MISS TAYLOR'S LETTERS FROM ITALY.
THE present volume completes this agreeable work, and differs little from its predecessor, except in the route taken and the cities described, as well as in a greater ease and freedom of composition, the result of practice and success. As in the former volume, Miss TAYLOR combines her observations with her reading ; pouring forth, in the light and graceful style natural to an elder sister writ- ing to a younger one, descriptions of scenery, the little incidents of the journey, the impressions left by art and antiquity, the most striking facts in the history of the places where her party sojourned, together with notices of the lives and characters of the principal artists. Sometimes the incidents are slight—as the trip by sea to Amalfi, when the whole party were wetted by rain and overtaken by sickness as the wind freshened; but they are told with a femi- nine naivete and naturalness which remove them from triviality.
The leading places described in the present volume are—Naples and its environs, Bologna, Ferrara, Venice, and Milan, with Rome and Florence for the second time. The second visit to Rome in- cluded the sights of the Easter-week ; and over Venice Miss TAYLOR lingers long, as must every traveller of knowledge and sensibility. Her description of the present condition of the city, and the feelings to which its unique character and fallen state give rise, are natural and vivid ; but in her historical retrospection, she falls, we think, into the common error of blackening the Venetian government—not allowing for exaggeration, or for the times, or the peculiar position of the Venetian state. BURNET, who visited Venice in l685, bears testimony to the general utility of the In- quisitors and Council of Ten, without attempting to deny their power, or the prompt severity with which it was used. If the regular exercise of this power be contrasted with that of the arbi- trary proceedings of the tyrants of Italy and some of the Conti- nental monarchs, as well as with the feudal nobles everywhere, it will be found that their tyranny was limited in comparison, (for prisons, till our own times, were everywhere wretched abodes,) whilst civil liberty, property, and life, were as well protected as under the best modern governments : with the people, the power of the Inquisition was always popular, as saving them from the tyranny of the nobles. Above all, the peculiar state of Venice should be borne in mind when a judgment is passed upon her government. All her continental and island possessions were merely disunited appanages ; her only territory was Venice, or rather the Place of St. Mark's. A government like France or England was safe against conspiracy : it could only be overthrown by an open enemy with a powerful force,—that is, when a considerable part of the nobles and the people publicly opposed it in arms. An assassin, indeed, might destroy an individual ruler ; but the regal heirs, the nobles, and the commons, remained. But if a sufficient number of con- spirators could assemble in St. Mark's Place, to seize the arsen:
and the palace, (and a small number would suffice,) the republic would be destroyed, to be followed by anarchy, plunder, and blood- shed. In the circumstances of the Venetian state, the inquisi- torial power was a necessity, to secure its existence from foreign treachery or domestic discontent, or both combined. The essential vices of an aristocracy Venice possessed ; but it was not an inso- lent or extravagant aristocracy, and may challenge comparison with that of any other which ever governed.
To a person like Miss TAYLOR the seats of this mysterious and politic power had, of course, an attraction ; and she visited them all. Here is a part of the description of her pilgrimage to St. Mark's.
THE DUNGEONS OF VENICE.
From this we were conducted through many smaller rooms, lined with beau- tiful paintings ; and after several doors had been unlocked, we entered a small passage ; I did not catch the name that our guide uttered as he opened the door ; but on looking out from one of the narrow windows I found that we were standing on a bridge ; and I knew at once that this was the famous Pante dci Sospiri—the Bridge of Sighs. It is divided into three galleries; by one of which the accused was led before his judges; if he ever returned, he passed through the other. Few, however, recrossed it. The fearful tribunal, jealous of its secrets being discovered, seldom permitted those who hai appeared before it to escape ; " the justice of St. Mark" was sure to overtake them ; and unless condemned for life to the terrible Pozzi, the dungeons built in the thickness of the palace- walls beneath the canal, these miserable beings were often strangled on the Bridge of Sighs. Well might its door have been inscribed with Dante's words-
Laseiate ogni speranza. sin eh' entrate I " Hope in the mercy, or even in the justice of man, there was none ; the guilty and the innocent alike perished, victims of state policy.
Retracing our steps through these apartments, we now descended to the long corridor which I have before mentioned, and stopped at the small door leading to the Pozzi (wells.) These were the dungeons of the state, and, with the Piombi, (leads,) formed one of the horrible means of torture which the re- public was so fertile in inventing. The Piombi were narrow cells at the top of the palace, and immediately under the roof of lead, used as the summer re- ceptacles for state prisoners; and there, confined beneath the roof heated by the burning rays of a Southern sun, breathing the close and suffocating air of these ovens, stung by a thousand insects which the heat generated, did these wretched beings drag on their summer days ; while in the winter they were consigned to the dungeons built under the palace below the level of the canal.
I cannot describe to you the thrill of horror which seized me as we pro- ceeded down the narrow stairs leading to these living sepulchres. Although prepared by all I bad previously heard to find them gloomy and terrible, I had formed little idea of what they really were. We penetrated as far as the second story of these dungeons, and were told that, previous to the arrival of the French, another and a "deeper hell " existed beneath; but the Senate, unwilling to betray the existence of these secret recesses to any stranger eye, caused the water of the canal to flow into them, and they remained filled to this day. The cells of the second tier even are below the surface of the water, ranged on each side of the narrow passage through which we passed : these were formerly lined with wood, having no other furniture than a wooden pallet and a counterpane; not a ray of light ever penetrated them, not a breadth of pure air visited their in- fected recesses; one small round hole scarcely a foot in diameter opened on the dark passage without.
We saw the places for the execution of the prisoners both by strangling and beheading ; the block on which the head was laid, and the stone on which the wretched man sat or knelt. The door was pointed out at which the gondola awaited the body, to convey it away for secret sepulture ; and that by which those sentenced to be drowned were hurried away by night. The narrow cell too was shown us where the friar shrived the miserable wretch, preparing him for death, while the executioner waited for his victim in the adjoining cell. • • • • •
When the French took possession of Venice, they revealed to its citizens the existence of these terrible dungeons; and the populace, admitted to behold them for the first time, were so infuriated at the sight that they set fire to many, burning all that was combustible within them. One prisoner alone was found in the cells, an old man of seventy, who had been confined for fourteen years : being brought too suddenly into the light of day, he became quite blind, and survived his release only one year.
We will take another passage in a more practical vein.
THE ORIGIN OF ENGRAVING.
The origin of engraving on copper is ascribed by Vasari to Maso Finiguerra, a celebrated niellatore of the fifteenth century : but before telling you how he arrived at this invention, I will describe the art from which it arose.
Aiello, or the inlaying of metals, was employed in very early times, and seems to be the same as the marqueterie of the French, and the Eastern lavoro da- maschino, which I have before mentioned. The process by which the beautiful works we have lately seen were executed was as follows. The subject being cut out with a chisel in a plate of silver, the interstices were filled with a mix- ture of silver and lead, called from its dark colour nigellum, whence the Italian word niello was derived. The contrast of this dark substance with the shining whiteness of the ground produced the effect of a beautiful relievo. It was chiefly used for tables, cabinets, the covers of missals, and sometimes for the hilts of swords. Massa Finiguerra was in the habit of taking an impression of his works to prove them, before he filled the cavities with niello : this he effected by pressing the frame thus prepared for its reception on soft earth ; reversed copy was of course given, as the parts before sunk now stood out in relief; he then covered it with liquid sulphur and lampblack, and another impression was taken. He also took proofs of his works by colouring them over with a similar preparation, and then placing moistened paper on this, passing a smooth round roller over it, which gave to the impressions, Vasari says, " not only the appearance of being stamped, but make them look as if designed with the pen." Only two or three of Finiguerra's proofs remain, but many still exist of that period. The transition from this to the next step in the art of engraving was an easy one. Copper was substituted for the more expensive material which led to the discovery, and the attention of artists was now turned_ to the new effect to be produced ; and greater accuracy and delicacy were in- troduced into the execution of the frames intended solely for engravings.
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