Touring in 1600

PART I

EUROPEAN EUROPE

From the report of divers curious and experienced persons I had been assured there was little more to be seen in the rest of the civil world after Italy, France and the Low Countries, but plain and prodigious barbarism.

The route of the Average Tourist being determined by the considerations above-mentioned, he was naturally directed to those countries whose situation enabled them to influence the course of events in his fatherland, whose development and conditions contained the most pertinent lessons for him as a man and as a statesman, and whose climate, accessibility, and inhabitants were such as hindered travellers least. These countries were: Italy, France, the United Provinces (i. e., Holland), the Empire, the Spanish Netherlands (corresponding to Belgium), England, Poland. This order is that in which they would probably have appeared to arrange themselves according to their importance for the purposes under consideration. The omission of England in the chapter heading is due, of course, to Evelyn having started thence; of the Empire and Poland, to the date at which he is writing, near the close of the Thirty Years' War; a date which, while within the period with which this book has to deal, is later by nearly half a century than the central date, 1600, to which all its undated statements should be taken as referring.

Whatever criticism might have been passed on this order of importance by this or that adviser, not one would have been found to dispute the preëminence of Italy. Whereas now there is no form of human effort in which the inhabitants of Italy have not been equalled or surpassed, it seemed then as if there had never been any in which they had been surpassed and very few in which they had been equalled. So far as Art and antiquities go, there will be no need to persuade anybody of the likelihood of that; nor probably, with regard to venerableness of religion or romance of history. But the very easiness of imagining the supremacy which would have been conceded Italy on these points tends to close the enquiry into the causes of its hold on men in times gone by, and consequently to obscure the fact that Italy then not only stood for all that Italy stands for now, but also in the place, or rather, places, now occupied by the most advanced States in their most advanced aspects; for everything, in fact, that made for progress on the lines considered most feasible or probable at the moment; for progress, not only in culture, but in commerce and commercial methods, in politics, in the science of war, in up-to-date handicraft, and, especially, in worldly wisdom. Even a baby-food was assured of greater respect if made from an Italian recipe, such as the paste made of bread-crumbs, wheat-meal, and olive-oil, of which De Thou nearly died. In short, if the value of Italy as the colonizer of Europe in regard to mental development belonged by this time to the past rather than to the present, its reputation as such must not be ante-dated, as is generally done, and ascribed to the age when it most thoroughly deserved that reputation. Here, on the contrary, as usually, merit and credit are not contemporary.

And there was plenty to deceive those who did not look far below the surface. In discussing politics the newest set-phrases would be those brought into use by Italian writers; "balance of power," "reason of state," etc.; the word "status" itself, as a substitute for "Respublica," was both a sign of the times and of Italian influence.39 So with commercial terms, we find, for instance, the word "provvisione" (commission) being used as late as 1648,40 by an Englishman who had never been to Italy, while the control of Italy over one of the later forms of the Renascence, that of the art of gardening, is indicated by the introduction of the word "florist" from the Italian during the seventeenth century. The only modern author, moreover, whose acquaintance a European schoolboy was certain to make, was the Italian versifier whom Shakespeare calls "good old Mantuan," and even if we look at things from to-day's standpoint the most remarkable professorship of the period would surely be accounted that of Galileo at Padua, 1592-1610. In another respect, too, connected with education, the relative maturity and crudeness of civilisation south and north of the Alps is even more apparent to-day than it was then. The "Trans-alpine" shared more or less Erasmus' belief in the power of words as a means of education, whereas in Italy, and in Italy alone, was it insisted that the influence of environment, personal and physical, is the factor compared to which all else is of but little account. The first theory is abandoned now by all who can afford to do so, the second is that of the best effort of to-day.41

As for the technique of war, more than half-way through the seventeenth century, when Louis XIV wanted the very best available talent to design the completion of the Louvre, it was to Rome that he sent, and the artist, Bernini, is recorded42 as saying, to allay jealousy, that there was no need for Frenchmen to be ashamed of an Italian being called in for this purpose, seeing that in the kind of knowledge in which they excelled all Europe, that of war, their teachers were still Italians. And the modernity of the latter's reputation for supremacy in military knowledge is thrown into relief by a remark of Bertrandon de la Brocquière, writing in 1433, taken in conjunction with the above. The latter was a clear-headed Fleming of wide experience who, when drawing up a plan for the right composition of an army which should suffice to drive the Turks back, only mentions French, English, and German soldiers.

As regards applied science, again, we find Evelyn writing of the harbour-works at Genoa, "of all the wonders of Italy, for the art and nature of the design, nothing parallels this." Now Evelyn was certainly not a man to underrate the rest of the wonders of Italy. As for comparisons outside of Italy, all Europe had by his time settled down to compete in the application of science to every-day life. And as to the products of the soil, is it not probable that if, nowadays, Europeans left the soil to take care of itself, and the day-labourer to take care of the seed and the preparation of the product, Italy would regain the first place as a producer of luxuries?

Such points as these, just a few that have chanced to suggest themselves in the course of reading for other purposes, are merely put forward as typical of the relations existing between Italy and the rest of Europe; the Italians themselves admitted their own superiority by the slightly contemptuous meaning that attached itself to their word "Transalpini," and very rare is it to find one of these "Transalpini" taking the view that Sir Philip Sidney and Fynes Moryson did, that the first characteristic of Italy was pretentiousness. On the contrary, it was assumed that little but experience could be so easily, or so satisfactorily, acquired elsewhere. Diverse forms of government, at least, could not be met with elsewhere in the same variety within such narrow limits. The south was what they termed a "province," i. e., a dependency held down by force, belonging to Spain; so, too, was Milan, with its surroundings. In the centre was a monarch, the Pope, who was both elected and "absolute," a term which had a specialised meaning, that of power unlimited except by the extent to which the holder made himself disliked. Further north were free cities, Lucca, Genoa; six hereditary principalities, Tuscany, Mantua, Urbino, Savoy, Modena, Parma; and lastly, the Republic of Venice with its miniature empire in Lombardy. And concerning Venice, there is this to be noted, that it was exhibiting solidity combined with elasticity to a degree all the more astonishing in "an impossible city in an impossible place"; which gave it a position not unlike that of England to-day, namely, that peculiarities of its "constitution" received an even greater degree of respect than they were entitled to and tended to be imitated by constitution-formulators of the period who expected to reproduce what had been achieved by geography and a national temperament, by means of reproducing some of the formulas that the latter had adopted. All of which was of great interest to the Average Tourist; and in consequence, if you happen to be reading one of his accounts of a tour, at the first mention of the word "Doge," skip twelve pages.

What remains to be seen concerning Italy is – what were the details that mainly occupied the foreigner as student there. In which connection the chief fact to be noted is that his stopping-places were invariably towns; and this not in Italy only, but throughout Europe. As regards the Average Tourist, this is fully accounted for by the objects he set before himself, but it is equally true of all. Bathing-places excepted, the only holiday resorts lay in the very last places where we should think of looking for them – in the suburbs. The Riviera, for instance, was no spot to delay in when Mohammedan pirates were forever coasting along in search of Christian slaves; and so on. But the essential explanation is to be sought in a census of Europe. The population of London exceeds that of most sixteenth-century States, and there are London suburbs which house more than any but the biggest sixteenth-century cities. Many villages consisted of no more than three or four houses; and even near Paris, of six or seven or eight; in Spain one might journey eight leagues without seeing a house at all. Whereas, therefore, the difficulty, and the pleasure, of a modern tour consists in escaping from people, the difficulty, and the safety, of all tourists in 1600 lay in reaching them.

Crossing the Alps, then, and making for the towns, one came, say, upon Turin; not a town that would detain one, but a point of the parting of the ways. Hence to Rome, the direct way lay through Genoa; a second viâ Milan and Bologna, a day's journey longer but yielding the advantage of seeing those two cities; while the third way, the longest but most comfortable and no more expensive, lay down the Po to Ferrara, thence to Venice, thence by sea to Ancona, by land to Loreto, and so to Rome. The two former routes converged at Florence. Of these two the longer would be chosen either going or returning. Milan must no more be missed than Rome. It was the city of all Europe on which the question of peace and war permanently depended; being the key to the most debateable district. And as such, it may be imagined what the castle was then from what it is even in its present state as a sort of museum of military architecture. Then it was alive with the finest soldiers of the age, Spaniards; a small town, complete in itself, with rows of shops and five market-places. And the city itself was recognised as unsurpassed as a school both for the accomplishments that befitted a gentleman and for craftsmanship; for everything, in fact, that made life possible or pleasant. Yet Bologna had the advantage of it in one respect, in possessing a University; to matriculate in an Italian university continued an inexpressible honour to the "Transalpini," evident though it was that the merest smattering of book-knowledge was sufficient to pass; and even though the Italian said openly, "We take the fees, and send back an ass in a doctor's gown." Florence again, had its own supremacy; the most attractive town in the district where the best Italian was supposed to be spoken. Siena was preferred by purists for language, but the slight distinction was outweighed by just those charms which have not been impaired by age. One more has indeed been added that might be expected to have existed then, but did not; what Ben Jonson wrote in "Volpone" in summing up the qualities of the poets of Italy and eulogising Guarini.

was but an echo of the Italians' own opinion. "Like Dante's 'Inferno' which no man understandeth" was a Venetian Senator's description of Henry IV's policy in 1606.43

Assuming the third route to be the one chosen, there was Ferrara to pass, but not to stay at when Venice was almost in sight – Venice in 1600! to have been a witness of that would make it well worth while to have been dead for the past three hundred years. The essence of the change is best expressed in the words of Mr. L. P. Smith in his "Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton," when he speaks of it as "a shell on the shores of the Adriatic deserted by the wonderful organism that once inhabited it." Outward and visible signs of the vividness and breadth of its life were two in particular; the infinite variety and number of persons and nationalities that filled its streets with colour and contrast and a sense of new worlds and of mystery in the midst of commerce; and secondly, the Arsenal. In all Europe there was not such another organisation as the Arsenal; not one so completely prepared with everything that went to the fitting out of a fleet, and very few so well able to fit out an army. Villamont was shown twenty-five great galleasses and eighty-five galleys, all of them so new that they had not been out to sea. Probably, also, its managers were the greatest direct employers of labour in Christendom; 2880 is one of the more moderate estimates of those permanently at work, including the 200 old women always mending sails, a number increased to 700 at times; and all these employees were assured of a pension from the State when past work, an otherwise unheard-of custom then, in practice, at least. It had its place, too, in the tourist's mythology; one after another repeating the tale how when Henry III of France visited Venice, a galley was built and three cannon turned out while he was at dinner.

Yet Montaigne has something to say about Venice that cancels all the intervening years and changes, and brings him into touch with us. He went his way towards it with the highest expectations, explored it eagerly, recollected it with the keenest pleasure: yet at the end of his second day there his feeling was one of disappointment. It may be taken as characteristic that he alone should experience then what seems more appropriate to the present; more probably, other visitors shared it but were too much subject to convention to say so; or, perhaps, re-writing their experiences later at home, as they generally did, they record their later thought only, whereas Montaigne left his unrevised and unashamed. This explanation seems the more reasonable inasmuch as the causes of the feeling had already come into being. On the surface the sight rested satisfied, while the imagination remained as hungry as ever. In a country, France, for instance, the tourist always had a consciousness of towns and districts unseen, all of which had contributed to the past, for evidence of the existence of which the imagination looks, however unconsciously; but after two days in Venice, all that is important and visible may seem to have been seen; no suggestion of anything beyond, not even the ruins of a half-buried city, as at Rome. It is true it was clear then that the word "Venice" meant an Empire as well as a city, though by the time the tourist had reached the city, he had passed through the conquests, barring an island or two in the Levant which the Turks were in course of subtracting. Yet the third meaning of the name was as dim to him as both the second and the third are to most of us, that of the source of an Empire, the whole collection of islands in the lagoons, whose larger life had already been drained away into the central settlement, but where Venice and its history were equally discoverable – but not in two days.

Another similarity between Venice of old and of to-day lies in the fact that the gondoliers knew much better than the visitors whither the latter wanted to go and took them there, with, or against, orders; only with this difference, that then it was always to the house of the courtesan in whose pay he was.

When the tourist had released himself and was proceeding on his way to Rome there were the beacons dotted along the coast for him to notice, beacons for signalling the sighting of a Turk or corsair vessel from south to north in a few hours. Ravenna received little notice, Rimini less, but Ancona was kept in the memory by one of those rhymes characteristic of the contemporary guide-book.

And then Loreto. Here it must be remembered, first of all, that it was unpardonable to ask for a meal before visiting the "Santa Casa." The town was little more than one long street, well fortified by reason of the treasure that the offerings represented. Bassompierre relates in his memoirs how he was invited to be one of the witnesses at the quarterly offering of the poor-box one Christmas; the contents amounted to 6000 crowns (in our money about £7500); this for one quarter only. Many men, and towns too, were represented by models of themselves in solid silver. As to which votive offerings Montaigne makes an assertion, unconfirmed by any one else but with this in its favour, that no tourist but himself gives any details concerning a valuable offering from himself made at Loreto. He says that the craftsmen refuse to take any payment for such articles beyond the cost of the materials. It seems incredible that a town which had been the resort of pilgrims for more than two centuries should not have become demoralised, but Montaigne adds that the officials refused tips, or received them unwillingly; and certainly no one complains of extortion.

If the tourist was lucky enough to see a shipload of pilgrims arriving from the farther coast of the Adriatic, it would be worth while to stay and watch, for as soon as Loreto came in sight they rose and cried out without ceasing from that moment until they reached the "Santa Casa," beseeching the Madonna to return to Fiume, where, once upon a time, so the tale ran, her house had stood. Leaving Loreto, not forgetting, of course, to wear the pilgrim's badge peculiar to the shrine – a leaden image of Our Lady surmounted by three porcupine quills fastened together with a silk thread, a tiny flag on each quill – leaving Loreto, then, a détour was often made to visit Assisi, joining the main road again at Spoleto. And so to Rome, where the new arrival, if a Roman Catholic, should first make his way to the Scale Sante to return thanks for his preservation during the past journey; where, too, at his departure, he should pray for assistance on the one to come.

It made considerable difference to his recollections of Rome what date it was within this period that he arrived. If at the beginning, he would have found St. Peter's half-finished and the interior in a state better suited to a pig-sty; and the rest of the city to match; the most confident Protestant would be gratified to find himself scandalised beyond expectation. By 1601 St. Peter's was practically in all its glory, the city unsurpassed in its care for the needy and sick, and of average morality. In the interval, too, the catacombs had been discovered, and though Bosio, the explorer of them, did not publish the results of his explorations till 1632 they became more accessible meanwhile; continuing, however, to be regarded as isolated "crypts." It was his book "Roma Sotterranea" that first caused them to be considered collectively; and it was under that name that Evelyn paid his visit to them in 1645, the first of these tourists to make anything that can be called an excursion among them. He entered through a burrow in a cornfield two miles from the city, so small that he had to crawl on his stomach for the first twenty paces. But the main feature of the Rome of 1600 was still its power. Not simply influence in the present as a result of power in the past, but the strength of age, middle-age, and youth existing in unison. To begin with, their reverence for Ancient Rome was greater than ours; an effect partly of their theory of history, partly of the narrower limits of their acquaintance with the materials of history. For the former cause, it was bound to be an axiom of history as long as the Bible remained authoritative as a statement of historical fact, that mankind had proceeded from good to bad, and from bad to worse, as time had advanced. And whatever, in the thought of the age, tended to shake this view, was held in check by the discoveries, in different, previously unexplored, parts of the world, of communities which seemed to be possessed at once of a higher morality and also of a more primitive civilisation, than the European. It is probably impossible for us to realise the alteration that the theory of evolution has introduced into current ideas about history.

For the second cause, the greatness of the Roman Empire appeared the greater for their having so little with which to compare it. The empire of the Ottomans had, it is true, by now eclipsed it; but Spain's was a vague wilderness, inhabited by savages; the Persian of old they only knew through the doctored accounts of the Latin writers; and of the overwhelming antiquity and extent of the Chinese they had no real knowledge at all. All, the Turkish excepted, that were not shadowy to them, were what Rome had obliterated, the moral effect of which, associated, as it must needs be, with the name of the city, endured as the chief asset of the Papal power. If any one then had taken Gibbon's view, that the remains of the Roman Empire were approaching dissolution, it would only have been because he thought that the end of the world was equally near. And this unbroken continuity of power did not merely exist, but was alive with fresh life. Nothing had replaced Rome; there was nothing to replace it; there was no need to replace it, since there was nothing effete nor slack about it, however much corruption was patent to the "Reformed."

The relations between visitors who were "Reformed" and Rome is another interesting feature of the tourist-life of the time when both were militant and a large proportion of tourists anti-Catholic. Much depended on the reigning Pope. In the time of Sixtus V (1585-90) Protestants came in fear, lived in disguise, and sought protection; Englishmen from Cardinal Allen, who readily granted it for a few days, to enable them to see the antiquities. Clement VIII (1592-1605) was much more lenient, yet Moryson thought it advisable even then to pass for a Frenchman, and to safeguard himself through Cardinal Allen, as well; also to leave before Easter, when there was a house-to-house visitation to enquire if all were communicants. Precautions, on the other hand, might be overdone. It was all very well to make a practice, as one did, of going through a church on the way to his morning drink, in case spies were about, but to tell one's host, as a certain German did, on returning home from an afternoon walk, that he had just been to mass, when all the masses were said in the morning, was going too far! And conforming to custom had its own dangers, too, when it formed a habit, as Moryson found, who, on entering a church at Geneva, reached out his hand towards the poor-box in mistake for the holy-water stoop to which he had accustomed himself; all the more embarrassing a mistake for his being in the company of Theodore Beza.

Gregory XV (1621-3) – to return to the Popes – forbade even the other princes of Italy to admit any but Roman Catholics to their dominions; and there were, besides, the already-mentioned prohibitions from the authorities at home. The state of affairs in general may be taken as that suggested by the localisation of Shakespeare's plays. Two-thirds of his scenes are laid abroad, in Italy more frequently than elsewhere outside England: yet his contemporary Italy is practically always the North, the South being reserved for the "classical" period. Nevertheless, it may safely be assumed that the danger was not quite so great as the fear, and that where the former was incurred, the sufferer had only himself to blame. Whether or no the high officials at Rome were faulty in dogma or in virtue, they were usually both men of the world and gentlemen. Montaigne's belongings, for example, provided the searchers with plenty of material for a charge of heresy, but a short conversation overcame all difficulties. And one William Davis, an English sailor44 who fell ill at Rome in 1598, found by experience that a Protestant who was civil would be cared for in a hospital free and given food and money on leaving. The more usual kind of behaviour has already been illustrated; only it must not be imagined that the incautiousness and incivility which turned the Protestant into a martyr were less conspicuous among other sects. By the law of Geneva a three-days stay was permitted to travellers of every creed. The poet-philosopher, Giordano Bruno, and the Jesuit missionary, Parsons, both rested there; their zeal prescribed the extremes of controversial outrage in return for tolerance and courtesy.