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Letters from New Zealand 1857-1911

Pisa

page 242
Pisa.

My first glimpse from the train of the celebrated buildings, the Duomo, Baptistery, and Leaning Tower, was disappointing; due to the wide expanse of plain on which they stand, which dwarfs their real size. Next morning it was a different story. Passing through narrow streets, unmodernized, and emerging suddenly on a wide grassy space, you might fancy yourself in an English cathedral close. But the Cathedral, Baptistery and Tower, built of white and coloured marble, with a wealth of sculptured decoration, under an Italian sun, and the blue of an Italian sky, presents a very different picture to that of Durham, Lincoln, York, or Canterbury, weather-beaten and wrinkled with age and the storms of a Northern climate. Imagine a tower of marble, its sides encircled with decorated arcading, perfectly straight, like an ornamental jam pot, rising to a height of one hundred and eighty feet, and leaning fourteen feet out of the perpendicular, with a top story a little less in diameter than the rest of the tower, but with neither battlements or pinnacles atop. You enter and find a stairway in the wall which is fifteen feet thick, and from the top look down into the centre, which might be compared to the bore of a huge cannon; you walk round the top, which slants so much on the lower side, that one has the feeling that the whole thing must tip over, a slight iron fence being your only protection, Not less than three persons may ascend at one time, for the reason that one might commit suicide, in the case of two there might be murder, but three are supposed to be safe. There are seven bells, one weighing six tons, the heaviest being hung on the side of the tower opposite the overhanging part.

page 243

The Cathedral is a perfect specimen of an Italian basilica, with double aisles on each side of the nave, and on each side of the transepts; ancient Roman and Greek columns supporting a richly decorated coffered roof in the nave, the aisles being vaulted. The general effect of great space with rich but harmonious decoration is most satisfactory. I had here an interesting experience of Italian preaching. Sermons are seldom part of a service, but are delivered without any preface, and always by trained men; as a rule only given at certain seasons of the year. On this occasion, the preacher ascended a pulpit placed against one of the pillars in the nave, several hundreds bringing their chairs to take up favourable positions for hearing, many standing. I managed to follow the general drift of the sermon, which was on the conflict of Faith and Science. The preacher used much gesture, now and then sitting down to refresh himself with a pinch of snuff, then up again, resuming his argument with much animation. He used his long slender hands with such effect that at times his fingers fairly flickered. Describing the limitations of human knowledge of the world and the universe, and dwelling on the dogmatic claim of science to account for it all, he asked: "And what are the sources of our knowledge?" Then, with a finger in each eye, he exclaimed, "Only these two tiny pinholes!" He finished with a touching account of a visit to the deathbed of a young man who had given up the Faith; his mother sitting by, mourning; "and which of you would like to see your nearest and dearest dying like that?" Then, rapidly descending the pulpit steps, and as rapidly re-ascending,—"Oh, I forgot to say, I shall preach again next Thursday."

page 244

The Baptistery is a magnificent building, circular, one hundred feet in diameter, with a dome one hundred and eighty feet in height, of marble, decorated with arcading and sculpture. Inside there is a font of great size, in which all children born in Pisa are baptized. The dome produces a remarkable echo, which is set going by a man waiting his chance of a tip, who sings in sonorous tones the four notes of the common chord; his voice is followed by rolling waves of harmony, like the diapason of a great organ, rising and falling, until you can hardly believe it is only an echo. A small tip goes a long way in Italy, where money is scarce. Outside the door an old man, with a little girl who prompts him as to the probable nationality of visitors, begins his beggar's litany: "poo' blin' man," "poo' blin' man." These folk haunt the Gates Beautiful of Italian churches, and, they say, thrive on their spoils.

Next a visit to the Campo Santo, close at hand, quite the most notable God's acre in Italy. A lofty wall encloses an oblong burial ground, with cloisters that open into it, through arches decorated with open tracery work. The cloister walls are covered with fresco paintings of the fifteenth century, chiefly of Scriptural subjects; some by Orcagna, which fascinate you with their grim and grotesque realism,—one of these represents the last Judgment. In it St. Michael, the Angel of Judgment, summons the dead, looking down upon them as they rise from their graves, partly concealing his face with the hem of his robe, as if horror struck at the scene. Below, some are welcomed by angels, others carried off by hideous demons; in the foreground King Solomon emerges from his tomb, bewildered and uncertain what his page 245lot will be. No doubt, in old days, such picture teaching suited the times; to-day one scarcely knows whether to smile or shiver at them. The central grassy space shews no sign of graves, though it is quite full, for all Pisans are buried there, the earth being regarded as specially sacred, having been brought in Pisan galleys from Jerusalem when Pisa was a great sea power, the rival of Genoa and Venice. The bodies rest there for a few years, and are then transferred to one common grave.