Mantua, and sixty years of age or thereabouts) began TO ASK THE WAY
to Milan.
It lay through Bozzolo; formerly a little republic, and now one of
the most deserted and poverty-stricken of towns: where the
landlord of the miserable inn (God bless him! it was his weekly
custom) was distributing infinitesimal coins among a clamorous herd
of women and children, whose rags were fluttering in the wind and
rain outside his door, where they were gathered to receive his
charity. It lay through mist, and mud, and rain, and vines trained
low upon the ground, all that day and the next; the first sleepingplace
being Cremona, memorable for its dark brick churches, and
immensely high tower, the Torrazzo – to say nothing of its violins,
of which it certainly produces none in these degenerate days; and
the second, Lodi. Then we went on, through more mud, mist, and
rain, and marshy ground: and through such a fog, as Englishmen,
strong in the faith of their own grievances, are apt to believe is
nowhere to be found but in their own country, until we entered the
paved streets of Milan.
The fog was so dense here, that the spire of the far-famed
Cathedral might as well have been at Bombay, for anything that
could be seen of it at that time. But as we halted to refresh, for
a few days then, and returned to Milan again next summer, I had
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Dickens, Charles – Pictures From Italy
ample opportunities of seeing the glorious structure in all its
majesty and beauty.
All Christian homage to the saint who lies within it! There are
many good and true saints in the calendar, but San Carlo Borromeo
has – if I may quote Mrs. Primrose on such a subject – ‘my warm
heart.’ A charitable doctor to the sick, a munificent friend to
the poor, and this, not in any spirit of blind bigotry, but as the
bold opponent of enormous abuses in the Romish church, I honour his
memory. I honour it none the less, because he was nearly slain by
a priest, suborned, by priests, to murder him at the altar: in
acknowledgment of his endeavours to reform a false and hypocritical
brotherhood of monks. Heaven shield all imitators of San Carlo
Borromeo as it shielded him! A reforming Pope would need a little
shielding, even now.
The subterranean chapel in which the body of San Carlo Borromeo is
preserved, presents as striking and as ghastly a contrast, perhaps,
as any place can show. The tapers which are lighted down there,
flash and gleam on alti-rilievi in gold and silver, delicately
wrought by skilful hands, and representing the principal events in
the life of the saint. Jewels, and precious metals, shine and
sparkle on every side. A windlass slowly removes the front of the
altar; and, within it, in a gorgeous shrine of gold and silver, is
seen, through alabaster, the shrivelled mummy of a man: the
pontifical robes with which it is adorned, radiant with diamonds,
emeralds, rubies: every costly and magnificent gem. The shrunken
heap of poor earth in the midst of this great glitter, is more
pitiful than if it lay upon a dung-hill. There is not a ray of
imprisoned light in all the flash and fire of jewels, but seems to
mock the dusty holes where eyes were, once. Every thread of silk
in the rich vestments seems only a provision from the worms that
spin, for the behoof of worms that propagate in sepulchres.
In the old refectory of the dilapidated Convent of Santa Maria
delle Grazie, is the work of art, perhaps, better known than any
other in the world: the Last Supper, by Leonardo da Vinci – with a
door cut through it by the intelligent Dominican friars, to
facilitate their operations at dinner-time.
I am not mechanically acquainted with the art of painting, and have
no other means of judging of a picture than as I see it resembling
and refining upon nature, and presenting graceful combinations of
forms and colours. I am, therefore, no authority whatever, in
reference to the ‘touch’ of this or that master; though I know very