When I engaged my place in the diligence from Verona, I was told, that as we had to perform a journey of eighty miles in the day, it would be necessary to start at two o’clock in the morning; but we did not actually set off till a quarter before four, and arrived at Vicenza at ten at night. My companions were two Germans, an Irishman, an Italian lady, and a Venetian woollen draper. The elder German valued himself highly on his wealth, and boasted of the riches of some of his countrymen. He declared that one house at Vienna had recently gained thirty millions of francs in the space of three months; he also contended that there were many foreigners who could speak French better than the French themselves, and I have no doubt he thought himself one of the number. He spoke English pretty well, and talked Polish to two Polish soldiers who escorted us; but he was what would be called in Italian, ‘un gran seccatore’: AnglicÈ ‘a bore.’ In the journey from Milan to Verona, we had passed the dead horse of a courier, who had been robbed the night before. I do not know whether it was on this account that we were provided on the present occasion with an escort, which seemed to my English notions rather a ridiculous one. Our two guards were mounted in a sort of gig, and as their horse could not keep pace with ours, they were continually quarrelling with the postillions for driving too fast; and yet our pace on the road could hardly exceed five miles per hour.

Verona is a handsome city. Vicenza looks miserable; yet there is an astonishing number of well designed houses, many of which are of very fine architecture; and even those which do not deserve that praise, from their number, and the richness of their ornaments, would produce a great appearance of magnificence in the city, if they were well kept up; but they appear forlorn, neglected, and half uninhabited. If you ask your way in the streets, you are answered with the greatest civility, but your informant expects a few centimes for his trouble; and you are surprised to find yourself addressed by people of polished manners, and who, though not well dressed, have all the appearance of having seen better days, asking if they can do any thing for you, and proffering their services to shew you the remarkable things in the city, in the hopes of obtaining a piece of one lira.^[34] The money in this part of Italy is very puzzling; the Milanese lira is worth seventy-six centimes, or about sevenpence halfpenny English, and they sometimes tell you the price in these, and sometimes in francs. A bookseller told me the price of his books in boards, in francs; but if bound, I was to pay an additional sum in Milanese lire. At Verona, I met with a good deal of Venetian money, but the reckoning was always by francs and centimes. At Vicenza, you are told the price of every article, in Venetian lire and soldi. The Venetian commercial lira is an imaginary money, divided like the French into twenty soldi. The proportion it bears to the French is as twenty to forty-one; but in smaller transactions, it is considered half a French franc. The actual coins however, have no simple relation with this imaginary money, and though almost all of them have the nominal value inscribed, yet this serves only to mislead. Thus there are coins marked half a lira, which instead of twenty-five centimes, are current for only twenty-one and a half; others of fifteen soldi, worth twenty-nine centimes; of one lira worth twenty-five centimes; another coin marked as one lira, passes for forty-four centimes. One lira and a half worth sixty-six centimes, two lire worth fifty centimes. With a mode of reckoning so perplexed, it would be easy to cheat a foreigner, yet I have no reason to suspect that they have ever been given me for more than their current value. The standard of morals may be lower in some countries than in others, but there always must be a standard of some sort not generally transgressed. A man here, who would demand without any scruple as much again as the least sum he intended to accept for his goods, would scorn to deceive in the reckoning.

My object in stopping at Vicenza was to examine the buildings of Palladio, the first of modern architects; but we have no name in architecture which stands on the same unrivalled eminence as that of Raphael in painting. Palladio’s buildings are in general very beautiful; but most of them are at present in a very forlorn condition. The fronts and even the columns are of brick, the entablatures of wood; and the stucco, with which both have been covered, is peeling off. I am aware that this statement of their materials, may lessen your respect for the palaces which make so fine a display on paper; but the circumstance does not diminish the merit of the architect, though it does the magnificence of the city. Palladio’s columns are mostly mere ornaments; but in contemplating his buildings, it is impossible to feel this to be a fault. The sculpture which loads the pediments of the windows is certainly ill placed; and still worse, is the little panel of bas-relief so frequently introduced over the lower windows; dividing what ought to be one solid mass, into two miserably weak arches. What is it then that pleases so much, and so universally, in the works of this artist? It seems to me to consist entirely in a certain justness of proportion, with which he has distributed all the parts of his architecture; the basement being neither too high nor too low for the order above it; the windows of the right size, and well spaced; and all the parts and proportions suited to one another. The same excellence is found in his orders, and the relation of the columns, capitals, entablatures, &c. He has not adopted the theoretical rules of another, but has drawn them all from what he felt to be pleasing to himself, and suited to his own style of art; but they are not good, when united to a more solid and less ornamental manner. I must, at the risk of being tedious, particularize some of his most remarkable buildings.

I. The Basilica; this is published pretty correctly by Leoni, except that the roof is not surrounded by a balustrade. Here we have an example, though in the adaptation of an old building, of the merits and defects of the architect; the result is rich and harmonious; although, without the greatest nicety of tact, the composition is such as would have been displeasing. Yet to obtain this composition, he has rather gone against, than complied with, the arrangement of the anterior building. The columns are independent of the real or apparent strength of the edifice, and Palladio intended they should be so, for he has made the entablatures break round them. In this he was right; had the architrave been continued in a straight line, the columns would have become essential, and the great space between them would have produced an appearance of debility. The great roof is not his fault; but as the point of sight is near, it is never so offensive in fact, as in the published elevations. Internally, the lower part is a market, the upper a great hall, which is not handsome. Each intercolumniation of Palladio is opposed to two arches of the original work. I suspect he would have produced a finer building, if he had followed the old plan; but I am better pleased that he did not, because the present forms a more singular disposition, and shews what may be done when the spaces are large.

II. The Palazzo Capitanale is not published by Leoni, but it is to be found in the first volume of Scamozzi’s work. The composition of the front, if completed, would have exhibited a range of eight half columns, comprehending two stories in height. The openings of the lower story are large arches, including almost the whole intercolumniation. Above the order, is an attic. The effect is rich and magnificent, chiefly, I believe, from the solidity and bold relief of the parts. On examination, one cannot but severely condemn the cutting the architrave by the windows; not merely judging by rule, but by the effect. In its present state, the brick columns, the stucco of which is half peeled off, have a forlorn and desolate appearance; yet the colouring thus produced is not bad: what displeases is merely the associated character of poverty and ruin. At the end is an elegant doorway, ornamented with a smaller order.

III. Fabbrica Conte Porto al Castello. This fragment is by some attributed to Palladio, by others to Scamozzi; but the latter disclaimed it, and it appears to me to be Palladian. Whoever was the architect, we may certainly pronounce it a noble design, although a very small part has been executed, and that fragment is nearly in ruins. It would have consisted of a range of Composite columns placed on high detached pedestals, and these on high double plinths. The lower range of windows reaches to the top of the pedestal; the second range, in the spaces between the columns, is much larger than the others; the upper windows are in the frieze; these latter have certainly a bad appearance, and the situation of the lower range is not free from blame; but in these cases, where the order is merely ornamental, their want of perfect correspondence with the apparent internal work is of less consequence than might be imagined.

IV. Palazzo Tiene al Castello. The architect of this is said to have been the proprietor, Count Marc Antonio Tiene, the cotemporary and friend of Palladio, from whom, no doubt, he has largely borrowed. Scamozzi seems to have completed it. It consists of two orders, Corinthian and Composite, and an attic; the lower order is partly rusticated, and an impost moulding contracts the heads of the windows, which are square; this pleases me very well; but the thin flat arch over them, the sunk panel, and then another thin flat arch, are very objectionable. The upper windows are smaller at top than at bottom, but the diminution is slight, and the first time I passed the house I did not observe it; altogether the building is very beautiful. The back consists of an open colonnade of two orders, closed at each end; the middle intercolumniation is wider than the others, and has some masonry and an arch within it; this variation seems to be introduced merely to spoil the composition. The front has eight columns in each story; the back ten.

V. You pass through a triumphal arch to a long covered gallery, which leads up a hill to the church of Sta. Maria del Monte. This arch is simple and elegant, imitated in some degree from that of Titus at Rome. It is crowned with a ridiculous little lion, and the angels represented on the spandrils have too much projection; but these are not essential to the architecture. The gallery is remarkable for nothing but its length: no ingenuity is displayed in overcoming the ill effects of sloping architecture.

VI. The original church of Sta. Maria del Monte, was small and of pointed architecture; but a large new part has been added, in the form of a Greek cross, which internally is very beautiful. What was once the length of the old church, is thus become the breadth of the whole building, and the altar has been removed from the recess in the end of the former building, to a place which was the middle of one of its sides. They do not pay so much attention in Italy to the eastern position of the altar as we do in England. The situation of Vicenza is very pleasant; an agreeable mixture of hill and plain, with rugged mountains at some distance, and I suppose the snowy Alps beyond these, but the clouds have prevented me from seeing them. The situation of the church commands very noble views of these rich and varied scenes; and a fine natural terrace, which forms part of the same hill, and along which I walked in my way to the Rotonda, presents them perhaps in still greater perfection.

VII. The Rotonda. This is certainly Palladio’s design, and must have been nearly completed by him, though Scamozzi lays claim to the honour of terminating it with some alteration; what this alteration was is not known. I willingly attribute to him the internal cornices of doors, chimneys, &c. which are heavy and inharmonious. It is published by Leoni, but not correctly, as the centre rises in successive frustra of depressed cones, and there is no external appearance of a dome. Externally, it partakes of the desolate condition of every thing at Vicenza, but still it is exquisitely beautiful, and the situation, at the extremity of a point of hill advancing from the general line, is no less delightful; no other position could have suited the house so well, and no other house, either larger or smaller, or with any other arrangement, would have been so well adapted to the situation. Internally, it is equally admirable; it looks small, even more so than it really is. This is probably owing to the preposterously massive ornaments about the doors. The rooms form altogether one suite of apartments, four of which are intended for bed-rooms; but this, in the system of Italian manners, would be no objection to their being all thrown open to receive company; and here, whatever may be the time of day, you are sure of shade, air, and beautiful scenery. It would be difficult to accommodate the design to our climate and manners, without spoiling it, even if we should find for it a suitable situation. In this most essential particular, the three imitations which we have, are all remarkably deficient.

VIII. Palazzo Valmarana. This has been published with sufficient correctness in Leoni’s Palladio. It is a handsome edifice, and would be more so, if the angles were better supported, but the small pilaster and figure over it, instead of the pilaster of the larger order, are as displeasing in reality as in the drawings; and the change in the size and number of the windows in the adjoining divisions, is equally reprehensible. The mouldings of the lesser order project beyond the pilasters of the larger, and if the panels of sculpture over the lower windows were somewhat narrower, they would have a better shape themselves, and the greater space over them would be an advantage. In other respects the proportions are excellent, and the distribution at once beautiful and uncommon. The total absence of windows in the height of the pedestal, I take to be a great advantage.

IX. Palazzo Trissino. This is probably one of the best works of Vincenzo Scamozzi, and it is a noble edifice, though it wants something of that undefinable grace of proportion we admire in Palladio, and it stands in so narrow a street, that one can hardly judge of it fairly. It has a range of nine windows on the principal floor, with intermediate pilasters doubled at the angles; but the change of design in the three middle divisions, the high unmeaning arch of the centre, and the double pilasters separating the centre from the wings, are so many defects. In the ground-floor, the large central arched opening is too reasonable to displease.

X. Palazzo Barbarano. Palladio has given this design with seven openings in the range; two more have since been added, and I do not know that the composition has been injured, except that the doorway is no longer in the centre. It is overloaded with ornament. The sprawling figures over the pediments of the windows, the husks which run down on each of the openings, and the trophies in the lower story, ought all to be taken away: with these exceptions in the decorative parts, the composition is excellent, and presents in its unbroken entablatures a simplicity not usual in the Palladian architecture. The house said to be that of Palladio, but which in fact was built by Sr. Pietro Cogolo, does not much please me, and I shall therefore not describe it to you; it is doubtful even whether Palladio was the architect.

XI. I am almost inclined to pass over the Palazzo Chiericati in the same manner. The inosculating columns at the angles of the centre, displease every body: a greater failure in point of effect arises from the architect having filled up the centre spaces of the upper colonnade; its solidity is so offensive where all the rest is open, that no pleasing impression can be produced by the building.

XII. Palazzo del Conte Orazio da Porto. This was designed by Palladio for a Conte Giuseppe Porto, and great part finished by him; but the whole design has never been completed. There are arches above the windows of the basement, larger than the openings below, and the lines not being continued downwards, they have an unmeaning appearance; and it would be better if the figures and husk ornament, which are added to the middle and extreme windows, were omitted. These are very trifling defects; and for every thing else, the building is one of the most correct of Palladio’s designs, and is in the highest degree graceful and pleasing.

XIII. I will not trouble you with criticisms on other palaces, where there is nothing particularly beautiful to render them objects of study; but pass on to the Olympic Theatre, which is too celebrated to be omitted, though as far as my own taste is concerned it might have slept in oblivion. The outside of this edifice, it having been erected on a contracted and irregular piece of ground, does not claim any attention. The scene, which is the part most admired, borders upon trumpery. It consists of two orders and an attic, has clustered columns and pilasters, and breaks upon breaks, and abounds in figures and bas-reliefs. The finish against the ceiling is low and poor. The author wished apparently to give the appearance of a building terminating in an attic, and meant that the ceiling should entirely disappear; and if the latter were kept of a uniform dead colour, this by candle-light might perhaps have been the case; but the idea has not been preserved, for the ceiling is gilt and painted. In the middle avenue a very considerable effect of distance is obtained; those on each side, opening into the middle, are nearly lost; those of the second openings on the right and left, look pretty well from certain points of view; the end ones are failures. I saw it however only by daylight, and with some partial shadows, very injurious to its effect. It is remarkable, that the point of sight is lower than it would be on the lowest seat, which is three or four feet above the stage. The seats are most inconveniently narrow, and nearly as high as they are wide. The colonnade above the seats is beautifully proportioned; but the centre division has been filled up in consequence of want of room, and this is very injurious to its beauty. The row of statues at the top seem in danger of knocking their heads against the ceiling, and offer another proof that this was not intended to be conspicuous: they would be very much in the way of any spectators in the gallery.

The Gothic architecture of Vicenza is of little value. The church of Sta. Corona is perhaps the best edifice of the middle ages. The church of S. Lorenzo is now a barn. The front of the Duomo is a very ugly mixture of different styles: the inside is a single nave, of great width, to which neither the height nor length is in proportion. It is nearly 60 feet between the pillars, which are placed against the wall. They all belong to that sort of pointed architecture which prevailed during the thirteenth century, in this part of Italy, and of which I have given you the church of Sta. Anastasia, at Verona, as one of the finest examples.

From Vicenza I proceeded again in the Diligence to Padua. The weather continues bad, but you may walk about this city in rain or sunshine, as the footways are mostly under arcades. It is a damp, gloomy town, with narrow streets, and no leading one; and three or four squares, but all of them small; unless you except the Prato della Valle, which is a fine open space, but cannot properly be called a square; and though within the walls, seems rather out of the town than in it. Verona is said to contain 45,000 inhabitants, Vicenza 30,000, Padua 44,000; they are probably all overrated.

The great wonder-worker, St. Anthony, takes his name from this city, where he died; although he was born at Lisbon. His miracles, indeed, put all other saints to the blush; and so great was the impression made by them, that he was canonized within a year of his death, and in the following year (1232) preparations were made for erecting an immense church in his honour. Political events suspended the execution, and no material progress was made till 1259. In 1307, the whole was finished except one cupola, and the internal work of the choir; which was not perfected till 1424. It is 326 English feet long, 160 feet wide in the transept, and 128 feet high in the domes internally. The front is 128 feet long, and 93 feet high. These dates and dimensions are taken from a little book of two hundred and thirteen pages, entitled, “Il forestiere istruito delle meraviglie e delle cose piÙ belle che si ammirano internamente ed esternamente nella basilica del grantaumaturgo S. Antonio di Padova,” and which, among the relation of inscriptions, miracles, relics, processions, and indulgences, does contain a page or two about the building. The dimensions do not agree perfectly with the apparent proportions, and I suspect the length is rather underrated, even if we suppose it not to include a circular building behind the choir, which is called the sanctuary, but which forms no part of the original structure. The architect of the front is said to have been Niccola da Pisa, and Milizia attributes to him the design of the whole building. It is a vast pile, of uncommon ugliness in every part; exhibiting seven domes, a small octagonal tower above the gable of the front, (my book says there are four small towers) two high octagonal towers near the choir, and a lofty cone in the centre, surmounted by an angel. The internal architecture is hardly superior to the exterior; but it is so odd, and so complicated, that it would require a very long description to make the arrangement understood, and it really is not worth it. Bad as it is, it has evidently afforded many hints towards the much admired church of Sta. Giustina. The shrine of the saint is as splendid as gold and marble can make it: the architect was Sansovino, and the lower part, which is a range of five arches, supported on columns, is good; but the top is overloaded with a double attic. The most sober architect takes some license in these small productions, and is more lavish of ornament in them; and it is probable that the eye requires more play of line, and more richness of detail, than where the impression is helped out by the mass of the edifice; but the architects of the north of Italy have run too much into ornament in their houses; how much more then are we likely to find in their monuments? Sansovino preceded Palladio, and may perhaps dispute with Sanmicheli the second place; both are superior to Scamozzi, whose name is so much better known in England. There are two bronze panels by Riccio (Andrea Crispo Briosio detto il Riccio) in this church, which are very fine. The figures are numerous, and there is a great deal of character and variety in the heads both of men and horses. There is also a magnificent bronze candelabrum by the same artist.

One of the Gothic buildings which struck me most at Padua, was the church of the Eremitani; but rather for the effect of light than for architectural beauty. It is a simple room, without columns or pilasters, and a wooden roof, of no merit. The original light seems to have been a small western circular window, but two side windows have been made since, which were perhaps necessary, but which injure the effect. The walls are adorned with altars, though without recesses: at the end is an apsis or recess for the high altar, which has three very small windows of its own, and this, and the altar itself, are rich with painting and gilding. The pleasing effect of this church suggested to me the idea that a large room like a church might be lighted altogether from one end, and I am convinced it would be highly beautiful. A room 30 feet long, 10 feet wide, and 15 high, is well lighted by a window at the end 4 feet wide, and 8 feet high, and a room of ten times those dimensions, viz. 300 feet long, 100 feet wide, and 150 feet high, would be equally well or better lighted by a window 40 feet wide, and 80 feet high; and it might be larger than this if necessary. The doorway might be under the window, the walls not naked, but with some simple ornament; but the altar and the parts about it should be rich and splendid; a single light, and a single object, are two great advantages.

In the Baptistery, and in the church of the ‘Arena,’ the principal objects are the paintings of Giotto and Giusto; and in the productions of the latter, the relief is very perfect, in spite of the gilding with which as usual in that age, the pictures abound. The Palazzo di Ragione is boasted of as the largest room in Europe without columns; it is about 80 feet wide, and 240 feet long, but what is very singular, not rectangular. The roof is sustained by multitudes of iron ties.

The church of Sta. Giustina is of brick; the external stone casing of the front not having been executed. The outside is almost as ugly as that of St. Anthony, rising up in a number of cupolas, and with one high tower. The first architect was Padre D. Girolamo di Brescia, and the foundations were begun in 1502, but the soil was so loose and marshy, that little progress was made. One hole in particular was so large and deep, that it swallowed up all the materials prepared for the whole edifice. The work, therefore, was suspended till 1521, when it was resumed on a different design, but so as to make use of the old foundations. This was the work of Andrea Crispo, an architect of Padua; and the building was finished in seventy years. The whole length, internally, is 367 geometrical^[35] feet. The nave is 182 feet long, 35 feet wide, and 82 feet high; the aisles 19 feet wide, and 41 high. The transept is 252 feet long, 39 wide, and 82 high. The piers of the nave are 12 feet square; the whole width of the nave and side aisles is therefore 97 feet, and the chapels are 30 feet long, 20 feet wide, and 40 feet high. The height here attributed to the side aisle is that of the arches connecting the piers of the nave with the side walls, for the disposition is rather that of a series of vaulted recesses opening into the nave, and nearly as high as that is, and communicating with one another by lower arched openings, than a continued aisle. The first thing that struck me was the whitewash, and it is wonderful how much this empty glare can spoil the effect of the finest building. After the first impression of this had passed off, I admired with the rest of the world. The excellence of the building consists, I think, in the great space between the piers, equal to the width of the nave, and the loftiness of the side arches. Two little chapels open into each of the recesses forming the side aisle. These are badly managed, and the details are execrable; but the general disposition has an appearance of space and airiness, which is very magnificent.

The cathedral is a large church of Grecian architecture, built of brick, but intended to receive a stone front, which has not been executed. The plan might be said to consist of two Greek crosses, one beyond the other, of which the farthest from the entrance is the largest. It wants unity.

I rambled by chance into the church of La Madre Dolente. The first part is an oblong room, with a small cupola in the centre rising on four columns; you pass across this, to the inner part of the church, which is circular, and covered with a larger dome, in which groins are made to unite with the arch of entrance, and with those of four semicircular side chapels; in the middle of the room are eight columns, supporting a circular lantern above the dome: the altar stands in the centre; the effect is pleasing, but it would be better if this lantern were larger, and the avenue of approach longer.

The building of the University is one of the show-things of Padua, but it hardly surpasses mediocrity. I went to see the tomb of Antenor, which may be an ancient sarcophagus, but it is placed under an arch of the middle ages, and has a black-letter inscription. I inquired for the house of Livy, but it is destroyed, and for a collection of petrifactions of Vandelli, but they are dispersed.

I did not mention to you the Palazzo Gazzola at Verona, which, however, well deserves commemoration; not for its architecture, but for its contents. It has some good paintings, but its great attraction is the magnificent collection of fossil fishes. The French obliged Count Gazzola to sell to them the finest objects in his possession; but the museum has gained by it instead of losing, for the Count had recourse to the mountain, and procured finer specimens than he ever had before. There is one three feet nine inches long, but not perfect; several quite perfect above three feet long, and the position of the fins and bones shows that the shape has not been destroyed by compression.

I am no connoisseur in paintings; but the quantity of good pictures is so immense, and so scattered in every place, that it is impossible to travel in Italy without attending to them. I have already mentioned many names which are here highly esteemed, and have yet little reputation among us. At Verona and Vicenza, besides Titian and the other great masters of the Venetian school, we meet with admirable paintings of Marone Caroto, Felice Brusasorci, Giolfino, &c.; but here, as everywhere else in Italy, many of the paintings which attract attention are more curious for their antiquity, than valuable for their beauty. The Last Judgment, by Titian, in the town-hall at Vicenza, is said to contain thirteen thousand visible heads, besides a multitude of invisible ones. Walking one day in the church of S. Rocco, I observed a Virgin and Child behind the altar, to which I did not go up, because I took it for one of those painted figures we frequently see in Italian churches; but revisiting the church on another occasion, I discovered that it was an early painting by Bonconsigli, whose perfect relief had thus deceived me. In the church of the Eremitani, in this city, is a beautiful John the Baptist, by Guido, which would have deceived me equally had I not previously known it to be a picture. An exquisite Madonna and Child by Titian, in the sacristy of the cathedral here, produced a similar effect; but I apprehend no merit in the painting is sufficient to give this perfect appearance of relief, unless assisted by a peculiarly favourable light. I do not however mention these as the finest productions I have seen, but merely for this peculiarity. If I once began to descant on the different paintings, I know not where I should conclude; and the observations of one with so little experience, would after all be worth nothing.