F. Hamilton Jackson

“ While waiting for the train, as the sun set and twilight fell, we saw many of the contadini returning from their work, most of them on donkeys or ponies—a father with a little son before or behind him, a man in a black cloak with panniers laden with branches of trees, which hid the saddle, and, in the semi-obscurity, made them look like some monstrous beast of strange form, another perched upon a great bundle of hay or grass, and so on, all passing rapidly from the malaria of the fields to the safety of the malodorous town. ”

“ I had to come from Bergamo to Bologna to undertake the work of this choir. I had with me these tools which you see, few in number, but necessary for the work in which it is my study to worthily spend my life, and to delight in the art. I had scarcely touched the frontiers of Ferrara when they not only obliged me, a poor friar, to pay a heavy and unjust tax, but the manner of doing it was most offensive. ”

“ The cathedral is not remarkable for its architecture. The façade has a semicircular termination, quadrants above the aisles, and an early Renaissance doorway. The stalls are carved and pierced like those at Arbe and Zara, but have lost the tops and the carved divisions. At each side is an ambo of stone supported on four columns, but with an octagonal body above, arcaded, with shafts at the angles. The arches are all round, but the change in the plan produces a curious pointed appearance in perspective in the lower arcade. ”

“ The fashion of present opinion lays great stress upon the former source of inspiration, and considers the latter heretical, while, with a strange inconsistency, acclaiming a form of design based upon unnatural contortions of growth, and a treatment which is often alien to the material. It is the hope of the author to assist the second class of mind to the rivalling of the ancient glories of design and craftsmanship, and perhaps even to convert some of those whose talents are at present wasted in the chase of the will-o'-the-wisp of fancied novelty and individuality. ”

“ There is a small steamer which plies from Grado to Trieste, going one day and returning the next, but fine weather is very necessary for that mode of travel, as the sea can be very rough between Venice and Trieste. We did not hit the day of its sailing, so retraced our steps to Villa Vicentina and went viâ Monfalcone and Nabresina. Between these two places the railway rises steadily, giving fine views over the sea and plain. Looking forward and back the pale-grey line of the viaducts winds round and about the slopes like some gigantic snake, or like the aqueducts of the Campagna of Rome. ”

“ A slight darkening of parts of the wood to gain a certain suggestion of roundness is quite admissible, but the expedient should be used with discretion, lavish employment of it leading to heaviness of effect and a monotony of tone which are most unpleasing. If ivory or metals are introduced the greatest care is necessary to prevent them from giving a spotty and uneven effect to the design, for neither these two materials nor mother-of-pearl marry quite with the tone of the wood; and this inequality is likely to increase with age, as the wood becomes richer and mellower in colour. ”

“ Large numbers of Herzegovinian emigrants take boat at Gravosa; and I remember one day, when Ragusa was full of them and their friends and every vehicle crowded between that place and Gravosa, what a strange sight the pier presented, so thickly packed with people that one wondered none were pushed off. The variety of colour and picturesqueness of costume and type among the men and women was interesting, and it was touching to think of the sundering of friends and relations, and the grief at parting which many of them showed in their strongly marked countenances. ”

“ In early times the various arts connected with building were in close union, and it appears tolerably certain that one guild sheltered them all, proficiency being required in several crafts and mastery in one. We find the same man acting in one place as master builder or architect, and sometimes only giving advice, while elsewhere he is sculptor or woodworker. The painter, the mosaicist, and the designer for intarsia are confused in a similar manner. ”

“ The town stands upon the summit of a promontory spreading out like the fingers of a hand, and at its base the river foams and rushes, entering a deep winding ravine and plunging beneath a rocky precipice several hundred feet high, on the top of which a few houses appear. The steep sides are green with trees to a certain height, and then the grey rock appears scantily covered with grass in places; above the abyss swallows dart and hawks hover. ”

“ Since both design and craftsmanship as known until the end of the 18th century were the outcome of centuries of experience of the use of material and of the endeavour to meet daily requirements, it may be justly called folly to cast all this aside as the fripperies of bygone fashion which cramp the efforts of the designer, and attempt to start afresh without a rag of clothing, even if it were possible. ”

“ The treasury contains a fine monstrance of silver, Gothic in design, with bands of pierced work and tabernacles at the sides on twisted columns. It has a spire-like top with windows and pinnacles between round its base, a feature which is repeated on the knop. In the seventeenth century several figures were added or replaced and the stem repaired. The Scuola dei Battuti, built in 1451, has a door with a frescoed tympanum beneath a pointed arch on brackets, a good deal weather-worn—Madonna sheltering the penitents beneath her cloak—and pretty arabesque scrolls on the soffit. ”

“ The early mode of working intarsia in Italy, where it is more than 100 years more ancient than in any other country, was by sinking forms in the wood, according to a prearranged design, and then filling the hollows with pieces of different coloured woods. At first the number of colours used was very small—indeed, Vasari says that the only tints employed were black and white, but this must be interpreted freely, since the colour of wood is not generally uniform, and there would consequently often be a difference in tint in portions cut from different parts of the same plank. ”

“ It is said that the devil can be seen if one stand at the church door in such weather with a priest, treading with the right foot upon the priest's right. He is like a great dragon spreading his claws and reaching to the upper clouds from the earth; but the priests never allow the trial, for fear the man should die of fright at the sight. ”

“ If the wood be properly selected shading is rarely necessary, and if it is done at all should be done by an artist. In the hands of an artist very beautiful effects may be obtained, the same kind of wood being made to yield quite a [Pg 129] number of varying shades of colour of a low but rich tone. Over-staining and the abuse of shading are destructive. Ivory has always been a favourite material with workers in tarsia, and in the hands of an experienced designer very charming things may be done with it. ”

“ In the Bocche scarcely a third of the land is fruitful, yet 40,000 people lived in the district, mainly, of course, by the sea. From their childhood the boys have always longed for the day when they might accompany their fathers into the world beyond the sea. They were always ready to fight, and expected to have to do so, for, until the second half of the eighteenth century, it was unusual good fortune to make a sea or land trip to Albania without being attacked. The ancient houses, with loopholes and little windows, still look more like citadels than convenient dwellings. ”

“ It was a common practice to increase the decorative effect by means of gilding and paint, thus obtaining a brilliancy of colour at the expense of unity of effect sometimes, one may think, if one may judge from the panels in the stalls at the Certosa of Pavia—though perhaps it is scarcely fair to take them as examples of the effect of the older work since they have been restored in modern times. At the best period it was used almost entirely for church furniture and the furnishings of public edifices, in Italy at least, and many of the ranges of stalls still occupy their original positions. ”

“ In the centre below is a niche with shell-head and grated window, through which the inside of the crypt is visible. To the right is a ciborium altar, with a relief of Christ in the tomb half-length, supported by the Virgin and S. John, flanked by two scroll-bearing angels. An inscription describes it as an oratory, where relics of the saints are venerated. The pillars bear an architrave—a shell-he ad beneath, an arch above, and a gable termination of early Renaissance shape—above a shallow cornice. The effect is heavy. ”

“ It has been maintained by purists in modern times that all engraving or shading of the pieces of wood used in forming the design is illegitimate; and if this be so, it is equally illegitimate to stain any of them; but it is undeniable that a great addition to the resources of the inlayer was made by the discoveries of Fra Giovanni, and it seems unreasonable to refuse to make any use of them because later intarsiatori abused these means of gaining effect. ”

“ Every year a pilgrimage climbs to the white-walled little chapel which sparkles on the dark mountain side. The Servian dream is for the waters of Cattaro to be covered with ships under the [Pg 379] eagle of the Nemagna, for the country folk know well the story of Uros, the great Stephan Nemagna, and the epic of the wars against the Turks.
In the city of Cattaro, the ancient Ascrivium or Acrivium, some small remains of the Roman period are to be seen encrusted in the walls of the clock-tower, an altar and a memorial to a girl and her teacher. ”

“ In German work the cabinets are often of the most elaborate architectural design, like the façade of a palace, made of ebony, or occasionally even of ivory, and inlaid with ivory, silver, gold and [Pg 90] enamels or precious stones. Augsburg was the most celebrated place for such work. The joiner, the woodcarver, the lapidary, and the goldsmith all worked together on such things. In the North of Germany tarsia was principally used on chests, cabinets, seats, and smaller objects of furniture ”

“ Some forty minutes away, on a small island to the east, is the Franciscan convent, La Badia, a building of the fifteenth century for the most part, containing a rather pretty cloister of white marble erected in 1477. The arches are stilted, pointed, and trefoiled, arranged in groups of three, with wider slightly segmental openings with cuspings for entrances. The spandrils are filled with Gothic leafage, the bases and caps to the columns are early Renaissance, and the frieze is quite plain, with a dentilled cornice. The church is not interesting architecturally ”

“ The Dutch sometimes made use of mother-of-pearl, in pieces upon which engraving broke up the hard glitter of the material, mingled with brass wire and nails or studs driven into the surface of the wood. The two materials appear to be quite harmonious, and small articles decorated in this manner are effective and satisfactory. The Italian use of ivory for the decoration of musical instruments, chess and backgammon boards, and other small objects is almost always successful, the proportion between wood and ivory being well judged, and the forms of the ornament pleasing. ”

“ In Trieste and some of the Istrian towns, girls and boys go about throughout the octave of Epiphany with little lanterns, kneel on the steps of the houses, sing a song in honour of the three Holy Kings, and then, knocking, ask for money. The song tells how Christ was born poor, lived poor, and died on the Cross, and then goes on to wish friendly donors as many angels to take them to heaven as a sieve has holes; for the hard-hearted as many devils to take them as nails stuck in the door! ”

“ The church of S. Domenico (anciently S. Michele) has a pointed Venetian door, with a relief in the tympanum of S. Michael weighing souls, with the Devil pulling the scale down, an armed angel at one side, and a woman with a lighted taper at the other. On the lintel are a Virgin and Child, and several saints in little panels also spreading beyond on to the wall.
The Greek church, S. Elia, which the Servian orthodox Christians have had since the French invasion, is nearly opposite the cathedral. One year we were at Zara at the time when they were preparing to keep Easter. ”

“ The southern group lies south of the harbour of Spalato, and includes Solta, Brazza, Lesina, Curzola, Meleda, the more distant Lissa, Busi, and Lagosta, and a few small islands which belonged to the Republic of Ragusa. The interest of these varies a good deal, some containing much to delight the traveller, while others are scarcely worth a visit. Most of them have historical memories reaching from the dawn of history to times which are within the memory of many now living, and some of them are remarkable for their geological formation or luxuriant Southern vegetation. ”

“ The modern town is most picturesque, with narrow streets and numerous courtyards, with outside staircases, quaint shops, and fascinating plays of light and shade, and so much of the life of the people passes in the open air that there is always interesting matter for observation. It is a seaside resort, visited a good deal for bathing during the summer months, and there is also, as at Rovigno, an establishment for scrofulous children. ”

“ The city looks most attractive from the sea as one approaches. It occupies a long tongue of land midway along the western coast, and the walls drop into the water both towards the harbour and the open sea. They are nearly complete in their circuit, but have lost their battlements and some portions of their substance. There is a good deal of ruin within them, which makes the foregrounds uninteresting and squalid. ”