Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1884-05-15
LISA.



Few travellers journeying toward,
Rome along the railway that border,
the lovely coast line of the Riviera ms.
the old City of Pisa without pausinr
there to View its noble buildings. There
is hardly any building the form q
which has been made so familiar "a n,
by models and representations AS m.
Capanile or leaning Tower of Pisa. and
| few travellers gaze upon it for the firs,
me without feeling that they are bul
| looking at an object which they have
been familiar with from youth. But
most people are not aware that this re-
markable structure is only feature Of
a combination of buildings, which fol
| beauty and historic interest stand nm.
rlyaled, and the stranger who enters
the famous piazza for the first time
where the tower, the beautiful Duomo
the dome-like Baptistrv and the solemn
and peaceful Campo Santo," or bury,
ing ground, are grouped together can
not fail to be struck with surprise and
delight ut the wonderful sight. Stand
ing in silent grandeur, in what has fitly
been called Sacred corner" apart
from all other buildings and habita.
tions, and distinct in character from
Their surroundings, they seem to form
city of their own, and to awake in the
mind of the spectator profound sense
of the great past.
This was eminently my experience as
stood on the piazza ono GLORIOUS
moonlight night in the month of De-
cember.
was travelling to Rome and had ar
rived at Pisa by late train intending to
rest here and resume my journey
on the following morning The night
was surprisingly lovely, q night that
indeed seemed, as Byron says, mot
sent for slumber"-soft and still as
had imagined Italian nights to be,
with the full moon shining clear and sill
very from q cloudless sky in the white
marble palaces and the stone-fagged
roads, bathing the city in marvellous
beauty. Tempted by the glory of the
scene wandered through the old city,
through quaint, narrow streets, dark
ened here and there by deep shadows,
over the marble bridge spanning the
Arno river and on to the Piazza, where
the venerable monuments of Pisa's an
Gent wealth and pride remain.
Flooded with the divine light, and
standing alone in the great square,
amid stiffness that was profound,
they seemed like specters of the mighty
past rising before us. Whilst decay is
written everywhere else about this old
city, this piazza and these great build
ings have changed in nothing, 1t
seemed but natural to expect the great
Italian astronomer Calico to come
fortA on such night, and those grand
old masters who once paced here, but
whose footsteps now are "echoing
through the corridors of time" Who
treads this square to-day may go back
in thought hundreds of years and pic
ture the gorgeous pageants of ecclesi-
astical pomp and military splendor
that must have been celebrated
around this Cathedral when Pisa was
the gateway of the East, and her colo
nies of commerce existed in Greece and
Asia Minor. Here came the people in
their splendid professions to obtain the
holy church's benediction when Pisa
equipped her mighty fleet of ships and
assembled her brave warriors fer the
crusade, and when from warlike expe-
ditions against Turks and Genoese the
Pisans returned, crowned with victory,
it was to this Piazza the exultant citi-
zens focked to celebrate their triumphs.
Full of such pictures of the past
could but muse and be still.
About the city ''Ichabod' is every
where written.
Every monuent the stranger meets,
Church, palace, pillar as a mourner greets."
Yet time has not dealt cruelty with
her. Her ancient ways are quiet and
her once thronged and busy squares
now green with grass. The Arno flows
peacefully through her. as of old, to the
sea. Her white palaces are still fair to
behold, and every scholar and lover of
art who visits her must feel that Pisa is
lovely and beautiful in her old age
Cor. Detroit Free Press.