A WANDERER’S NOTEBOOK.

Otago Witness, Issue 3798, 28 December 1926, Page 5

A WANDERER’S NOTEBOOK.

MORE ITALIAN IMPRESSIONS.

‘XIV.

By

Charles Wilson.

ex-Parliamentary

Librarian.

It is an almost intolerable sultry Rome which I explore for a few ever memorable days. The one fairly cool spot I find in a queer half-underground wine shop on tho picturesque Piazza Spagna, with its Keatsian and Shelleyan associations, where artists of many races still daily congregate, where so much of the true Roman life is to be studied. It is all an unforgettable experience, but the inevitable day comes along when wo must “take the cars” for historic Florence, that ancient and memoryhaunled home of the Medici, and swelter for far too many hours, and utter, as I confess I do, countless objurgations at the foul; sulphurous smoke which is poured forth in never-ceasing; volumes from the briquettes-burning giant engine. PERUGIA AND ASSISI. At Perugia, about midway ’twixt Rome and Florence, we have a brief spell at an ancient city for ever famous, in the history of European, and especially Italian, art, as the special home of the Umbrian school of painting, of which Pietro Vannucci, better known as II Perugino, was the central figure. At Perugia there is a big exodus of tourists, mainly American, .bound for the quaint little old mediaeval city of Assisi, world famous by its having been so long Mje-'tftvelling-place of the bird-loving St. Francis, who founded the great Franciscan Order in the rules of poverty, chastity, and dbedience—three virtues by no means universally honoured by his clerical brethren of the time. Half-mad, good St. Francis may have been; indeed, for a time he was actually confined as a mental patient. But, frail of body, unbalanced in mind so his enemies declared, he was a truly spiritual personality which made him first respected next revered, and, in his later life, wellnigh worshipped by common people, by whom after all, saints as well as ordinary mortals are, perhaps, most fairly judged. He must have been a man of consuming energy To Morocco and Cairo was, for the Italian of his day. almost as far a cry asio Cathay. But the frail, gOntle-souled, but blazinglv ardent preacher from the Umbrian hill town, went far afield to CS j Fy ii ls . miss ‘ on °f love, charity, chastity, and all the virtues, and if ever a priest earned his canonisation, it was he. FIVE DAYS IN FLORENCE. Five days on the banks of the historic Arno! lis a lamentably brief sojourn, but ope rich in interesting experience, lhe wouble is, there is eUch'an embarras de richeßses from which the sightseer must choose. After a couple of days in the Ufizzi Gallery and in the never-ending Batons of the Pitti Palace, I confess to some *eynipathy with an American gentlemarfcwhp has adopted the popular English expression “fed up/’ and applies it in particular? to the surfeit of art here provided. Curiously enough, he shares my mild resentment against our worthy guide for his unfailing selection of world-famous picsuch as the Primavera and Birth of Venus, for over-lengthy discourse, and his ignoring of the smaller Botticellis, the exquisite ; little Perugino head in the same ’room, all of which infallibly provoke in the picture lover’s mind a breaking of the last Commandment. There are so many, so very many, pictorial beauties in these Florentine galleries that it is difficult to state one’s preferences. Here is food ample enough for three months of leisurely study and quiet enjoyment. But not, alas, for a travelling New Zealander, whose time is limited, and who, perforce, must keep his eye on that letter of credit which, like the magic skin of a certain Balzacian romance, is apt to shrink so mysteriously and yet so materially. PEOPLE OR PICTURES ? To me the special charm of Florence ®es, not in its countless art collections, but in leisurely contemplation of the modern Florentine and his ways. Early in my stay on the banks of the muddy Arno I have what at first seemed a great misfortune, the temporary loss of by Blue Guide to Florence, In reality it proves rather what ArtemuS Ward would have called “a sweet boon,” for no longer am I haunted by the fear that 1 shall miss this, or that, or the other sight, to say nothing of the advantage that I no longer “lug about” a bulky volume with constant pauses at street corners, lest I overlook a chef d’ceuvre by Benvenuto Cellini, that wonderful Florentine goldsmith, at once one of the greatest of artists, and a cheerfuly self-admitted assassin, or fail to identify each and every statue in the Loggia del Lanzi, or practise my highly elementary Italian upon some half-decayed inscription of the Medici period. Away with Baedeker, a murrain upon Mr Muirhead, into the Arno with my frocked Joanne. Give me the by Streets and the present-day Florentine. Give me “the people” every time, the multi-coloured present rather than the often drab past. EVERYDAY FLORENCE. They tell me that the cost of living is hitting the Florentine, like all other Italians, very hard, and there is unquestionably here a strong undercurrent of suspicion, and indeed dislike, of Mussolini. But the Florentine is, I fancy, less obstreperous than the Roman, and far lees inclined to discontent from which an awkward revolutionary spirit might too easily be evolved than his brethren of the intensely industrial Milan, where the possible Anarchist is said to develop all too readily in the factoriee. He may have—doubtless he has—his grievances, but on the surface at least, so far as I can see by popular demeanour, the present is for him if not exactly the best possible of woflds, at least a singularly agreeable and satisfying existence. I see few dour, sulky looking folk as I saunter along the narrow streets along the Arno, away from the tourist and cosmopolitan quarters where one hears most the language of Surbiton or Hampstead Heath, the

nasal “yep” and "nop” of Janesville (Pa.), or that vowel clipping twang which is reminiscent of Sydney. Your Florentine can be keen enoughs they say, at a bargain, and in the shops it is sate to begin with a “Troppo” (too much), ascend to a “Molte Troppo’’ (far too much), and after an affected indignation at the lowness of your offer and much gesticulation it is astonishing what reasonable descent in price may be reached. The worthy salesmen on tllftt most picturesque spot in Florence, the snop-bordered Ponte Vechio, surely—save the Venetian Rialto —the quaintest of the world’s bridges, pursue the tourist out on to the roadway in order to procure a sale. But even though the shrinkage in his price is both sudden and substantial not a few of his British customers are apt to discover later on that the very same curios and trinkets can be bought for even les9 in Westbourne Grove or Oxford street than the bargainhunters pay on Arnoside. SOME MATTERS GUSTATORY. The Florentines, they tell me, have as keen a regard for economy in their household expenditure as a French bourgeoise. On dress both sexes are, I should imagine not a little extravagant. In particular the men seem to be ever as spick and span as if suddenly turned out of the proverbial bandbox. But I confess I cannot share their enthusiasm for patent leather shoes, and there is apt to be a certain flamboyance about their neckties which the more soberly clad Briton might not approve. But even the fairly well to do live, I am assured, very frugally. Spaghetti and risotto—for which latter, a sort of thick glutinous mass of rice, coloured with saffron, I cannot affect any partiality—almost invariably figure prominently in a meal wherein meat plays usually but a minor role. On most of the Italian menus soups and stews, which smack unmistakably of the chef’s ability to “use up” unfinished items of the previous day’s fare, are too largely in evidence, and polenta, a sort of boiled mash of maize flour, is used freely to carry off many edibles not a little queer to the British taste. I can scarcely share the Italian taste in cheese, and there is a prevalent affection for garlic, which may at times offend the olfactory nerves of tfffc stranger in the land. But fruit and wine are cheap, and good, and if the Italian does not spend much on his food, I fancy he “does himself none too badly.” But although the Italians, m*re particularly the Venetians, can offer some most succulent broths made with shellfish, they have nothing to come “within cooee” of New Zealand’s famous toheroa soup. Were I a young man with a substantial bank balance, I veritably believe I would betake me to Paris and found a new restaurant, whereat toheroa soup would be the “clou” of the menus. There must be here a possible -fortunes. IN A WONDER CITY. Yes, Venice is in truth a wonder city. Never a horse here, nary a motor car. Here at least is something different, and the eyes which open wide in mild astonishment as one descends from a dusty train and finds oneself aboard the quaintly long and black painted gondola on the far-famed Grand Canal, are destined tojgaze. upon scenes whic.h you shall find jfn no other European city. Up the narrower canals, round the corners of which the gondoljer shouts a staccato “Stali” or “Premii,” as warning to his professional fellow coming in an opposite direction, there is apt to float across the traveller’s nostrils an odour assuredly not from Araby the Blest, and provoke disagreeable memories of certain minor waterways in Amsterdam and Bruges. But the novelty of the scene pardons much, and as, after dinner, at what was once the Bauer-Gsunewald, formerly a hostelry specially favoured by the Teuton, but during and after the war having “Hotel d’ltalie” tacked on to its title, I sip my coffee on a “terrasse” which overlooks the Grand Canal itself, I piead guilty, for an ordinarily unsentimental mortal, to a feeling akin to positive enchantment. Almost opposite is tne massive, austerely beautiful bulk of Santa Maria della Salute, and I am quietly proud to remember that one of the fineafc- pictures ever painted of that splendid church, one by Frank Brangwyn, hangs in the permanent art collection in far-away Wellington. Across the water the dignified Dogana, or Customs house, bears a long line of coloured electric lamps, for it is a fete day, and illuminations are everywhere, and still further across the water, on the steps Af the fine Palladian pile of San Giorgio Maggiore, some “movie” makers are filming scenes from the amusing, but highly scandalous, memoirs of that strange figure in eighteenth century history, the famous Venetian adventurer, Jacopo Casanova de Seingalt. The steps of the portico are thronged with gaily-attired figures, who blaze forth into multi-coloured glory as the lights are thrown on them, to relapse into mere phantomdom as the flares die out. Vaporetti, the tiny -steamers which are so sadly injuring the trade of the gondolieri, ply to and fro, flagbedecked and ablaze with coloured lamps. An exceptionally merry party is being given aboard a small warship moored close inshore, and on a gondola bedecked with Chinese lanterns a tine baritone is singing the hackneyed, but to-night specially approprite, “Barcarolle” from “The Tales of Hoffmann.” It is a gay and charming SCene ‘ OUTSIDE FLORIAN’S. After a busy day of sightseeing, of listening to the guide’s monotonous telling of his oft-told tale, of visiting a succession of decaying but still splendid palaces and churches, of bargaining for beads and knick-knacks innumerable on that Rialto so familiar in name at least, to those who know their “Merchant of Venice,” and painstakingly visiting some of the sights which “you certainly must not miss, my dear,” it is good to lay back a little, to lounge outside the famous Cafe Florian on the Piazza San Marco and watoh fellow tourists in their hundreds feeding the famous pigeons of St. Mark’s from little bags of maize. The Cafe Florian is one of the world*B most famous places of refreshment. Exactly when it was opened I have forgotten, but for well over half a century its hospitable salons have never been closed, for it is the pride of Florian’s that it is always open, day and night. I know of no more picturesque place in the wide world over, or at least such of it as has come ’neath my ken, to compare with the great square wnich lies before what is the least European, certainly the least Italian, of Italy's churches. Personally, I prefer the noble Duomo at Florence, with its Giotto Campanile, and although the Salute opposite my bedroom window is, I find, belittled aa “modern,” it is to me more simply and yet eloquently impressive in its austere serene beauty than tho Byzantinian

Basilica with its five domes and its positively marvellous mosaic treasures. But Venice is justly proud of St. Mark’s and the winged lion, which is the symbol of the cathedral, is held in sacred respect as the typical emblem of the beautiful city on the lagoons. MANY-CHARMED VENICE. Round from Florian’s, past St. Mark’s and its famous bronze horses, which Venice herself, then supreme ifci the Mediterranean, stole from Constantinople, but which the predatory Napoleon an-> nexed, the French returning them after Waterloo, we saunter round to the broad Piazzetta, along which on one side runs the Doges’ Palace. t>f this latter, with its. countless artistic and historical treasures; of the not far-distant Po-ite del Sospiri, or Bridge of Sighs; of a wonderful old library, the starting point of which was a collection of books given by the poet Petrarch to Venice, and which contains a perfectly unique Breviary, which not even 20 Vanderbilts or Pierpoiot Morgans have dollars enough to buy;. X spare you even an attempt at. description. Nor dare I dwell upon the quaint Venetian shopland—at its best in the ever-crowded, sadly too

narrow Merceria, upon the ethereally beautiful glassware of Murano isle, as it lies, a veritable little gem, in the sunlight on the waters of the lagoon, or discourse upon the curious sights to be seen at that home of cosmopolitan luxury, Venice’s great bathing place, on the Lido, upon which, the day I am there, half Germany would seem to have descended. AnJ Venetan beads and Venetan lace —and the Venetian smells—no, all these must be left alone. I am off to Paris to-mor-row, via Montereaux and Geneva, and space, like time, is all too short.