BAEDEKER says that Pisa has a population of twenty-seven thousand two hundred people and that it is a quiet town. It is. I caught the spell of a score of places like this as I walked out into the open square facing the depot1. The most amazing botch of a monument I ever saw in my life I saw here—a puffing2, swelling3, strutting5 representation of Umberto I, legs apart, whiskers rampant6, an amazing cockade, all the details of a gaudy7 uniform, a breast like a pouter-pigeon—outrageous! It was about twelve or thirteen times as large as an ordinary man and not more than twelve or fifteen feet from the ground! He looked like a gorgon8, a monster to eat babies, ready to leap upon you with loud cries. I thought, “In Heaven’s name! is this what Italy is coming to! How can it brook9 such an atrocity10?”
With the spirit of adventure strong within me I decided11 to find the campanile and the cathedral for myself. I had seen it up the railroad track, and, ignoring appealing guides with urgent, melancholy12 eyes, I struck up walled streets of brown and gray and green with solid, tight-closed, wooden shutters13, cobble pavements and noiseless, empty sidewalks. They were not exactly narrow, which astonished me a little, for I had not learned that only the older portions of growing Italian cities have narrow streets. All the newer sections which surround such modern things as depots14 are wide and supposedly up to date. There was a handsome trolley-car just leaving as I came out, a wide-windowed shiny thing307 which illustrated15 just how fine trolley-cars can be, even in Italy. I had learned from my Baedeker that Pisa was on the Arno. I wanted to see the Arno because of Florence and Dante. Coming from Ventimiglia I had read the short history of Pisa given in Baedeker—its wars with Genoa, the building of its cathedral. It was interesting to learn that the Pisans had expelled the Saracens from Sardinia in 1025, and destroyed their fleet in 1063 near Palermo, that once they were the most powerful adherents16 of the Ghibellines, and how terribly they were defeated by the Genoese near Leghorn in 1284. I pumped up a vast desire to read endless volumes concerning the history of Italy, now that I was here on the ground, and when it could not be done on the instant. My book told me that the great cathedral was erected17 after the naval19 victory of the Pisans at Palermo and that the ancient bronze gates were very wonderful. I knew of the Campo Santo with its sacred earth brought from Palestine, and of the residence here of Niccolò Pisano. His famous hexagonal pulpit in the Baptistery is a commonplace—almost as much so as the Leaning Tower. I did not know that Galileo had availed himself of the oblique20 position of the tower to make his experiments regarding the laws of gravitation until I read it in my precious Baedeker, but it was a fact none the less delightful21 for encountering it there.
Let me here and now, once and for all, sing my praises of Baedeker and his books. When I first went abroad it was with a lofty air that I considered Barfleur’s references to the fact that Baedeker on occasion would be of use to me. He wanted me to go through Europe getting my impressions quite fresh and not disturbed by too much erudition such as could be gathered from books. He might have trusted me. My longing22 for erudition was constantly great, but my willingness to burn the midnight308 oil in order to get it was exceedingly small. It was only at the last moment, when I was confronted with some utterly23 magnificent object, that I thumbed feverishly24 through my one source of supply—the ever-to-be-praised and blessed Karl Baedeker—his books. I think the German temperament25 is at its best when it is gathering26 all the data about anything and putting it in apple-pie order before you. I defy the most sneering27 and supercilious28 scholars and savants to look at these marvelous volumes and not declare them wonderful. There is no color in Baedeker anywhere, no joke, no emotion, no artistic29 enthusiasm. It is a plain statement of delightful fact—fact so pointless without the object before you, so invaluable30 when you are standing31 open-mouthed wondering what it is all about! Trust the industrious32, the laborious33, the stupendous, the painstaking34 Baedeker to put his finger on the exact fact and tell you not what you might, but what you must, know to really enjoy it. Take this little gem35 from page 430 of his volume on northern Italy. It concerns the famous Baptistery which I was so eagerly seeking.
The interior (visitors knock at the principal entrance; adm. free) rests on eight columns and four piers36, above which there is a single triforium. In the center is a marble octagonal Font by Guido Bigarelli of Como (1246) and near it the famous hexagonal PULPIT borne by seven columns, by Niccolò Pisano, 1260. The reliefs (comp. p.p. XXXIX, 432) on the pulpit are: (1) Annunciation and Nativity; (2) Adoration37 of the Magi; (3) Presentation in the Temple; (4) Crucifixion; (5) Last Judgment38; in the spandrels, Prophets and Evangelists; above the columns, the Virtues39.—Fine echo.
Dry as dried potatoes, say you. Exactly. But go to Italy without a Baedeker in your hand or precious knowledge stored up from other sources and see what happens. Karl Baedeker is one of the greatest geniuses309 Germany has ever produced. He knows how to give you what you want, and has spread the fame of German thoroughness broadcast. I count him a great human benefactor40; and his native city ought to erect18 a monument to him. Its base ought to be a bronze library stand full of bronze Baedekers; and to this good purpose I will contribute freely and liberally according to my means.
When I reached the Arno, as I did by following this dull vacant street, I was delighted to stop and look at its simple stone bridges, its muddy yellow water not unlike that of the New River in West Virginia, the plain, still, yellow houses lining41 its banks as far as I could see. The one jarring note was the steel railroad bridge which the moderns have built over it. It was a little consoling to look at an old moss-covered fortress42 now occupied as a division headquarters by the Italian army, and at a charming old gate which was part of a fortified43 palace left over from Pisa’s warring days. The potential force of Italy was overcoming me by leaps and bounds, and my mind was full of the old and powerful Italian families of which the Middle Ages are so redolent. I could not help thinking of the fact that the Renaissance44 had, in a way, its beginning here in the personality of Niccolò Pisano, and of how wonderful the future of Italy may yet be. There was an air of fallow sufficiency about it that caused me to feel that, although it might be a dull, unworked field this year or this century, another might see it radiant with power and magnificence. It is a lordly and artistic land—and I felt it here at Pisa.
Wandering along the banks of the Arno, I came to a spot whence I could see the collection of sacred buildings, far more sacred to art than to religion. They were amazingly impressive, even from this distance, towering310 above the low houses. A little nearer, standing on a space of level grass, the boxing of yellow and brown and blue Italian houses about them like a frame, they set my mouth agape with wonder and delight. I walked into Pisa thinking it was too bad that any place so dignified45 should have fallen so low as to be a dull, poverty-stricken city; but I remained to think that if the Italians are wise (and they are wise and new-born also) they will once more have their tremendous cities and their great artistic inheritances in the bargain. I think now that perhaps of all the lovely things I saw abroad the cathedral and tower and baptistery and campo santo of Pisa grouped as they are in one lovely, spacious46, green-sodded area, are the loveliest and most perfect of all. It does not matter to me that the cathedral at Pisa is not a true Gothic cathedral, as some have pointed47 out. It is better than that—it is Italian Gothic; with those amazing artistic conceptions, a bell-tower and a baptistery and a campo santo thrown in. Trust the Italians to do anything that they do grandly, with a princely lavishness48.
As I stepped first into this open square with these exquisite49 jewels of cream-colored stone pulsating50 under the rays of an evening sun, it was a spectacle that evoked51 a rare thrill of emotion, such as great art must always evoke52. There they stood—fretted, fluted53, colonnaded54, crowded with lovely traceries, studded with lovely marbles, and showing in every line and detail all that loving enthusiasm which is the first and greatest characteristic of artistic genius. I can see those noble old first citizens who wanted Pisa to be great, calling to their aid the genius of such men as Pisano and Bonannus of Pisa and William of Innsbruck and Diotisalvi and all the noble company of talent that followed to plan, to carve, to color and to decorate. To me it is a far more impressive and artistic thing than St. Peter’s in Rome. It311 has a reserve and an artistic subtlety55 which exceeds the finest Gothic cathedral in the world. Canterbury, Amiens and Rouen are bursts of imagination and emotion; but the collection of buildings at Pisa is the reserved, subtle, princely calculation of a great architect and a great artist. It does not matter if it represents the handiwork, the judgment and the taste of a hundred men of genius. It may be without the wildfire of a cathedral like that at Cologne, but it approximates the high classic reserve of a temple of Pallas Athene. It is Greek in its dignity and beauty, not Christian56 and Gothic in its fire and zeal57. As I think of it, I would not give it for anything I have seen; I would not have missed it if I had been compelled to sacrifice almost everything else; and the Italian Government has done well to take it and all similar achievements under its protection and to declare that however religion may wax or wane58 this thing shall not be disturbed. It is a great, a noble, a beautiful thing; and as such should be preserved forever.
The interior of the basilica was to me a soothing59 dream of beauty. There are few interiors anywhere in this world that truly satisfy, but this is one of them. White marble turned yellow by age is gloriously satisfying. This interior, one hundred feet in diameter and one hundred and seventy-nine feet high, has all the smooth perfection of a blown bubble. Its curve recedes60 upward and inward so gracefully61 that the eye has no quarrel with any point. My mind was fascinated by the eight columns and four piers which seemingly support it all and by the graceful62 open gallery or arcade63 in the wall resting above the arches below. The octagonal baptismal font, so wide and so beautiful, and the graceful pulpit by Pisano, with its seven columns and three friendly-looking lions, is utterly charming. While I stood and stroked the heads of these amiable-looking312 beasts, a guide who had seen me enter came in, and without remark of any kind began slowly and clearly to articulate the scale, in order that I might hear the “fine echo” mentioned by Baedeker. Long practice had made him perfect, for by giving each note sufficient space to swell4 and redouble and quadruple itself he finally managed to fill the great chamber64 with a charming harmony, rich and full, not unlike that of a wind-harp.
If I fell instantly in love with the Baptistery, I was equally moved by the Leaning Tower—a perfect thing. If man is wise and thoughtful he can keep the wonders of great beauty by renewing them as they wear; but will he remain wise and thoughtful? So little is thought of true beauty. Think of the guns thundering on the Parthenon and of Napoleon carrying away the horses of St. Mark’s! I mounted the steps of the tower (one hundred and seventy-nine feet, the same height as the Baptistery), walking out on and around each of its six balustrades and surveying the surrounding landscape rich in lovely mountains showing across a plain. The tower tilts65 fourteen feet out of plumb66, and as I walked its circular arcades67 at different heights I had the feeling that I might topple over and come floundering down to the grass below. As I rose higher the view increased in loveliness; and at the top I found an old bell-man who called my attention by signs to the fact that the heaviest of the seven bells was placed on the side opposite the overhanging wall of the tower to balance it. He also pointed in the different directions which presented lovely views, indicating to the west and southwest the mouth of the Arno, the Mediterranean68, Leghorn and the Tuscan Islands, to the north the Alps and Mount Pisani where the Carrara quarries69 are, and to the south, Rome. Some Italian soldiers from the neighboring barracks came up as I went down and entered the cathedral, which313 interiorly was as beautiful as any which I saw abroad. The Italian Gothic is so much more perfectly70 spaced on the interior than the Northern Gothic and the great flat roof, coffered in gold, is so much richer and more soothing in its aspect. The whole church is of pure marble yellowed by age, relieved, however, by black and colored bands.
I came away after a time and entered the Campo Santo, the loveliest thing of its kind that I saw in Europe. I never knew, strange to relate, that graveyards71 were made, or could be made, into anything so impressively artistic. This particular ground was nothing more than an oblong piece of grass, set with several cypress72 trees and surrounded with a marble arcade, below the floor and against the walls of which are placed the marbles, tombs and sarcophagi. The outer walls are solid, windowless and decorated on the inside with those naïve, light-colored frescoes73 of the pupils of Giotto. The inner wall is full of arched, pierced windows with many delicate columns through which you look to the green grass and the cypress trees and the perfectly smooth, ornamented74 dome75 at one end. I have paid my tribute to the cypress trees, so I will only say that here, as always, wherever I saw them—one or many—I thrilled with delight. They are as fine artistically76 as any of the monuments or bronze doors or carved pulpits or perfect baptismal fonts. They belong where the great artistic impulse of Italy has always put them—side by side with perfect things. For me they added the one final, necessary touch to this realm of romantic memory. I see them now and I hear them sigh.
I walked back to my train through highly colored, winding77, sidewalkless, quaint-angled streets crowded with houses, the façades of which we in America to-day attempt to imitate on our Fifth Avenues and Michigan314 Avenues and Rittenhouse Squares. The medieval Italians knew so well what to do with the door and the window and the cornice and the wall space. The size of their window is what they choose to make it, and the door is instinctively78 put where it will give the last touch of elegance79. How often have I mentally applauded that selective artistic discrimination and reserve which will use one panel of colored stone or one niche80 or one lamp or one window, and no more. There is space—lots of it—unbroken until you have had just enough; and then it will be relieved just enough by a marble plaque81 framed in the walls, a coat-of-arms, a window, a niche. I would like to run on in my enthusiasm and describe that gem of a palace that is now the Palazzo Communale at Perugia, but I will refrain. Only these streets in Pisa were rich with angles and arcades and wonderful doorways82 and solid plain fronts which were at once substantial and elegant. Trust the Italian of an older day to do well whatever he did at all; and I for one do not think that this instinct is lost. It will burst into flame again in the future; or save greatly what it already possesses.
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1
depot
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| n.仓库，储藏处；公共汽车站；火车站 | |
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puffing
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| v.使喷出( puff的现在分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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strutting
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| 加固，支撑物 | |
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rampant
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| adj.(植物)蔓生的；狂暴的，无约束的 | |
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gaudy
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| adj.华而不实的；俗丽的 | |
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gorgon
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| n.丑陋女人，蛇发女怪 | |
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brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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atrocity
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| n.残暴，暴行 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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depots
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| 仓库( depot的名词复数 )； 火车站； 车库； 军需库 | |
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illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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adherents
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| n.支持者，拥护者( adherent的名词复数 )；党羽；徒子徒孙 | |
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ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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oblique
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| adj.斜的，倾斜的，无诚意的，不坦率的 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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feverishly
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| adv. 兴奋地 | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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sneering
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| 嘲笑的，轻蔑的 | |
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supercilious
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| adj.目中无人的，高傲的；adv.高傲地；n.高傲 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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invaluable
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| adj.无价的，非常宝贵的，极为贵重的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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painstaking
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| adj.苦干的；艰苦的，费力的，刻苦的 | |
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gem
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| n.宝石，珠宝；受爱戴的人 [同]jewel | |
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piers
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| n.水上平台( pier的名词复数 )；（常设有娱乐场所的）突堤；柱子；墙墩 | |
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adoration
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| n.爱慕，崇拜 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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benefactor
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| n. 恩人，行善的人，捐助人 | |
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lining
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| n.衬里，衬料 | |
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fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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renaissance
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| n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴 | |
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dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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lavishness
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| n.浪费，过度 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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pulsating
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| adj.搏动的，脉冲的v.有节奏地舒张及收缩( pulsate的现在分词 )；跳动；脉动；受（激情）震动 | |
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evoked
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| [医]诱发的 | |
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evoke
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| vt.唤起，引起，使人想起 | |
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fluted
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| a.有凹槽的 | |
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colonnaded
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| adj.有列柱的，有柱廊的 | |
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subtlety
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| n.微妙，敏锐，精巧；微妙之处，细微的区别 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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wane
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| n.衰微，亏缺，变弱；v.变小，亏缺，呈下弦 | |
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soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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recedes
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的第三人称单数 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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arcade
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| n.拱廊；(一侧或两侧有商店的)通道 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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tilts
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| （意欲赢得某物或战胜某人的）企图，尝试( tilt的名词复数 ) | |
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plumb
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| adv.精确地，完全地；v.了解意义，测水深 | |
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arcades
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| n.商场( arcade的名词复数 )；拱形走道（两旁有商店或娱乐设施）；连拱廊；拱形建筑物 | |
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Mediterranean
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| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
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quarries
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| n.（采）石场( quarry的名词复数 )；猎物（指鸟，兽等）；方形石；（格窗等的）方形玻璃v.从采石场采得( quarry的第三人称单数 )；从（书本等中）努力发掘（资料等）；在采石场采石 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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71
graveyards
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| 墓地( graveyard的名词复数 )； 垃圾场； 废物堆积处； 收容所 | |
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72
cypress
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| n.柏树 | |
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73
frescoes
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| n.壁画( fresco的名词复数 )；温壁画技法，湿壁画 | |
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74
ornamented
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| adj.花式字体的v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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75
dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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76
artistically
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| adv.艺术性地 | |
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77
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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78
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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79
elegance
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| n.优雅；优美，雅致；精致，巧妙 | |
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80
niche
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| n.壁龛；合适的职务(环境、位置等) | |
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81
plaque
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| n.饰板，匾，(医)血小板 | |
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82
doorways
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| n.门口，门道( doorway的名词复数 ) | |
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