The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1859-12-01
WASHINGTON D. C.
For the National Era
A PALACE IN GENOA.
BY EDWARD SPENCER.
"
La Scala.

"Itsly sits tlegacaly dreaming her ruins, and
when she times suddenly awakened by the MELODY
and springs wildly up, this sudden inspiration
due TO the song itself but rather the ancien,
ores and feelings which the song has awakened-h
Iay has ever borne in her heart and which might
lily gush fIrh."-Hsnry Heinss Rsise5iider
Let my reader give himself no alarm this
book is not an Itinerary; the author has no
purpose of entering into competition with " Muir
ray nor of contesting public favor with Brad
shaw" Equally is he free from any intention
of setting forth, in mournful numbers" the
black plumage, heavy talons, and ruthless tenn
per, of that imperial bird,
"Qu, per piu devorare,
Porta due becchin
That is a political matter entirely, and, as such,
is left to the discussion of pamphleteers and
the correction supposed to lie perdu in I" Des
Hees Napoleonniennes." The objects of my
book are purely artistic: the evolution of GER
tain characters, the dramatic progress of Ger.
tain events, and the psychological phenomena
induced Ito use scientific term) by the recip-
rocal interaction of these characters and these
events.
Still, it is impossible for scenes to be laid and
circumstances to transpire in g at Palace in
Genoa without having something to do with
Italy and Italian life and scenery-the more so.
as, in this particular history, as the sequel will
set forth, there is decided reflex action of this
" fit haunt for gods upon the personages we
have selected for portrature. So far forth,
then, as is necessary for the proper understand
Of ,nH 80 tolr Il,
tiers, We must depict Italy and its people, and it
shall be our endeavor not to let the process fas:
cinate us, and betray Us into extraneous writing,
or any word-use that may have the effect to mar
the artistic proportions and unity of our story.
So much of preliminary explanation seems to
have been required, in order that our purposes
and method shall not be misunderstood.
The two days which our friends gave to Mi
Ian were busily employed, we may readily
conjecture, when SO much life, health, and
curiosity, combined to waken them into motion.
There were the Brera and Ambrosiana, with their
wealth of art to be inspected; the latter, with
its MSS, its drawings by da Vinci, Michel An
gelo, and its hair of Lucrezia the former, with its
precious "Sposalizio of Rafael. its old fres-
Goes of the days of Luini, its Titians, Guidos,
Tintorets, Giorgiones, Schidones, and, above
all, its grand pathetic /" Hagar," from the pen
ell of Guercino. These and the churches seen,
Merivale dragged them off to study the Duomo,
that famous cathedral which has been depicted
in every school geography, from Matte Brun
and Morse, down TO Mitchell, and-what is the
last favorite of the Pedagogic Hierarchy? We
shall not speak of what they saw and felt, but,
with a single brief sentence from the pen OF
the lamented Wallace:
"This cathedral is not the child of law and
calculation, but of nature and love, and its
glowing beauties catch a higher, warmer color
from those instincts of feeling which gushed
into forbidden union for its creation 1t is
monster, perhaps, according to the botany of
architecture, but it is like the peerless and per-
feet rose, which passes out Of the family of or
der, only TO become the queen over all orders /;
and we may grant pardon to a deviation which
works out an affluence of charms that bewilders
the mind in admiration, and makes faint the
sense with delight all of which is perhaps
only polite way Of calling the Duomo of Mi
Ian pne of those handsome bastards, which have
recently elected the encomiums of Nj. de Iii
rardin, because they possessed innate power IN
themselves to overcome circumstance-with
which crltique, We say, and the charitable sup
position that our friends saw the Duomo en-
tirely from the crystalvested troop" three
thousand strongly who mount guard upon its
pinnacles, to the silver shrine in its vaults,
where San Carlo Borromco plays the part of
Argus, sceptre in his skeleton hand, crown
by the famed Benvenato upon his CHASTITY
Skull-we dismiss the Cathedral of Milan.
But not even the famous Duomo so impress
ed our travellers as did scene from the life,
which they witnessed that night at the world
renowned {" La Scala" Opera House. 1t was
a scene from the life, have called it, and it
taught them that the stupid Austrian eagle,
with its tesla foedeschd - two of them,
rather-not only fully renewed, but eXagger-
ated all that tradition has handed down about
the venomous tyranny of the Visconti viper. 1t
the Visconti were tyrants, also they were
Italian. and took some pride in their Milan.
They did not wave an eternal black flag over
the people, crying 4" death, death !" They pat
ronized Art-it was Galeazzo of that family
begun the Cathedral-it was Ludovico of that
family invited da Vinci to his Court, and thus
laid the foundation of the Milanese academy
and Of Lombard art. But the iron heel OF these
white coated gentry permits none of this. They
crush them down deeper and deeper into the
miro, scoffng at their pale pain-marked fea-
lures rejoicing when they writhe a little. Time
was, and not so very long since, when the foe
generous, comparatively; not forty years
ago. when Reignier was Archdnke, and Bubna
ruler in Milan, some generous deeds were
dOne-aye let us put ii on record that an Aus
TRAN general in Milan has been known to tear
up list of eight hundred of the disatfected, re-
fusing to know theml Be it known also that
that general, Bubna, was applauded In La
Scala for the act. But that was before 1851
before Metternich had discovered, to his dis
may, that the snake was scotched, not killed.
Times changed, and since then the Milanese
have been treated as Milo exercised himself
the Crotona calf grew into a mighty bull-the
Milan handouts have been converted into
sighty-pound leg-irons, Mantuan watervaults,
Venetian oubliettes, or dungeons, ninety feet
under Spielberg.
Say the whtecoats, /" Shall we suffer them
to amuse themselves? Why, no; then they will
grow active, strong, able to resist. III they turn
sculptors, it brings back memories; and, besides,
marble-chips are ugly weapons in an en'e"te, OF
which We have forty per annum. If they paint,
We must concede> them colors, and out of these
they can mock US, and inhame themselves with
the cursed tri-color. Decidedly, we must write
down All kinds of Amusement in the Index
ProhibitOrius for Milan" And so, with bay.
onet at every throat, spy in every house, q
curse in every heart, and the "deep damna-
ton of these ever-present whitecoats scken-
ing every eye, Milan sits waiting for-the judg-
ment
Yet one amusement they have, which White.
coat dared to cut them of from-and that is,
music. They have been robbed of their art
they have been robbed of their drama Alferi
wild son of genius and freedom, is a forbidden
name; Gozzi and Goldoni are expurgated and
pruned, and only the Fdntoccini are not un
strung from their wires. But they have left to
Milan her music and her La Scala, and in the
opera and tho hallaf canfras the very heart O