The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 14, No. 402, Supplementary Number (1829)

Excerpt

The Leaning Towers of Bologna.

The Landscape Annual.

MAGNIFIQUE! SUPERBE! will be the exclamation of the Parisians on beholding the Plates of this Work, at the Publishers, in the Gallerie Vivienne, and equally enthusiastic will be the admiration of all Londoners whilst inspecting them in Cheapside. The second title, "The Tourist in Italy and Switzerland," implies the contents of the volume far better than the first. There are twenty-five Plates, each nearly as large as one of our pages, by various engravers, and all from drawings, by Mr. Prout. The subjects are as follow:—Geneva, Lausanne, Chillon, Bridge of St. Maurice, Lavey, Martigny, Sion, Visp, Domo d'Ossola, Castle of Anghiera, Milan Cathedral, Lake of Como, Como, Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Petrarch's House at Arqua, the Rialto at Venice, Ducal Palace at ditto, Palace of the Two Foscari, ditto; Bridge of Sighs, ditto; Old Ducal Palace at Ferrara, Bologna, Ponte Sisto, Rome, Fish Market, Ruins, ditto, and a Vignette of Constantine's Arch.

The Descriptions are from the elegant pen of Thomas Roscoe, Esq. By permission, of the proprietor we have selected one of the plates, and a portion of its accompanying description.

"Celebrated alike in arts and in letters, Bologna, 'the mother of studies,' presents numerous objects of interest to the amateur and to the scholar. The halls which were trod by Lanfranc and Irnerius, and the ceilings which glow with the colours of Guido and the Carracci, can never be neglected by any to whom learning and taste are dear.

"The external appearance of Bologna is singular and striking. The principal streets display lofty arcades, and the churches, which are very numerous, confer upon the city a highly architectural character. But the most remarkable edifices in Bologna are the watch-towers, represented in the engraving. During the twelfth century, when the cities of Italy, 'tutte piene di tirranni,' were rivals in arms as afterwards in arts, watch-towers of considerable elevation were frequently erected. In Venice, in Pisa, in Cremona, in Modena, and in Florence these singular structures yet remain; but none are more remarkable than the towers of the Asinelli and Garisenda in Bologna. The former, according to one chronicler, was built in 1109, while other authorities assign it to the year 1119. The Garisenda tower, constructed a few years later, has been immortalized in the verse of Dante.

"When the poet and his guide are snatched up by the huge Antaeus, the bard compares the stooping stature of the giant to the tower of the Garisenda, which, as the spectator stands at its base while the clouds are sailing from the quarter to which it inclines, appears to be falling upon his head,

"'As appears

The tower of Cariaenda from beneath

Where it doth lean, if chance a passing cloud

So sail across that opposite it hangs;

Such then Antaeus seem'd, as at mine ease

I mark'd him stooping.'

"The tower of the Asinelli rises the height of about 350 feet, and is said to be three feet and a half out of the perpendicular....