Mrs. G. Gretton

Description of the Palazzo—An English family, though Italian born—Complimentary visits of the Anconitan nobility—How they pass their time—Dislike to country walks—Modern Cavaliere Servente.

Our arrival apparently had been expected, for two or three half-naked, black-bearded porters or facchini, who had acted as our running-footmen from the gate, now shouted, as soon as they came within hearing, that the Nipote del Signor Carlo was come; and instantly there was a rush made by some boys who were lounging before the inn in the direction opposite. Meanwhile, a bevy of waiters flung open the door, and with many bows assisted us to alight, saying that Signor Carlo had apprized them we were coming, and that rooms were ready for the lady and her daughters. By this, I began to comprehend that Signor Carlo must mean my uncle, Mr Charles D——, whom I was not prepared to hear so unceremoniously designated; but before I had time to speculate further on this peculiarity, the person in question made his appearance, attended by a complete staff of small boys and porters, who at once broke out in furious altercation with those they found already enrolled in our service. My uncle seemed perfectly at his ease amidst this uproar, tucked my arm under his, saw my boxes transferred to the shoulders of three or four sturdy, strong-limbed facchini, stamped and raved at some of the most refractory, and then observing that we should be late for dinner, and that my cousins were impatient to see me, hurried me up an almost perpendicular ascent—an alley of steps, in fact, strewed with mouldy orange-peel and broken earthenware, which led to a street of scarcely wider dimensions, with lofty dingy houses on each side, that seemed nodding towards each other, and produced an unpleasant sense of suffocation. My uncle told me, with a smile, that this was quite the West-end of Ancona, where some of the first families resided. The Palazzo, of which he rented a large portion, was amongst the best; and the entrance, a large court with arcades, and a broad stone staircase, carried me back again to visions of Italian splendour. My cousins came running down to receive me, followed by the servants, who all, male as well as female, pressed forward to kiss my hand, and called me Eccellenza.

It was all very novel and amusing, and I was quite delighted with the appearance of the house, through the centre of which ran a spacious and lofty hall, upwards of fifty feet long; the walls were painted in fresco by Pellegrino Tibaldi, and the ceiling was richly gilt and emblazoned with the arms of the Farnese family, by one of whom the palace had been built nearly three centuries ago. Opening from this, and in strange contrast with its stately appearance, was a large drawing-room, fitted up in the English style with books, pictures, and other indications of female occupancy and accomplishments. It was like a fireside scene of home transplanted to this distant land, and as much a marvel to me as the thoroughly English accent, appearance, and manners of the family amongst whom I found myself for the first time.

My cousins had been born abroad, and nursed by Italian women, waited on by Italian servants, had blossomed into girlhood without ever visiting England, or knowing it but as the land of their pride, their aspirations, their religion, and their love. It was curious to witness, in this out-of-the-way old place, such genuine feeling and enthusiasm; and, stranger still, to understand by what spell so strong a veneration for the unseen fatherland had been infused into their very being, as to prevent their taking root or binding themselves by strong bonds of affection to the country in which their lot seemed cast. And yet they were not kept from intercourse with the natives; on the contrary, I found them here moving in an exclusively Italian circle, looked upon with sincere respect and esteem by all of whom it was composed, and treated with an unvarying kindness it is pleasant to recall.

On the next and following days, several ladies, acquaintances of the family, came to call upon me, and in the evenings most of the gentlemen came to pay their respects in form to the new-comer; so that, aided by a few hints from my cousins, I was soon quite au fait as to the leading tastes and characteristics of my present associates. What struck me most at first, was their excessive ceremoniousness and formality. I never had before seen such courtesies and bows exchanged, or could have deemed it possible that rational beings could endure to hear themselves addressed, or address each other so unceasingly by their titles, as did the principi, marchesi, and conti by whom I was surrounded. Then the observance of certain rules of etiquette was laughable in the extreme—it seemed to be an understood thing that the mistress of the house, on the departure of any lady-visitor, should offer to accompany her to the door. This politeness was to be refused, then insisted on, still remonstrated against; and so on, till the contested point being reached, the visitor should retreat with a gentle pressure of the hand, and a profound reverence. Amongst the ladies, I perceived I was surveyed with a good deal of interest on account of some fashionable novelties in my wardrobe. One lady took up my dress, and after looking attentively at its texture, asked me what it had cost, and whether I thought she could send for one like it from Florence. I found out afterwards this was meant to be a great compliment to my taste, and that the loan of a new pattern for a dress or mantle was looked upon as an inestimable benefit.

The conversation did not seem very brilliant—and yet, after all, what is ladies' morning-visit prattle at the best? I think it was as good as some it had been my lot to hear in a more brilliant sphere. They talked of the weather, and the opera there would be after Christmas—we were still in October!—and of their children. Yes, let us do them justice there. I do not think more maternal love and anxiety and tenderness can anywhere be found than in the hearts of Italian women. To say truth, however, this affection so extended itself to the minutest particulars, that I grew rather tired of hearing how such a baby was suffering with his first teeth, or of the apprehensions entertained for another with the measles, or the difficulty of providing a wet-nurse for a third, and his mamma's grief at being debarred from undertaking that office herself, particularly when I found these little incidents to be as much discussed by the gentlemen in their evening-visits as any other topic; in fact, the accuracy with which they spoke on such matters, and their extended medical details, were sufficiently singular and amusing.

The plan of society seemed thus constituted: during the day, the men lounged at the cafÉ, played a game at billiards, or read such newspapers as the severity of the police allowed them at the casino, and generally concluded by strolling a little way beyond the gate I have described on my entrance into Ancona. The ladies did not, in general, go out every day; but when they did so, it was to pay visits, or dawdle about the street where the principal shops were to be found. In some families of the very old rÉgime, however, or in some of the strict ones of the middle class, it would not have been thought decorous for the female members to be often seen abroad, and an hour's airing at an open window towards the Ave Maria, or dusk, was considered as a substitute for daily out-door exercise. I do not know what an English sanitary commission would have said to this custom, could they but have tested the pestilential atmosphere which the Anconitan belles smilingly inhaled, as, leaning on some old damask drapery, consecrated from time immemorial to this purpose, their glossy hair wreathed in rich plaits around their classically-shaped heads, their dark eyes beaming with excitement, they watched every passer-by, and often from one glance or gesture laid the foundation of more passion and romance than it were fitting in these sober pages to record.

On Sundays and festas there was of course the mass in the morning, which furnished to the women a great opportunity for dress and display, particularly at one of the churches, where the best music was to be heard, and the fashionables usually congregated. But there was nothing comfortable in their way of going to church, if I may use the expression. You never saw husbands and wives, and their children, all walking in pleasantly together. The men would have been laughed at for such a conjugal display; and hence those who went at all, went by themselves; and of these, how many had any serious purpose in their hearts, save keeping well in the jealous eyes of the government and priests, or fulfilling some appointment, or whiling away half an hour by listening to the best airs of Ernani or the Lombardi adapted to the organ, I should be unwilling to hazard a conjecture. In the afternoon, the promenade outside the gates was crowded, and four or five very antiquated-looking equipages drove slowly up and down the dusty road, forming what an old count very complacently designated to us, “Il Corso delle Carrozze.”

Our acquaintances could not comprehend our taste for long country-walks, and used to wonder what inducement we could find every day for rambling over the hills and cliffs that rendered the neighbourhood really beautiful.

“Heavens!” said one little contessa, “I should die of the spleen”—this was a very favourite newly-introduced term with them—“if I saw nothing when I went out but the sky, and sea, and trees. What can you find to amuse you?... It is so melancholy! And then that Jews' burying-ground you are so fond of!”

This was a most singular spot, remote, undefended, spreading over the summit of a cliff that rose abruptly to a great height above the sea; but so grand in its situation, in the desolate sublimity which reigned around, in the reverential murmur of the waves that washed its base, that it was one of our favourite resorts.

It was in vain to explain to her our admiration; she shook her head, and went on: “That burying-ground—to be amongst so many dead Jews!”

“But we must all die like them,” urged one of my cousins; “and it is good for one to be reminded of these things sometimes”—

“Pardon me,” interrupted the lady, with a slight shudder; “but that is such an English idea! Oh, that terrible death! why talk or think about it?”

“How strange this terror is that so many people feel,” rejoined I; “it must come upon all of us sooner or later. Nay, if the prognostications of many thinking men in this age are to be relied upon, we are not far from the end of the world.”

The poor lady absolutely turned pale, as she cried out: “Oh, pray do not talk so—you make me miserable! Besides,” she said, recovering herself a little, “I have been told that in the Bible it is expressly said that for seven years before that dreadful day no children are to be born; and that gives me comfort; for, at every fresh birth I hear of, I say to myself—well, the seven years at least have not begun yet!”

So the ladies of Ancona, with not more than one or two exceptions, being all participators in this wholesome dread of retired walks, and the reflections likely to be induced thereby, idled away their time in the manner I have described, with the aid of a little crochet or fancy-work; or, amongst the most studious—they always call reading study—the translation of a French novel, until the evening, which brought with it its usual conversazione. Every lady received at her own house some half-dozen gentlemen or so, who were unvarying in waiting upon her, whether she held her levee at her own house, or in her box at the theatre; nay, so unfailing was their attendance, that if indisposition confined her to her bed, you were sure to find them assembled round it, making the societÀ as pleasantly, and in as matter-a-fact a way as possible. As they all dined early, the evening commenced betimes, soon after six in winter, and went on till midnight, all dropping in at different hours, some early, some late, according to the number of their habitual engagements. In general, every one had at least two or three families where he was expected to show himself every evening; and from a long course of habit, each house had its own hour assigned to it. Many of these intimacies had subsisted for twenty, nay, even thirty years, without any perceptible variation in the usual tenor of intercourse; they always kept up the same ceremony, the same old-fashioned, laborious politeness; assembled in the same half-lighted, comfortless saloon, and sat and talked; lamented the good old times, and grew grey together.

It was an odd, disjointed sort of life for white-headed men to lead, particularly when they had houses and families of their own where they could have passed their evenings, instead of toiling up two or three sets of stairs, and making their bow to two or three sets of people, before they could think of returning to their own roofs to supper and to rest. When I write of Italians and their dwellings, I avoid using the word home, for it would be strangely misapplied. They do not know of the existence of such a blessing as that most beautiful term of ours implies; neither, to say truth, would they appreciate it in their present imperfect views of domestic life.

It may be asked whether, in these coteries, there was not usually one more distinguished by the lady's preference than the rest; and in many instances this was no doubt the case, although by no means so invariably as in former generations. Where such a partiality did exist, it was not apparently noticed or commented upon by the others, but accepted as a matter of course—as a proceeding whose harmony it would have been invidious to disturb. The cavaliere, in general, paid a visit every day—not, however, to chocolate and the toilet, as old-fashioned novels have it, but about one o'clock, to communicate the fashionable intelligence, offer his opinion on some new dress or piece of millinery, give bon-bons to the children, and perhaps accompany the husband to the stable, to discuss the merits of a new horse or set of harness.

I was told of one old lady who had entered her three-score-years-and-ten, still served with the same homage by her veteran cavaliere as she had imperiously exacted some forty winters before. All her contemporaries had died but himself, and he was the last that remained of her societÀ, which had no attractions for younger visitors. And so they used to sit in the evening opposite each other, a lamp with a dark shade diffusing an uncertain light upon the time-worn room and faded hangings; both half-blind, deaf, and helpless, nodding drowsily at each other, holding little earthen baskets filled with fire, called scaldini, in their trembling hands; yet still, from force of habit, keeping up this semblance of conversation till eleven struck, when the old man's servant came to fetch him, and wrapping him in a large cloak, led him carefully to his own house.

Happily, we did not have regular conversazioni at my uncle's; as he was a widower, and my cousins unmarried, it would not have been thought correct. We used only to have occasional visitors in the evening, or else invited the good people regularly to tea—which, though never appearing at their own houses, yet they fully appreciated at ours; and played whist, and had a little music, and did our best to amuse them, our exertions being fully repaid by the good humour and sprightliness of our guests.