Brescia

“ Brescia is always the eagle's nest that looks over Lombardy! And Bergamo! You know the terraces of Bergamo. Aren't they like a morning sky? Dying there is not death; it's flying into the dawn. You Romans envy us. You have no Alps, no crimson hills, nothing but old walls to look on while you fight. Farewell, Merthyr Powys...." To me those words were always recurring on the Italian Front. "Dying here is not death; it's flying into the dawn." I would have liked to have them engraved on my tombstone, if Fate had set one up for me in this land, whose beauty casts a spell on all one's senses. ”

“ There is no telling, in such cases, how much the eye receives and how much it contributes; and if ever the boundaries between fact and fancy waver, it may well be under the spell of the Italian midsummer madness.
IV
The sun lay heavy on Iseo; and the railway journey thence to Brescia left in our brains a golden dazzle of heat. It was refreshing, on reaching Brescia, to enter the streets of the old town, where the roofs almost meet and there is always a blessed strip of shade to walk in. The cities in Italy are much cooler than the country. ”

“ This Milan, and Verona, Padua, Vicenza, Brescia, Venice, Florence, the whole Venetian, Tuscan, and Lombardic lands, down to far Sicily, and that Rome which always lay under the crown of a dead sunset in her idea—they too might rise; but she thought of them as skeletons likewise. Even the shadowy vision of Italy Free had no bloom on it, and stood fronting the blown trumpets of resurrection Lazarus-like. ”

“ Brescia is a busy town. The inhabitants are, as a rule, tall and robust, and they are always hard at work. The main streets are full of men employed in wearing large cloaks and talking to other men with the utmost energy. ”

“ What may they be? and whence did it come?—Out of embalmed sacristy, or antique coffin of some early Brescian martyr, or, through that bright space of blue Italian sky, from the hands of an angel, like his Annunciation lily, or the book received in the Apocalypse by John the Divine? It is one of those old saints, Gaudioso (at home in every church of Brescia) , who looks out with full face from the opposite corner of the altar-piece, from a background which, though it might be the new heaven over a new earth, is in truth only the proper, breathable air of Italy. ”

“ Compared with Bergamo, Brescia has the air of a smart and busy place; its streets are wider and better paved, and the smells which still greeted us were not quite so bad as there. The staple manufacture of the city seems to be that of copper vessels; shop after shop, indeed street after street, is full of coppersmiths’ shops; the men all sitting at work,{76} and keeping up a ceaseless din of hammering, in open shops, so that all the world may see them. ”

“ These Italian churches don't deserve the name. They are nothing but big, cold barns. Every one I've seen yet has been lit with candles, and nothing else. No lamps, no gas, no electric lights! Why, you couldn't get one of our Cyrusville preachers to preach in them, no matter what salary you might offer him."
I went into every church in Brescia that the guide-book told me I ought to visit, and I had so little time to give to each one that I felt that I was even as the traditional American who saw Rome in twenty-four hours. ”

“ Peschiera, a fortified town in the province of Verona, and Brescia, a large city in the beautiful plain on the Garza, had been both seized, garrisoned, and republicanized by the French. The people rose in arms, fired by new and absurd ideas of liberty and equality, and frightful scenes of bloodshed ensued when the more loyal and sensible inhabitants resisted these new patriots; but the latter, on being joined by fifteen hundred banditti from Bergamo, pressed the Venetian troops, who were driven out with great slaughter. ”

“ Of that proud army which had held Brescia with bold defiance, such as were not slain were taken prisoners, and among these was the Doge of Venice himself. Then followed an awful time of pillage and every form of cruelty and disorder, as was ever the way in those days when a city was taken by storm. The spoils taken were valued at three millions of crowns, and this in the end proved the ruin of the French power in Italy, for so many of the soldiers, demoralised by plunder, deserted with their ill-gotten gains and went home. ”

“ Soon afterwards the violin repairer offered Zimbalist five thousand dollars for it. The old, black, neglected violin had turned out to be a beautiful Maggini.
Not very far away from Brescia is the town of Cremona on the river Po. Cremona! The very name gives us a thrill! The town, though small, was an artistic centre. Its school of painting was nearly as famous as that of Bologna, and in its stately Cathedral just as beautiful music was heard as in the Cathedral of Brescia. The wealthy prelates and learned monks encouraged and trained musicians of the first rank ”

“ In the year 1230 he negotiated the treaty of San Germano between Frederic II. and the Church, and was made Bishop of Brescia. In that year Brescia, first among Italian cities, inserted in its statutes the emperor's Lombard law of 1224, which sent the heretic to the stake. The inference [Pg 556] is that the Dominican prelate caused its insertion, and that nobody is so likely to have expounded its available purport to the pontiff as the man who had so lately caused it to be adopted in his own see, and who stood high just then in merit and in favour. ”

“ That was all the comment he made on the art treasures of Brescia, until after we were again in the carriage. Then he said: "What you fellows can see in pictures I can't make out. I never took no stock in them. Why should I want to look at a lot of angels in nightgowns doing a walk-around, or a man stuck as full of arrows as a pincushion, or a woman holding a fat baby, or a tramp with a big stick, and nothing on in the way of clothes except a bit of buffalo-hide? It's all nonsense to pretend that folks really do take, interest in such things. ”

“ The town hall of Brescia (1492) was built from the designs of Tommaso Formentone, who employed for the carving of the medallions on the lower storey, and the pilasters with their capitals and the friezes, various artists of high merit, so that the building takes its rank as one of the finest in north Italy, but independently of their collaboration the design of the first floor is in design and execution equal to Greek work. ”

“ When the insurrectionary movements of 1848 broke out in Italy, his known zeal for the cause of legitimacy, as much as his reputation as an officer, marked him out for command. He fought with success in Italy, but was chiefly noted for the severity he showed in suppressing and punishing a rising in Brescia. It ought to be remembered that the mob of Brescia had massacred invalid Austrian soldiers in the hospital, a provocation which always leads to reprisals. ”

“ Brescia and Padua, in the valley of the Po, were especially noted for frugality and severity.839 And it was from among the youth of Brescia that Pliny suggested a husband for the daughter of the stoic champion, Arulenus Rusticus. ”

“ Frederick could only hold his ground by hard fighting, and soon lack of provisions forced him to flee from Rome, taking the Pope with him. The fierce heat of the Italian summer had already decimated Frederick’s little army, and he now resolved to recross the Alps, leaving Adrian to his fate. |Death of Arnold of Brescia.| The only act of power that had followed the reconciliation of Pope and Emperor was the execution of Arnold of Brescia, who had been taken prisoner in Tuscany by the Emperor, and having been handed over to the cardinals, was condemned and executed as a heretic. ”

“ In front of the chief caffés there are dozens of young men who, from their dress, belong to the upper classes, but they work as hard as the rest of the people. They stand for hours at their post, tirelessly watching the ladies who pass. Some of these young men struck me as looking rather thin and worn, as if they had overworked themselves. But I presume that they hold that it is better to wear out than to rust out.
There is a superb view of the Lombard plain from the castle which crowns the summit of Brescia. ”

“ I remarked.
"They make Brussels carpets here, don't they?" asked the American. "I always thought that Brussels carpets came from Brussels, and having a brother in the carpet trade, I felt some interested in the matter."
"But this isn't Brussels," said I. "It is Brescia."
"My friend told me this was Brussels, only the natives called it Brushia, just as they miscall all their towns. A nation that don't know the proper names of its towns don't amount to much, in my opinion. My friend knows Europe down to the ground. ”

“ Le préfect demeura dans le château Saint Ange avec son prisonnier; il le fit transporter un matin sur la place destinée aux exécutions, devant la porte du peuple. Arnaud de Brescia, élevé sur un bûcher, fut attaché à un poteau, en face du Corso. Il pouvoit mesurer des yeux les trois longues rues qui aboutissoient devant son echafaud; elles font presqu' une moitié de Rome. C'est là qu'habitoient les hommes qu'il avoit si souvent appelés à la liberté. ”

“ When he reached Brescia, he found that the Austrians had evacuated the town, though they still occupied the castle which frowns down upon it. This was the 23rd of March: Novara was fought and lost, Piedmont was powerless to come to the [Pg.143] assistance of the people she had commanded to rise. What was to be done? Plainly common sense suggested an honourable compromise with the Austrian commandant, by which he should be allowed to reoccupy the city on condition that no hair of the citizens' heads was touched. This is what Bergamo and the other towns did, nor are they to be blamed. ”

“ The fine dome is said to be the third in size in Italy; and the lofty interior of white marble, unspoilt by any colour or decoration, gains in space from the fact that there is but one bay to the nave, producing the effect on the senses that one is everywhere standing under the spacious height of Brescia's greatest landmark. The houses of the piazza outside are chiefly occupied by metal-workers, and those who know the incessant din produced by the tapping of their hammers, will quite understand that it was impossible to make a sketch of these two churches as they stand together. ”

“ Lewes's frequent malaise; for his cheerful nature is rarely subdued even by bodily discomfort. We saw only one place that we had not seen before—namely, Brescia; but all the rest seemed more glorious to us than they had seemed four years ago. Our course was to Venice, where we stayed a fortnight, pausing only at Paris, Turin and Milan on our way thither, and taking Padua, Verona, Brescia, and again Milan, as points of rest on our way back. ”

“ It was then that he passed into France, when Lewis the Seventh was ready armed to lead the Second Crusade to the Holy Land; and through that stirring time Rome is dark and sullen, dwelling aloof from Church and Empire in the new-found illusion of an unreal and impossible greatness. Seven hundred years later an Italian patriot exclaimed, 'We have an Italy, but we have no Italians.' And so Arnold of Brescia must many times have longed for Romans to people a free Rome. He had made a republic, but he could not make free men ”

“ From thence the patriot came to die.
Arnold de Brescia, the undaunted and eloquent champion of Roman liberty, after unremitting efforts to restore the ancient constitution of the republic, was put to death in the year 1155 by Adrian IV. This event is thus described by Sismondi, Histoire des Republiques Italiennes, vol. ii. ”

“ Brescia fell into Ezzelin’s hands, who, more powerful than ever, entertained designs upon Milan, where he had relations with the Ghibelline faction. When all danger seemed to him past,{228} however, there was a sudden revulsion of fortune. The Ghibelline chiefs of Lombardy, Uberto Pallavicino and Buoso di Dovara, lords of Cremona, had been in alliance with him; they had aided in the capture of Brescia, with the understanding that they were to share in its possession, but he had monopolized the conquest, and they were resolved on revenge. ”

“ Everywhere on his road multitudes assembled to see and listen to the man of God, and everywhere his miraculous powers manifested the authenticity of his mission. At Brescia he addressed an assembly computed at one hundred and twenty thousand souls, and, though walls and trees were broken down by the masses of men gathered thickly upon them, not a human being was injured. At the crossing of the River Sile, near Treviso, the party, with true Observantine austerity, had no money to pay ferriage, and the surly ferryman refused free transportation ”

“ Then they could grow wheat all over the country, and make big money. But you can't get any sense into an Italian. I know them all the way through, for we had gangs of them working on our new railroad last year."
I bade good-by to my acquaintance at the railway station. He was going on to Milan, and I was bound for Cremona. We parted in the most friendly way, and he thanked me warmly for having shown him Brescia, and said that if ever I came to Cyrusville he would show me a town worth seeing. ”

“ From Rome to Brescia is quite a long journey, via Milan, where one has to pass a night.
There was quite a big gathering at the reception of correspondents in the quaint little Town Hall where we assembled, as, in spite of the weeding-out process which had taken place in Rome, no fewer than forty-one papers were represented—twenty-six Italian, six French, seven English, and two Swiss.
As was to be expected, Italian journalism was widely represented. It had no less than twenty-six correspondents, and every town of importance in Italy appeared to have sent someone. ”