sed crowds of women, most of them young, returning from work in the factories, and certainly I never saw so large a proportion of beautiful faces as there were among them.

Genoa for at least two thousand years has been an important center of commerce; though, of course, like most other places, it has not been uniformly prosperous. It fell under the Roman power about two centuries before the Christian era, the possession of it for a time being disputed with the Carthaginians; then it became noted as a seaport town for the commerce of the western part of the Mediterranean, it declined and suffered during the decadence and fall of the Empire, and then gradually rose into eminence during the Middle Ages. Even in the tenth century Genoa was an important community; its citizens, as beseemed men who were hardy sailors, found a natural pleasure in any kind of disturbance; they joined in the Crusades, and turned religious enthusiasm to commercial profit by the acquisition of various towns and islands in the East. The rather unusual combination of warrior and merchant, which the Genoese of the Middle Ages present, is no doubt due not only to social character, but also to exceptional circ.u.mstances. ”The constant invasions of the Saracens united the professions of trade and war, and its greatest merchants became also its greatest generals, while its naval captains were also merchants.”

Genoa, as may be supposed, had from the first to contend with two formidable rivals: the one being Pisa in its own waters; the other Venice, whose citizens were equally anxious for supremacy in the Levant and the commerce of the East. With both these places the struggle was long and fierce, but the fortune of war on the whole was distinctly favorable to Genoa nearer home, and unfavorable in regard to the more distant foe. Pisa was finally defeated in the neighborhood of Leghorn, and in the year 1300 had to cede to her enemy a considerable amount of territory, including the island of Corsica; while Venice, after more than a century of conflict with very varying fortune, at last succeeded in obtaining the supremacy in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The internal history of the city during all this period was not more peaceful than its external. Genoa presents the picture of a house divided against itself; and, strange to say, falsifies the proverb by prospering instead of peris.h.i.+ng. If there were commonly wars without, there were yet more persistent factions within. Guelphs, headed by the families of Grimaldi and Fieschi, and Ghibellines, by those of Spinola and Doria, indulged in faction-fights and sometimes in civil warfare, until at last some approach to peace was procured by the influence of Andrea Doria, who, in obtaining the freedom of the state from French control, brought about the adoption of most important const.i.tutional changes, which tended to obliterate the old and sharply divided party lines. Yet even he narrowly escaped overthrow from a conspiracy, headed by one of the Fieschi; his great-nephew and heir was a.s.sa.s.sinated, and his ultimate triumph was due rather to a fortunate accident, which removed from the scene the leader of his opponents, than to his personal power. Then the tide of prosperity began to turn against the Genoese. The Turk made himself master of their lands and cities in the East. Venice ousted them from the commerce of the Levant. War arose with France, and the city itself was captured by that power in the year 1684. The following century was far from being a prosperous time for Genoa, and near the close it opened its gates to the Republican troops, a subjugation which ultimately resulted in no little suffering to the inhabitants.

Genoa at that time was encircled on the land side by a double line of fortifications, a considerable portion of which still remains. The outer one, with its a.s.sociated detached forts, mounted up the inland slopes to an elevation of some hundreds of feet above the sea, and within this is an inner line of much greater antiquity. As it was for those days a place of exceptional strength, its capture became of the first importance, in the great struggle between France and Austria, as a preliminary to driving the Republican troops out of Italy. The city was defended by the French under the command of Ma.s.sena; it was attacked on the land side by the Imperialist force, while it was blockaded from the sea by the British fleet. After fifteen days of hard fighting among the neighboring Apennines, Ma.s.sena was finally shut up in the city. No less desperate fighting followed around the walls, until at last the defending force was so weakened by its losses that further aggressive operations became impossible on its part, and the siege was converted into a blockade. The results were famine and pestilence. A hundred thousand persons were cooped up within the walls. ”From the commencement of the siege the price of provisions had been extravagantly high, and in its latter days grain of any sort could not be had at any cost.... The neighboring rocks within the walls were covered with a famished crowd, seeking, in the vilest animals and the smallest traces of vegetation, the means of a.s.suaging their intolerable pangs.... In the general agony, not only leather and skins of every kind were consumed, but the horror at human flesh was so much abated that numbers were supported on the dead bodies of their fellow citizens.

Pestilence, as usual, came in the rear of famine, and contagious fevers swept off mult.i.tudes, whom the strength of the survivors was unable to inter.” Before the obstinate defense was ended, and Ma.s.sena, at the end of all his resources, was compelled to capitulate on honorable terms, twenty thousand of the inhabitants had perished from hunger or disease. The end of this terrible struggle brought little profit to the conquerors, for before long the battle of Marengo, and the subsequent successes of Napoleon in Northern Italy, led to the city being again surrendered to the French. It had to endure another siege at the end of Napoleon's career, for in 1814 it was attacked by English troops under Lord William Bentinck. Fortunately for the inhabitants, the French commander decided to surrender after a few days' severe struggle around the outer defenses. On the settlement of European affairs which succeeded the final fall of Napoleon, Genoa was annexed to the kingdom of Sardinia, and now forms part of united Italy; though, it is said, the old instincts of the people give them a theoretic preference for a republican form of government.

Genoa, like so many of the chief Italian towns, has been greatly altered during the last twenty-five years. Its harbors have been much enlarged; its defenses have been extended far beyond their ancient limits. Down by the water-side, among the narrow streets on the shelving ground that fringes the sea, we are still in old Genoa--the city of the merchant princes of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; but higher up the slopes a new town has sprung up, with broad streets and fine modern houses, and a ”corso,” bordered by trees and mansions, still retains in its zigzag outline the trace of the old fortifications which enclosed the arm of Ma.s.sena. More than one spot, on or near this elevated road, commands a splendid outlook over the city and neighborhood.

From such a position the natural advantages of the site of Genoa, the geographical conditions which have almost inevitably determined its history, can be apprehended at a glance. Behind us rise steeply, as has been already said, the hills forming the southernmost zone of the Apennines. This, no doubt, is a defect in a military point of view, because the city is commanded by so many positions of greater elevation; but this defect was less serious in ancient days, when the range of ordnance was comparatively short; while the difficulty of access which these positions presented, and the obstacles which the mountain barrier of the Apennines offered to the advance of an enemy from the comparatively distant plains of Piedmont, rendered the city far more secure than it may at first sight have appeared. Beneath us lies a deeply recessed bay, in outline like the half of an egg, guarded on the east by a projecting shoulder; while on the western side hills descend, at first rapidly, then more gently, to a point which projects yet farther to the south. This eastern shoulder is converted into a kind of peninsula, rudely triangular in shape, by the valley of the Bisagno, a stream of considerable size which thus forms a natural moat for the fortifications on the eastern side of the town. In a bay thus sheltered on three sides by land, vessels were perfectly safe from most of the prevalent winds; and it was only necessary to carry out moles from the western headland and from some point on the eastern sh.o.r.e, to protect them also from storms which might blow from the south. The first defense was run out from the latter side, and still bears the name of the Molo Vecchio; then the port was enlarged, by carrying out another mole from the end of the western headland; this has been greatly extended, so that the town may now be said to possess an inner and an outer harbor. From the parapet of the Corso these topographical facts are seen at a glance, as we look over the tall and densely-ma.s.sed houses to the busy quays, and the s.h.i.+ps which are moored alongside. Such a scene cannot fail to be attractive, and the lighthouse, rising high above the western headland, is less monotonous in outline than is usual with such buildings, and greatly enhances the effect of the picture. The city, however, when regarded from this elevated position is rather wanting in variety. We look down over a crowded ma.s.s of lofty houses, from which, indeed, two or three domes or towers rise up; but there is not enough diversity in the design of the one, or a sufficiently marked pre-eminence in the others, to afford a prospect which is comparable with that of many other ancient cities. Still some variety is given by the trees, which here and there, especially towards the eastern promontory, are interspersed among the houses; while the Ligurian coast on the one hand, and the distant summits of the Maritime Alps on the other, add to the scene a never-failing charm.

Of the newer part of the town little more need be said. It is like the most modern part of any Continental city, and only differs from the majority of these by the natural steepness and irregularity of the site.

In Genoa, except for a narrow s.p.a.ce along the sh.o.r.e, one can hardly find a plot of level ground. Now that the old limits of the enceinte have been pa.s.sed, it is still growing upwards; but beyond and above the farthest houses the hills are still crowned by fortresses, keeping watch and ward over the merchant city. These, of course, are of modern date; but some of them have been reconstructed on the ancient sites, and still encrust, as can be seen at a glance, towers and walls which did their duty in the olden times. For a season, indeed, there was more to be protected than merchandise, for, till lately, Genoa was the princ.i.p.al a.r.s.enal of the Italian kingdom; but this has now been removed to Spezzia. Italy, however, does not seem to feel much confidence in that immunity from plunder which has been sometimes accorded to ”open towns,” or in the plat.i.tudes of peace-mongers; and appears to take ample precautions that an enemy in command of the sea shall not thrust his hand into a full purse without a good chance of getting nothing better than crushed fingers.

But in the lower town we are still in the Genoa of the olden time. There is not, indeed, very much to recall the city of the more strictly mediaeval epoch; though two churches date from days before the so-called ”Renaissance,” and are good examples of its work. Most of what we now see belongs to the Genoa of the sixteenth century; or, at any rate, is but little anterior in age to this. The lower town, however, even where its buildings are comparatively modern, still retains in plan--in its narrow, sometimes irregular, streets; in its yet narrower alleys, leading by flights of steps up the steep hill side; in its crowded, lofty houses; in its ”huddled up” aspect, for perhaps no single term can better express our meaning--the characteristics of an ancient Italian town. In its streets even the summer sun--let the proverb concerning the absence of the sun and the presence of the doctor say what it may--can seldom scorch, and the bitter north wind loses its force among the maze of buildings. Open s.p.a.ces of any kind are rare; the streets, in consequence of their narrowness, are unusually thronged, and thus produce the idea of a teeming population; which, indeed, owing to the general loftiness of the houses, is large in proportion to the area. They are accordingly ill-adapted for the requirements of modern traffic.

Genoa, like Venice, is noted for its _palazzi_--for the sumptuous dwellings inhabited by the burgher aristocracy of earlier days, which are still, in not a few cases, in possession of their descendants. But in style and in position nothing can be more different. We do not refer to the obvious distinction that in the one city the highway is water, in the other it is dry land; or to the fact that buildings in the so-called Gothic style are common in Venice, but are not to be found among the mansions of Genoa. It is rather to this, that the Via Nuova, which in this respect holds the same place in Genoa as the Grand Ca.n.a.l does in Venice, is such a complete contrast to it, that they must be compared by their opposites. The latter is a broad and magnificent highway, affording a full view and a comprehensive survey of the stately buildings which rise from its margin. The former is a narrow street, corresponding in dimensions with one of the less important among the side ca.n.a.ls in the other city. It is thus almost impossible to obtain any good idea of the facade of the Genoese palazzi. The pa.s.sing traveller has about as much chance of doing this as he would have of studying the architecture of Mincing Lane; and even if he could discover a quiet time, like Sunday morning in the City, he would still have to strain his neck by staring upwards at the overhanging ma.s.s of masonry, and find a complete view of any one building almost impossible. But so far as these palazzi can be seen, how far do they repay examination? It is a common-place with travellers to expatiate on the magnificence of the Via Nuova, and one or two other streets in Genoa. There is an imposing magniloquence in the word palazzo, and a ”street of palaces” is a formula which impels many minds to render instant homage.

But, speaking for myself, I must own to being no great admirer of this part of Genoa; to me the design of these palazzi appears often heavy and oppressive. They are sumptuous rather than dignified, and impress one more with the length of the purse at the architect's command than with the quality of his genius or the fecundity of his conceptions. No doubt there are some fine buildings--the Palazzo Spinola, the Palazzo Doria Tursi, the Palazzo del' Universita, and the Palazzo Balbi, are among those most generally praised. But if I must tell the plain, unvarnished truth, I never felt and never shall feel much enthusiasm for the ”city of palaces.”

It has been some relief to me to find that I am not alone in this heresy, as it will appear to some. For on turning to the pages of Fergusson,[1]

immediately after penning the above confession, I read for the first time the following pa.s.sage (and it must be admitted that, though not free from occasional ”cranks” as to archaeological questions, he was a critic of extensive knowledge and no mean authority):--”When Venice adopted the Renaissance style, she used it with an aristocratic elegance that relieves even its most fantastic forms in the worst age. In Genoa there is a pretentious parvenu vulgarity, which offends in spite of considerable architectural merit. Their size, their grandeur, and their grouping may force us to admire the palaces of Genoa; but for real beauty or architectural propriety of design they will not stand a moment's comparison with the contemporary or earlier palaces of Florence, Rome, or Venice.” Farther on he adds very truly, after glancing at the rather illegitimate device by which the facades have been rendered more effective by the use of paint, instead of natural color in the materials employed, as in the older buildings of Venice, he adds:--”By far the most beautiful feature of the greater palaces of Genoa is their courtyards” (a feature obviously which can only make its full appeal to a comparatively limited number of visitors), ”though these, architecturally, consist of nothing but ranges of arcades, resting on attenuated Doric pillars. These are generally of marble, sometimes grouped in pairs, and too frequently with a block of an entablature over each, under the springing of the arch; but notwithstanding these defects, a cloistered court is always and inevitably pleasing, and if combined with gardens and scenery beyond, which is generally the case in this city, the effect, as seen from the streets, is so poetic as to disarm criticism. All that dare be said is that, beautiful as they are, with a little more taste and judgment they might have been ten times more so than they are now.”

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Several of these palazzi contain pictures and art-collections of considerable value, and the interest of those has perhaps enhanced the admiration which they have excited in visitors. One of the most noteworthy is the Palazzo Brignole Sale, commonly called the Palazzo Rosso, because its exterior is painted red. This has now become a memorial of the munificence of its former owner, the d.u.c.h.ess of Galliera, a member of the Brignole Sale family, who, with the consent of her husband and relations, in the year 1874 presented this palace and its contents to the city of Genoa, with a revenue sufficient for its maintenance. The Palazzo Reale, in the Via Balbi, is one of those where the garden adds a charm to an otherwise not very striking, though large, edifice. This, formerly the property of the Durazzo family, was purchased by Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, and has thus become a royal residence. The Palazzo Ducale, once inhabited by the Doges of Genoa, has now been converted into public offices, and the palazzo opposite to the Church of St. Matteo bears an inscription which of itself gives the building an exceptional interest: ”Senat. Cons. Andreae de Oria, patriae liberatori, munus public.u.m.” It is this, the earlier home of the great citizen of Genoa, of which Rogers has written in the often-quoted lines:--