Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-02-07

ment The great sewer has a breathing hole
in the Forum excavation that is satisfactory
so far as it goes. 1t must smell very much
as it did in the grand days of old; but the
celebrated source of pure water from the
Apennines vanished from my longing eyes.
have confessed to arriving in Rome at
night 1t was my resolution to make
amends by departing in the daytime, and I
did SO, with instructions how to see the
arches that are such colossal evidence of the
talent and sense of the Romans; but not an
arch materialized.
Glimpse of Italy in December.
1t was difficulty to find Italy so noun
famous. There was no place for broad
fields and many OF the mountain sides were
unpromising 1t was pleasing to see that
the trees have been largely saved. They
had the tinge of an October American mood,
much faded, and grown ashen. The villages
were not large and prosperous in style.
There were occasionally old wells of the
futter-wheel style, Sycamore trees dis
PLAYED their whiteness, and were pleasing
reminders of the watercourses of the Ohio
Valley. There were not many frownlng
castles on the ragged rocks, but a'few eI-
traordinary picturesque features. Wherever
there was chance, there was good work
done in farming. No spot appeared where
to the soil.
The panorama of the country grew broader
and brighter. The Tiber was dissipated,
lost in an arrav of bitches, and it was hard
to distinguish whether they were for drain
age or irrigation. They were bitches with
water and bitches dry; roads sunken and
roads elevated, and endless deep furrows
like sweet potato rows; and dotting the
plain everywhere dwarfish trees trimmed
until from q stem to u feet high, were
flung out from q knot from four to eight
gnarled, distorted arms, each nearly as thick
as the parent stem, and on each tree vine
was twinina 1 ought to know what kind
of trees those were and what kind of grapes
grew on those vines, and what grain or
vegetables were raised between those rows
of trees, trimmed to deformity and clssped
in vines. / make acknowledgment of ignor-
ance, however. I asked several persons
who had the surface indications of intelli-
genee, and they knew rather less than
thought 1 did.
The Artichose Is Commendahle.
Cesar must have marched with his legions
over the white straight road through these
peculiar plantations l did ascertain that
in some places there were rice fields, and in
others corn Was raised, and in others arti-
chokes. Speaking o. artichokes, l remen-
Der Inab Joe UcueEsOH OHCc sdlu vi bIc
pompino, favorite Southern fish, that it
was the shad after it had been translated
and gone to heaven, leaving the worst of its
bones in the translation. One should say of
the italian artichoke that it is not the
pricklv burr with trife of good eating in
the center that we endure in America, but
it is a tropical. tender and exalted turnip,
that is cut in delicious slices and melts in
the mouth.
Some of the trees are merely vine-sticks,
and it is true economy that the supports of
the vine should grow, and not rot, but
furnish crop Of twigs. Others of the trees
are mulberries, and furnish the food for the
silkworm. There could be no more perfect
cultivation than plain, either drained or
irrigated, covered with trees trimmed for
supports for fruitful vines, and bearing their
burdens; while between the vine-clad trees
are grains and grasses and vegetables. The
only thing lacking is that the trees should
bear fruit, and some of them do. In the
steep places the olive orchards shine and it
is astonishing when tree that is a phenom-
enon of knots is cut for fuel what fine fire
the knotted branches make. The more
crooked and ugly they are the better they
burn, that is, the longer the6 radiate flames
and heat.
A City of High Art
It was a December evening in Florence,
whose beautiful fame is fairly her own. We
remember of Genoa, Pisa and Venice that
they were the prey of ambitious men and
remorseless party and provincial spirit; that
their affections were municipal and their
ambition aristocratic; that the few schemed
and the many worked and fought for them;
that glory came and liberty perished; that
riches took wings and few away, and that
good names were lost in the general wreck
The history of Florence has in it the same
turbulence and pursuit of the broad roads
that lead to death; but all this seems more
remote and less important in her case This
is not so much the Florence of the factions,
where Calico was imprisoned and Savona-
rola burnt, where Dante was baptised and
assailed and deifed, or even where Victor
Emmanuel set up his kingdom when he
came down from Turin and tarried few
years on the way to Rome, and the Pan
theon, as it is the city where art is en-
throned and the supremacy of artistic
affairs acknowledged, always greatly and
now entirely.
Dante, Michael Angelo and Raphael are
the monarchs, and their reign is never over;
they are elected by universal suffrage, to-
day, tomorrow, evermore. We come to see
Florence, not to study it; to worship art,
lot to know it; to enjoy the eternal, not to
consume it; and have days, not years, for
observation and contemplation. We must
find the features and get the favor and take
flight from the banks of the Arno, as from
those of the Tiber. Blue mountains are
tumDled against the sky around US. The
Arno runs between massive walls provided
for its restriction, and seems quite a pris-
oner. 1t grows wild, though, in its noun
tain Businesses, and often RACES to the Med
iterralean, scofing the fetters of Florence.
The David of Michael Angelo
The first street begins to tell the story of
the city. The windows set forth the Tuscan
tales of genius and achievements in the
artistic, refining away the august seventies
of Greece. Here is the beautiful profile and
long hair and pensive eyes of Raphael; the |
grim features of Michael Angelo, with his
broken nose, and a sneer in his wrinkles st |
the worshipers of the personal loveliness of
the slip Of boy, Raphael, who dared to dis |
pute with him the highest place-with him |
who held pen and pencil and chisel with |
equal aptitude and power. We have seen |
his mighty Moses in Rome. the steady eyes |
following the spectators with the god-like |
calm of serene sovereignty; and here is his |
David, in which youth becomes not only |
heroic, but gigantic, alert, far-seeing; the |
force is supple, the pose graceful, the coun- |
tenance conscious of kingly destiny.
But Raphael was the STRIPPING David that |
came in the days of Michael Angelo to |
overcome giants, the pupil whose decora- |
tive work displayed such traits that he |
stalked away from the swarm of vain |
striving young men and walked at once
among the masters. Angelo and Raphael |
were here together, and each probably had |
his views and ways, his loves and dislikes, |