Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete Series I, II, and III

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Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece

by John Addington Symonds


Contents

 VOLUME I.
 THE LOVE OF THE ALPS
 WINTER NIGHTS AT DAVOS
 BACCHUS IN GRAUBÜNDEN
 OLD TOWNS OF PROVENCE
 THE CORNICE
 AJACCIO
 MONTE GENEROSO
 LOMBARD VIGNETTES
 COMO AND IL MEDEGHINO
 BERGAMO AND BARTOLOMMEO COLLEONI
 CREMA AND THE CRUCIFIX
 CHERUBINO AT THE SCALA THEATRE
 A VENETIAN MEDLEY
 THE GONDOLIER'S WEDDING
 A CINQUE CENTO BRUTUS
 TWO DRAMATISTS OF THE LAST CENTURY

 VOLUME II.
 RAVENNA
 RIMINI
 MAY IN UMBRIA
 THE PALACE OF URBINO
 VITTORIA ACCORAMBONI
 AUTUMN WANDERINGS
 PARMA
 CANOSSA
 FORNOVO
 FLORENCE AND THE MEDICI
 THE DEBT OF ENGLISH TO ITALIAN LITERATURE
 POPULAR SONGS OF TUSCANY
 POPULAR ITALIAN POETRY OF THE RENAISSANCE
 THE ‘ORFEO’ OF POLIZIANO
 EIGHT SONNETS OF PETRARCH

 VOLUME III.
 FOLGORE DA SAN GEMIGNANO
 THOUGHTS IN ITALY ABOUT CHRISTMAS
 SIENA
 MONTE OLIVETO
 MONTEPULCIANO
 PERUGIA
 ORVIETO
 LUCRETIUS
 ANTINOUS
 SPRING WANDERINGS
 AMALFI, PÆSTUM, CAPRI
 ETNA
 PALERMO
 SYRACUSE AND GIRGENTI
 ATHENS
 INDEX FOR ALL THREE VOLUMES




PREFATORY NOTE


In preparing this new edition of the late J.A. Symonds's three volumes
of travels, 'Sketches in Italy and Greece,' 'Sketches and Studies in
Italy,' and 'Italian Byways,' nothing has been changed except the order
of the Essays. For the convenience of travellers a topographical
arrangement has been adopted. This implied a new title to cover the
contents of all three volumes, and 'Sketches and Studies in Italy and
Greece' has been chosen as departing least from the author's own
phraseology.

HORATIO F. BROWN.

Venice: _June_ 1898.




SKETCHES AND STUDIES
IN
ITALY AND GREECE




VOLUME I.




THE LOVE OF THE ALPS[1]


Of all the joys in life, none is greater than the joy of arriving on
the outskirts of Switzerland at the end of a long dusty day's journey
from Paris. The true epicure in refined pleasures will never travel to
Basle by night. He courts the heat of the sun and the monotony of
French plains,—their sluggish streams and never-ending poplar trees—for
the sake of the evening coolness and the gradual approach to the great
Alps, which await him at the close of the day. It is about Mulhausen
that he begins to feel a change in the landscape. The fields broaden
into rolling downs, watered by clear and running streams; the green
Swiss thistle grows by riverside and cowshed; pines begin to tuft the
slopes of gently rising hills; and now the sun has set, the stars come
2out, first Hesper, then the troop of lesser lights; and he feels—yes,
indeed, there is now no mistake—the well-known, well-loved magical
fresh air, that never fails to blow from snowy mountains and meadows
watered by perennial streams. The last hour is one of exquisite
enjoyment, and when he reaches Basle, he scarcely sleeps all night for
hearing the swift Rhine beneath the balconies, and knowing that the
moon is shining on its waters, through the town, beneath the bridges,
between pasture-lands and copses, up the still mountain-girdled valleys
to the ice-caves where the water springs. There is nothing in all
experience of travelling like this. We may greet the Mediterranean at
Marseilles with enthusiasm; on entering Rome by the Porta del Popolo,
we may reflect with pride that we have reached the goal of our
pilgrimage, and are at last among world-shaking memories. But neither
Rome nor the Riviera wins our hearts like Switzerland. We do not lie
awake in London thinking of them; we do not long so intensely, as the
year comes round, to revisit them. Our affection is less a passion than
that which we cherish for Switzerland.

 [1] This Essay was written in 1866, and published in 1867. Reprinting
 it in 1879, after eighteen months spent continuously in one high
 valley of the Grisons, I feel how slight it is. For some amends, I
 take this opportunity of printing at the end of it a description of
 Davos in winter.

Why, then, is this? What, after all, is the love of the Alps, and when
and where did it begin? It is easier to ask these questions than to
answer them. The classic nations hated mountains. Greek and Roman poets
talk of them with disgust and dread. Nothing could have been more
depressing to a courtier of Augustus than residence at Aosta, even
though he found his theatres and triumphal arches there. Wherever
classical feeling has predominated, this has been the case. Cellini's
Memoirs, written in the height of pagan Renaissance, well express the
aversion which a Florentine or Roman felt for the inhospitable
wildernesses of Switzerland.[2] Dryden, in his dedication to 'The
Indian 3Emperor,' says, 'High objects, it is true, attract the sight;
but it looks up with pain on craggy rocks and barren mountains, and
continues not intent on any object which is wanting in shades and green
to entertain it.' Addison and Gray had no better epithets than
'rugged,' 'horrid,' and the like for Alpine landscape.