Tuscan order

“ Of the manifold charms of Tuscany, perhaps there is none so great or so enduring as the charm of manner peculiar to its rural population. Frank without being free, deferential but never servile, not without a fine reserve yet with never a touch of shyness, withholding not a certain tribute to social superiority, while tacitly intimating the fundamental equality that appertains to human brotherhood, the demeanour and speech of Tuscan contadini keep intercourse perpetually fresh, and impart to conversation on the tritest and most familiar themes perennial liveliness and interest. ”

“ The tenacity with which the Tuscans still maintain their claim to these vases, and to the style of ruins found at Pæstum, with every sort of evidence against them, is a curious exemplification of the character of that people. A Tuscan cannot bear to give up any thing which appears to make for the honour of his country. ”

“ But in Tuscany, for many generations, a spirit of free discussion has existed among the educated classes: the reforming spirit of Ricci has never died in the capital of Tuscany, and the memory of Leopold protected the freedom of thought: a sudden and a new value has been given to that prepared state of the Tuscan mind by the existence of free institutions in Piedmont. Giusti will no longer need to traverse the frontier of Italy in search of a printer. With free discussion in two of the Italian states, Milan will not be deaf, nor Naples without a whisper. ”

“ The Tuscan revolution had cost no drop of blood—not so much as a bloody nose—to any human being thus far, and there was no danger whatever that any violence would be shown to the departing and totally unprotected prince. ”

“ The modern life of a decayed branch of the Tuscan nobility in the nineteenth century, the process and method of its decadence, the charm of "a local habitation and a name," once identified with the vital power of the old republic, and the sad, effeminate, yet not unromantic sentiment incident to its passing away, through the prosperous encroachments of new men, with whom money is the power once only attached to birth, are most aptly described. The thrifty farmer of the Apennine, and his slow and handsome son, are capital types of the frugal and shrewd fattore and rustic proprietor of Tuscany ”

“ But gallantry while it sits well upon a man, does not make him one, any more than a feather makes the cap it adorns. For a Tuscan he hath also a certain comeliness, but then I have ever sworn, in good faith too, that I would not marry a Tuscan, were he the best made man in Italy. ”

“ The Tuscans voted annexation to Italy, it is said—not to Piedmont. With Rome unity, without it none. Does the unity of Italy mean the domination of Turin? Are we to accept from the most barbarous portion of Italy laws which are sent down to us written in a jargon which cannot even be called Italian? Tuscany is being fleeced by men so greedy of every little gain, that they supply all the royal offices with paper made only in Piedmont, in order that Piedmontese paper-mills may reap the benefit. ”

“ They are mountaineers, a strong race. At pallone one day, I saw muscles "all a-ripple down the back," arms and shoulders, which would have intoxicated the great old "amatore del persona" himself. For their vivacity, it is racial; I think all Tuscans, more or less, retain the buoyant spirits, the alertness as of birds, which crowned Italy with Florence instead of Rome or Milan. Tuscan Art is a proof of that, and Tuscan Art can be studied at its roots in Pistoja: you see there the naked thing itself with none of the wealth of Florence to make the head swim. ”

“ Indeed, not a fact or trait of modern Tuscan life seems to have escaped the author's vigilant observation and patient record; the life of the effete noble, the frugal citizen, the shrewd broker, the pampered, ecclesiastic, the peasant, and the artist is revealed with the most precise and graphic detail. We are taken to the promenade and the caffè, to the piazza and the church, to the farm-house and the palazzo; and there we see and hear the actual everyday intercourse of the people. ”

“ The Tuscans are pleased with the birth of an heir to the Dukedom, first because the succession is likely to be kept in a good sort of a family, and secondly because for want of male children it would have reverted to the House of Austria, and the province would have been governed by a foreigner. I am glad of it, also, for the sake of the poor Tuscans, who are a mild people, and if they must be under a despotism, deserve to live under a good-natured one. ”

“ From the very beginning they are strong, but sullen. Solidity and power, rather than beauty and grace, are what they aim at; and in this, Michael Angelo was a true Tuscan. If we look at the massive old Etruscan buildings, the Cyclopean walls of Fæsulæ and Volterræ, with their gigantic unhewn blocks, or the gloomy tombs of Clusium, with their heavy portals, and then at the frowning façade of the Strozzi or the Pitti Palace, we shall see in these, their earliest and latest terms, the special marks of Tuscan architecture. ”

“ The Government prohibited his statement, and all Florence read it. The well-known hatred of the priests to the Bible has been its best recommendation in the eyes of the Tuscans. Thus the Government finds that it cannot move a step without inflicting deadly damage on its own interests. Its interposition is fatal only to the cause it seeks to help. To prohibit a book is to publish it; to bring a man to trial is to give liberty an opportunity of speaking through his advocate; to cast a confessor of the Lord Jesus into prison is but to erect a light-house amidst the Tuscan darkness. ”

“ There is a certain feudality of feeling, if I may so speak, among Tuscan servants. They identify themselves with a family, and like to remain in its service. It is a common custom among Italians to remember their servants in their wills, and it is an ambition which the true unsophisticated Tuscan servant always acknowledges, to remain many years with the same master. It is curious to hear how, after a man or woman has been a certain time in a situation, he or she always speaks in the first person plural as regards all the belongings of the family. ”

“ Every type, indeed, is represented in that long, single street at night—the dark-haired Jewess, the classic Greek, the thick-lipped Tunisian, the pale-cheeked Armenian, and the beautiful Tuscan, the purest type of beauty in all the world.
Once again, after several years, I heard, as I walked onward, the soft sibilations of the Tuscan tongue about me, the gay chatter of that city of sun and sea, where, although half the population is in a state of semi-starvation, hearts are still as light as in the days when "cara Livorno" was still prosperous. ”

“ But in this land the Genius of the place delights only to dwell in the hearts of the poor. They are the true Tuscan nations, and in spite of governments they remain the salt of the earth and the heirs of all that is good in it. ”

“ In all Carrara and the valley of Torano I saw no beautiful or distinguished faces,—the women were without sweetness, the men a mere gang of workmen. Now, common as this is in any manufacturing city of the North, it is very uncommon in Italy, where humanity has not been injured and enslaved by machinery as it has with us. You may generally find beauty, sweetness, or wisdom in the faces of a Tuscan crowd in any place. Only here you will see the man who has become just the fellow-labourer of the ox. ”

“ Tuscany is the only part of Italy where the downfall of Napoleon was not regretted; the inhabitants of Leghorn indeed rejoiced at it, for the commerce of Tuscany being chiefly maritime, Leghorn suffered a good deal from the continental system. Leghorn in fact decayed in the same proportion that Milan and other inland cities rose into opulence.
The character of the Tuscan people is so amiable and pacific that crime is very rare indeed. Murder is almost unknown and the punishment of death is banished from the penal code. Where the government is good, the people are or soon become good. ”

“ Proceeding to remind him of different conjunctures in which the Florentines had testified their good will towards him, he observed to his illustrious correspondent, that whenever the administrators of the Tuscan republic had engaged in hostilities against him, they had not been prompted to take up arms by the ambitious hope of extending their territories, but by a determination to defend their liberties. “And if,” said he, “liberty ought to be dear to any people, it ought to be dear to the Florentines; for freedom is the very essence of our constitution. ”

“ All Italians agree in praise of Tuscan. Yet I only employ it for such matters as I do not choose to transmit to posterity. Moreover, even that Tuscan idiom is hardly current throughout Italy, while Latin is far and wide diffused throughout the habitable world." From this interesting epistle we gather that even professional scholars in the middle of the fifteenth century recognized Tuscan as a quasi-literary language, superior in polish to the other Italian dialects, but not to be compared for dignity and durability with Latin. ”

“ So while the towns of Lombardy were leaguing together boldly to defend the most cherished interests of independence, the little Tuscan republic was only busy extending her territory, and increasing at the expense of her neighbours, she was already the cunning Florence of the fifteenth century, for whom egoism is the fundamental principle of politics. ”

“ Tuscan then demanded what he would do. He said they would travel towards the sea, plant a new colony, and defend it by their valor; and when they could find a ship, either driven by stress of weather, or guided by Providence that way, they would seize it, and make it a prize, till it had transported them to their own countries: at least they should be made free in his kingdom, and be esteemed as his fellow-sufferers, and men that had the courage and the bravery to attempt, at least, for liberty; and if they died in the attempt, it would be more brave than to live in perpetual slavery. ”

“ Therefore in writing, I believe it is proper to use Tuscan words used only by the ancient Tuscans, because that is great proof and tested by time, that they are good and effective to express the sense in which they are used. And besides this, they have that grace and venerableness which age lends not only to words, but to buildings, to statues,, to pictures, and to everything that is able to attain it, and often merely by their splendour and dignity they make diction beautiful, by virtue whereof (and of grace) every theme, however mean it be, can be so adorned as to merit very high praise. ”

“ His table is provided by the Tuscan ambassador; a servant obeys his slightest nod; he sleeps in the luxurious apartment of the fiscal of that dreaded body; he is even liberated on the responsibility of a cardinal; he is permitted to lodge in the palace of the ambassador; he is allowed time to make his defence: those holy Inquisitors would not unnecessarily harm a hair of his head. Nor was it probably their object to inflict bodily torments: these would call out sympathy and degrade the tribunal. ”

“ He seemed a good fellow, quite frank, and possessing that easy-going, careless manner of the true Tuscan, which never deserts him even when in circumstances of direst poverty. Your true son of the Tuscan mountains looks at the bright side of everything; a child in love, a demon in hatred, over-cautious with strangers, but easy and tractable in everything. I chatted to him for some twenty minutes, at the end of which time I resolved that he should assist me further in my investigations.
I told him how I had only arrived from Italy a few hours ago, and he grew at once excited. ”

“ Tuscany belongs to the Italian states, which were unsuccessful in their struggle for liberty in 1848, and is now, as I have heard from experienced men, more than formerly subjected to the caprices of the government. This government is neither loved nor obeyed from love, but rather from fear,—therefore imperfectly. Nevertheless the present Grand Duke is a mild, rather than a severe ruler, and Tuscany, during the latter half of this century, has variously advanced in the direction which is the peculiar excellence of our time. ”

“ Now, Tuscan religion has in all times been specially influenced by the peculiarly gloomy tinge of the Tuscan character. It has always been a religion of fear rather than of love; a religion that strove harder to terrorize than to attract; a religion full of devils, flames, tortures, and horrors ”

“ And when, after prolonged opposition, he had resigned himself to accept Don Carlos as his successor, the latter led a Spanish army to the conquest of Naples, an event afterwards leading to the peace of 1735, by which the Tuscan succession was transferred to Francesco II., duke of Lorraine, and husband of Maria Theresa. Giovan Gastone was finally obliged to submit even to this. ”

“ Spain withdrew her garrisons from Tuscany, and Austrian soldiers took their place and swore fealty to the grand-duke on the 5th of February 1737. He expired on the 9th of July of the same year. Such was the end of the younger branch of the Medici, which had found Tuscany a prosperous country, where art, letters, commerce, industry and agriculture flourished, and left her poor and decayed in all ways, drained by taxation, and oppressed by laws contrary to every principle of sound economy, downtrodden by the clergy, and burdened by a weak and vicious aristocracy. ”