On The Right Hand Side Of The Corsia De' Servi,
Proceeding From The Cathedral, Are The Finest Buildings (Houses Of
Individuals) In Milan, Among Which I Particularly Distinguished A Superb
Palace Built In The Best Grecian Taste With A Colonnaded Portico,
Surmounted By Eight Columns.
Just outside the Porta Orientale is the
Corso, with a fine spacious road with Allees on each side lined with
trees.
The Corso forms the evening drive and promenade a cheval of the
beau monde. I have seen nowhere, except in Hyde Park, such a brilliant
show of equipages as on the Corso of Milan. I observe that the women
display a great luxe de parure at this promenade.
The women here appear to me in general handsome, and report says not at all
cruel. They have quite a fureur for dress and ornaments, hi the adapting
of which, however, they have not so much taste as the French women have.
The Milanese women do not understand the simplicite recherchee in their
attire, and are too fond of glaring colours. The Milanese women are accused
of being too fond of wine, and a calculation has been made that two bottles
per diem are drank by each female in Milan; but, supposing this
calculation were true, let not the English be startled, for the wine of
this, country is exceedingly light, lighter indeed than the weakest
Burgundy wine; indeed, I conceive that two bottles of Lombard wine are
scarce equivalent in strength to four wine glasses of Port wine. The
Lombards for this reason never drink water with their wine; and indeed it
is not necessary, for I am afraid that all the wine drank in Milan is
already baptised before it leaves the hands of the vendor, except that
reserved for the priesthood; such, at any rate, was the case before the
French Revolution, and no doubt the wine sellers would oppose the abolition
of so ancient and sacred a custom. The Milanese are a gay people,
hospitable and fond of pleasure: they are more addicted to the pleasures of
the table than the other people of Italy, and dinner parties are in
consequence much more frequent here than in other Italian towns. The women
here are said to be much better educated than in the rest of Italy, for
Napoleon took great pains to promote and encourage female instruction, well
knowing that to be the best means of regenerating a country.
The dialect spoken in the Milanese has a harsh nasal accent, to my ear
peculiarly disagreeable. Pure Italian or Tuscan is little spoken here, and
that only to foreigners. French, on the contrary, is spoken a good deal;
but the Milanese, male and female, among one another, speak invariably the
patois of the country, which has more analogy to the French than to the
Italian, but without the grace or euphony of either.
I have visited likewise the Zecca, or Mint, where I observed the whole
process of coining. They still continue to coin here Napoleons of gold and
silver, with the date of 1814, and they coin likewise crowns or dollars
with Maria Theresa's head, with the date of the last year of her reign. The
double Napoleon of forty franchi of the Kingdom of Italy is a beautiful
coin; on the run are the words, Dio protegge l'Italia. It may not be
unnecessary to remark that in Italy by the word Napoleone, as a coin, is
meant the five franc piece with the head of Napoleon, and a twenty franc
gold piece is called Napoleone d'oro.
At the Zecca I was shown some gold, silver and bronze medals, struck in
commemoration of the formation of the Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom, under the
sceptre of Austria. They bear the following inscription, which, if I
recollect aright, is from Horace:
Redeunt in aurum
Tempora priscum,[54]
but this golden age is considered by the Italians as a very leaden one; and
it seems to bear as much analogy to the golden age, as the base Austrian
copper coin, daubed over with silver, and made to pass for fifteen and
thirty soldi, has to the real gold and silver Napoleoni, which by the way
are said to be fast disappearing; they are sent to Vienna, and Milan will
probably be in time blessed with a similar paper currency to that of
Vienna.
Napoleon seems to be as much regretted by the Milanese as the Austrian
Government is abhorred; in fact, everybody speaks with horror and disgust
of the aspro boreal scettro and of the aquila che mangia doppio, an
allusion taken from the arms of Austria, the double-headed Eagle.
I have visited the ancient Ducal, now the Royal, Palace; it is a spacious
building, chaste in its external appearance, but its ulterior very
magnificent; its chiefest treasures are the various costly columns and
pilasters of marble and of jaune antique which are to be met with. The
salle de danse is peculiarly elegant, and in one of the apartments is a
fine painting on the plafond representing Jupiter hurling thunderbolts on
the Giants. Jupiter bears the head of Napoleon. Good God! how this man was
spoiled by adulation!
The staircase of the Palace is superb, and the furniture is of the most
elegant description, being faithfully and classically modelled after the
antique Roman and Grecian. After visiting the Ambrosian library (by the
way, it is quite absurd to visit a library unless you employ whole days to
inspect the various editions), I went to the Hospital, which is a
stupendous building, and makes up 8,000 beds. The arrangement of this
hospital merits the greatest praise. I then peeped into several churches,
and I verily believe my conductor would have made me visit every church in
Milan, if I had not lost all patience, and cried out: perche sempre
chiese? sempre chiese? andiamo a vedere altra cosa. He conducted me then
to the citadel, or rather place where the citadel stood, and which now
forms a vast barrack for the Austrian troops.
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