Letters from Switzerland and Travels in Italy · Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
PALERMO.
And so it has actually turned out! During the night the most violent of showers have fallen. In the morning I set cut very early in order to be an eye-witness of the marvel. The stream of rain-water pent up between the two raised pavements had carried the lightest of the rubbish down the inclined street, either into the sea or into such of the sewers as were not stopped up, while the grosser and heavier dung was driven from spot to spot. In this a singular meandering line of cleanliness was marked out along the streets. On the morning hundreds and hundreds of men were to be seen with brooms and shovels, busily enlarging this clear space, and in order to connect it where it was interrupted by the mire; and throwing the still remaining impurities now to this side, now to that. By this means when the procession started, it found a clear serpentine walk prepared for it through the mud, and so both the long robed priests and the neat-booted nobles, with the Viceroy at their head, were able to proceed on their way unhindered and unsplashed. I thought of the children of Israel passing through the waters by the dry path prepared for them by the hand of the Angel, and this remembrance served to ennoble what otherwise would have been a revolting sight--to see these devout and noble peers parading their devotions along an alley, flanked on each side by heaps of mud.
And now as we reached the heights beyond Mon Reale, we saw wonderfully beautiful districts, but tilled in traditional rather than in a true economical style. On the right, the eye reached the sea, where, between singular shaped head-lands, and beyond a shore here covered with, and there destitute of, trees, it caught a smooth and level horizon, perfectly calm, and forming a glorious contrast with the wild and rugged limestone rocks. Kniep did not fail to take miniature outlines of several of them. [Sidenote: Alcamo.] We are at present in Alcamo, a quiet and clean little town, whose well-conducted inn is highly to be commended as an excellent establishment, especially as it is most conveniently situated for visitors to the temple of Segeste, which lies out of the direct road in a very lonely situation. * * * * * _Alcamo, Thursday, April_ 19, 1787. Our agreeable dwelling in this quiet town, among the mountains, has so charmed us that we have determined to pass a whole day here. We may then, before anything else, speak of our adventures yesterday. In one of my earlier letters, I questioned the originality of Prince Pallagonia's bad taste. He has had forerunners and can adduce many a precedent. On the road towards Mon Reale stand two monstrosities, beside a fountain with some vases on a balustrade, so utterly repugnant to good taste that one would suppose they must have been placed there by the Prince himself.
After passing Mon Reale, we left behind us the beautiful road, and got into the rugged mountain country. Here some rocks appeared on the crown of the road, which, judging from their gravity and metallic incrustations, I took to be ironstone. Every level spot is cultivated, and is more or less prolific. The limestone in these parts had a reddish hue, and all the pulverized earth is of the same colour. This red argillaceous and calcareous earth extends over a great space; the subsoil is hard; no sand underneath; but it produces excellent wheat. We noticed old very strong, but stumpy, olive trees. Under the shelter of an _airy_ room, which has been built as an addition to the wretched inn, we refreshed ourselves with a temperate luncheon. Dogs eagerly gobbled up the skins of the sausages we threw away, but a beggar-boy drove them off. He was feasting with a wonderful appetite on the parings of the apples we were devouring, when he in his turn was driven away by an old beggar. Want of work is here felt everywhere. In a ragged toga the old beggar was glad to get a job as house-servant, or waiter. Thus I had formerly observed that whenever a landlord was asked for anything which he had not at the moment in the house, he would send a beggar to the shop for it.
However, we are pretty well provided against all such sorry attendance; for our Vetturino is an excellent fellow--he is ready as ostler, cicerone, guard, courier, cook, and everything. On the higher hills you find every where the olive, the caruba, and the ash. Their system of farming is also spread over three years. Beans, corn, fallow; in which mode of culture the people say the dung does more marvels than all the Saints. The grape stock is kept down very low. Alcamo is gloriously situated on a height, at a tolerable distance from a bay of the sea. The magnificence of the country quite enchanted us. Lofty rocks, with deep valleys at their feet, but withal wide open spaces, and great variety. Beyond Mon Beale you look upon a beautiful double valley, in the centre of which a hilly ridge again raises itself. The fruitful fields lie green and quiet, but on the broad roadway the wild bushes and shrubs are brilliant with flowers--the broom one mass of yellow, covered with its pupilionaceous blossoms, and not a single green leaf to be seen; the white-thorn cluster on cluster; the aloes are rising high and promising to flower; a rich tapestry of an amaranthine-red clover, of orchids and the little Alpine roses, hyacinths, with unopened bells, asphodels, and other wild flowers.
The sides have twelve columns, not reckoning the corner ones; the back and front six, including them. The rollers on which the stones were moved along, still lie around you on the steps. They have been left in order to indicate that the temple was unfinished. But the strongest evidence of this fact is the floor. In some spots (along the sides) the pavement is laid flown, in the middle, however, the red limestone rock still projects higher than the level of the floor as partially laid; the flooring, therefore, cannot ever have been finished. There is also no trace of an inner temple. Still less can the temple have ever been overlaid with stucco; but that it was intended to do so, we may infer from the fact that the abaci of the capitals have projecting points probably for the purpose of holding the plaster. The whole is built of a limestone, very similar to the travertine; only it is now much fretted. The restoration which was carried on in 1781, has done much good to the building. The cutting of the stone, with which the parts have been reconnected, is simple, but beautiful. The large blocks standing by themselves, which are mentioned by Riedesel, I could not find; probably they were used for the restoration of the columns.
The site of the temple is singular; at the highest end of a broad and long valley, it stands on an isolated hill. Surrounded, however, on all sides by cliffs, it commands a very distant and extensive view of the land, but takes in only just a corner of the sea. The district reposes in a sort of melancholy fertility--every where well cultivated, but scarce a dwelling to be seen. Flowering thistles were swarming with countless butterflies, wild fennel stood here from eight to nine feet high, dry and withered of the last year's growth, but so rich and in such seeming order that one might almost take it to be an old nursery-ground. A shrill wind whistled through the columns as if through a wood, and screaming birds of prey hovered around the pediments. The wearisomeness of winding through the insignificant ruins of a theatre took away from us all the pleasures we might otherwise have had in visiting the remains of the ancient city. At the foot of the temple, we found large pieces of the horn-stone. Indeed, the road to Alcamo is composed of vast quantities of pebbles of the same formation. From the road a portion of a gravelly earth passes into the soil, by which means it is rendered looser. In some fennel of this year's growth, I observed the difference of the lower and upper leaves; it is still the same organisation that develops multiplicity out of unity. They are most industrious weeders in these parts. Just as beaters go through a wood for game, so here they go through the fields weeding. I have actually seen some insects here. In Palermo, however, I saw nothing but worms, lizards, leeches, and snakes, though not more finely coloured than with us--indeed, they are mostly all gray.
The mountains to the north-east stand all in a line. A single peak, Cuniglione, rises boldly from the midst of them. The gravelly hills have but few streams; very little rain seems to fall here; we did not find a single gully giving evidence of having ever overflowed. In the night I met with a singular incident. Quite worn out, we had thrown ourselves on our beds in anything but a very elegant room. In the middle of the night I saw above me a most agreeable phenomenon--a star brighter, I think, than I ever saw one before. Just, however, as I began to take courage at a sight which was of good omen, my patron star suddenly disappeared, and left me in darkness again. At daybreak, I at last discovered the cause of the marvel: there was a hole in the roof, and at the moment of my vision one of the brightest stars must have been crossing my meridian. This purely natural phenomenon was, however, interpreted by us travellers as highly favourable. * * * * * [Sidenote: Sicily--Sciacca.] _Sciacca, April_ 22, 1787. The road hither, which runs over nothing but gravelly hills, has been mineralogically uninteresting. The traveller here reaches the shore from which, at different points, bold limestone rocks rise suddenly. All the flat land is extremely fertile; barley and oats in the finest condition; the salsola-kali is here cultivated; the aloes since yesterday, and the day before, have shot forth their tall spikes. The same numerous varieties of the trefoil still attended us. At last we came on a little wood, thick with brushwood, the tall trees standing very wide apart;--the cork-tree at last!
As there is no inn or hotel in this place, a kind and worthy family made room for us, and gave up for our accommodation an alcove belonging to a large room. A green curtain separated us and our baggage from the members of the family, who, in the more spacious apartment were employed in preparing macaroni, of the whitest and smallest kind. I sat down by the side of the pretty children, and caused the whole process to be explained to me, and was informed that it is prepared from the finest and hardest wheat, called _Grano forte._ That sort they also told me fetches the highest price, which, after being formed into long pipes, is twisted into coils, and by the tip of the fair artiste's fingers made to assume a serpentine shape. The preparation is chiefly by the hand; machines and moulds are very little used. They also prepared for us a dish of the most excellent macaroni, regretting, however, that at that moment they had not even a single dish of the very best kind, which could not be made out of Girgenti, nor indeed, out of their house. What they did dress for me appeared to me to be unequalled in whiteness and tenderness. By leading us once more to the heights and to the most glorious points of view, our guide contrived to appease the restlessness which during the evening kept us constantly out of doors. As we took a survey of the whole neighbourhood, he pointed out all the remarkable objects which on the morrow we had proposed to examine more nearly.
From this pile of ruins all the carved stone has disappeared, except an enormous triglyph, and a part of a round pilaster of corresponding proportions. I attempted to span it with out-stretched arms, but could not reach round it. Of the fluting of the column, however, some idea may be formed from the fact that, standing in it as in a niche, I just filled it up and touched it on both sides with my shoulders. Two-and-twenty men arranged in a circle would give nearly the periphery of such a column. We went away with the disagreeable feeling that there was nothing here to tempt the draughtsman. On the other hand, the Temple of Hercules still showed some traces of its former symmetry. The pillars of the peristyles, which ran along the temple on its upper and lower side, lie parallel, as if they had all fallen together, and at once, from north to south--the one row lying up the hill, the other down it. The hill may have possibly been formed by the ruined cells or shrines. The columns, held together in all probability by the architrave, fell all at once being suddenly thrown down, perhaps by a violent wind, and lie in regular order, only broken into the pieces of which they were originally composed. Kniep was already, in imagination, preparing his pencil for an accurate sketch of this singular phenomenon.
The Temple of Æsculapius, lying beneath the shade of a most beautiful carob-tree, and closely built upon by some mean farm-buildings, presented, to our minds, a most agreeable aspect. Next we went down to Theron's tomb, and were delighted with the actual sight of this monument, of which we had seen so many models, especially as it served for the foreground of a most rare prospect; for from west to east we looked on the line of rocks on which lay the fragments of the walls, while through the gaps of the latter, and over them, the remains of the temples were visible. This view has, under Hackert's skilful hand, furnished a most delightful picture. Kniep too, will not omit to make a sketch of it. * * * * * _Girgenti, April_ 26, 1787.
When I awoke, Kniep was all ready to start on his artistic journey, with a boy to show him the way, and to carry his portfolio. I enjoyed this most glorious morning at the window, with my secret and silent, but not dumb friend by my side. A devout reverence has hitherto kept me from mentioning the name of the Mentor whom, from time to time, I have looked up and listened to. It is the excellent Von Reidesel, whose little volume I carry about with me in my bosom, like a breviary or talisman. At all times I have had great pleasure in looking up to those whom I know to be possessed of what I am most wanting in myself. And this is exactly the case here. A steady purpose, a fixed object, direct and appropriate means, due preparation and store of knowledge, an intimate connexion with a masterly teacher--he studied under Winckelmann--all these advantages I am devoid of, as well as of all that follows from them. And yet I cannot feel angry with myself that I am obliged to gain by indirect arts and means, and to seize at once what my previous existence has refused to grant me gradually in the ordinary way. Oh that this worthy person could, at this moment, in the midst of his bustling world, be sensible of the gratitude with which a traveller in his footsteps celebrates his merits, in that beautiful but solitary spot, which had so many charms for him, as to induce the wish that he might end his days there.
Oblitusque _suorum_ obliviscendus et illis. With my guide, the little parson, I now retraced our yesterday's walk, observing the objects from several points, and every now and then taking a peep at my industrious friend. [Sidenote: Sicily-Girgenti.] My guide called my attention to a beautiful institution of the once flourishing city. In the rocks and masses of masonry, which stand for bulwarks of the ancient Agrigentum, are found graves, probably intended for the resting place of the brave and good. Where could they more fitly have been buried, for the sake of their own glory, or for perpetuating a vivid emulation of their great and good deeds! In the space between the walls and the sea there are still standing the remains of an ancient temple, which are preserved as a Christian chapel. Here also are found round pilasters, worked up with, and beautifully united to the square blocks of the wall, so as to produce an agreeable effect to the eye. One fancies that one here discerns the very spot where the Doric style reached its perfection. Many an insignificant monument of antiquity was cursorily glanced at; but more attention was paid to the modern way of keeping the corn under the earth in great vaulted chambers. Of the civil and ecclesiastical condition of the city, my guide gave me much information; but I heard of nothing that showed any signs of improvement. The conversation suited well with the ruins, which the elements are still preying upon.
The figs have put forth all their leaves, and the fruit is set. They are generally ripe by midsummer, when the tree sets its fruit again. The almond trees are well loaded; a sheltered carob-tree has produced numberless pods. The grapes for the Table are trained on arbours supported by high props. Melons set in March and ripen by June. Among the ruins of Jupiter's temple they thrive vigorously without a trace of moisture. Our vetturino eats with, great zest raw artichokes and the turnip-cabbage. However, it is necessary to add that they are tenderer and more delicate than with us. When you walk through the fields the farmers allow you to take as many of the young beans, or other crops, as you like. * * * * * As my attention was caught by some hard black stones, which looked like lava, my antiquary observed that they were from Ætna; and that at the harbour, or rather landing-place, many similar ones were to be found. * * * * * Of birds there are not many kinds native here: quails are the most common. The birds of passage are, nightingales, larks, and swallows. The Rinnine--small black birds, which come from the Levant--hatch their young in Sicily, and then go further or retire. The Ridene come in December or January, and after alighting and resting awhile on Acragas, take their flight towards the mountains.
If Kniep is to finish all he proposes, he must sketch away incessantly. In the meantime I walk about with my little antiquary. We took a walk towards the sea, from which Agrigentum must, as the ancients asserted, have looked extremely well. Our view was turned to the billowy expanse, and my guide called my attention to a broad streak of clouds towards the south, which, like a ridge of hills, seemed to rest on the line of the horizon. "This," he said, "indicated the coast of Africa." About the same time another phenomenon struck me as singular. It was a rainbow in a light cloud, which, resting with one limb on Sicily, threw its arch high against the clear sky, and appeared to rest with the other on the sea. Beautifully tinted by the setting sun, and shewing but little movement, it was to the eye an object as rare as it was agreeable. This bow, I was assured, was exactly in the direction of Malta, and in all probability its other limb rested on that island. The phenomenon, I was told, was of common occurrence. It would be singular if the attractive force of these two islands should thus manifest itself even in the atmosphere. This conversation excited again the question I had so often asked myself: whether I ought to give up all idea of visiting Malta. The difficulties and dangers, however, which had been already well considered, remained the same; and we, therefore, resolved to engage our vetturino to take us to Messina.
But, in the meantime, a strange and peculiar whim was to determine our future movements. For instance, in my travels through Sicily, I had, as yet seen but few districts rich in corn: moreover, the horizon had everywhere been confined by nearer or remoter lines of hills, so that the island appeared to be utterly devoid of level plains, and I found it impossible to conceive why Ceres had so highly favoured this island. As I sought for information on this point, I was answered that, in order to see this, I ought, instead of going to Syracuse, to travel across the island, in which case I should see corn-fields in abundance. We followed this temptation, of giving up Syracuse, especially as I was well aware that of this once glorious city scarcely anything but its splendid name remained. And, at any rate, it was easy to visit it from Catania. * * * * * _Caltanisetta, Saturday, April_ 28, 1787.
At last, we are able to understand how Sicily gained the honourable title of the Granary of Italy. Shortly after leaving Girgenti, the fertile district commenced. It does not consist of a single great plain, but of the sides of mountains and hills, gently inclined towards each other, everywhere planted with wheat, or barley which present to the eye an unbroken mass of vegetation. Every spot of earth suited to these crops is so put to use and so jealously looked after, that not a tree is anywhere to be seen. Indeed, the little villages and farm-houses all lie on the ridges of the hills, where a row of limestone rocks, which often appear on the surface, renders the ground unfit for tillage. Here the females reside throughout the year, busily employed in spinning and weaving; but the males, while the work in the fields is going on, spend only Saturday and Sunday at home, staying away at their work during the other days, and spending their nights under temporary straw-sheds. And so our wish was gratified--even to satiety; we almost wished for the winged car of Triptolemus to escape from the monotony of the scene. [Sidenote: Sicily--Caltanisetta.] After a long drive under the hot sun, through this wilderness of fertility, we were glad enough when, at last, we reached the well-situated and well-built Caltanisetta; where, however, we had again to look in vain for a tolerable inn. The mules are housed in fine vaulted stables; the grooms sleep on the heaps of clover which are intended for the animals' food; but the stranger has to look out for and to prepare his own lodging. If, by chance, he can hire a room, it has first of all to be swept out and cleaned. Stools or chairs, there are none: the only seats to be had are low little forms of hard wood: tables are not to be thought of.
If you wish to convert these forms into a bedstead, you must send to a joiner, and hire as many planks as you want. The large leathern bag, which Hackert lent me, was of good use now, and was, by way of anticipation, filled with chaff. But, before all things, provisions must be made for your meals. On our road we had bought a fowl; our vetturino ran off to purchase some rice, salt, and spice. As, however, he had never been here before, he was for a long time in a perplexity for a place to cook our meal in, as in the post-house itself there was no possibility of doing it. At last, an old man of the town agreed for a fair recompense to provide us with a hearth together with fuel, and cooking and table utensils. While our dinner was cooking, he undertook to guide us round the town, and finally to the market-house, where the principal inhabitants, after the ancient fashion, met to talk together, and also to hear what we or other strangers might say. We were obliged to talk to them of Frederick the Second, and their interest in this great king was such that we thought it advisable to keep back the fact of his death lest our being the bearers of such untoward news should render us unwelcome to our hosts.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.