Selected letters of Mendelssohn/Letter 3
TO HIS FAMILY.
To-day I must give you an account of my first eight days in Rome, how I have arranged my life here, what my prospects are for the winter, and how these divine places affected me at first; to describe all which is hard. I seem to myself to have changed since my arrival; before that I tried to repress my impatience to move forwards and push on fast with the journey, putting it down simply to my own natural hastiness, but here I recognise clearly that it was only the keen desire to reach this great centre of things that made me so. Now I have attained it, and my feeling has grown quiet and glad and earnest in a way I cannot describe, nor can I define what it is that produces this effect; the awful Colosseum and the brilliant Vatican alike contribute to it, so does the soft spring weather and the kindly people, my pleasant room, and everything. Things somehow are different. I feel happy and well as I have not been for ages, and have such a pleasure in work and desire of it that I hope to accomplish far more here than ever I proposed. I have made some way already. If Heaven will only grant me an endurance of this good fortune I look forward to a splendidly fruitful winter.
Picture a little house two windows broad, number 5 in the Piazza di Spagna, that catches the sun all day, then the room on its first floor in which there stands a good Viennese piano, on the table lie portraits of Palestrina, Allegri, and so on, and the scores of their music, also a Latin psalm book out of which to compose Non nobis; this is my personal residence. It was too far off by the Capitol, and I had my fears of the coldness of the air, which gives no trouble here, when I look out over the square in the morning and everything stands out so clear cut on the blue sky in the sun-shine. My host was formerly a captain in the French service; the maid has the most magnificent contralto voice I know. Above me there lives a Prussian officer, with whom I exchange courtesies; altogether, my surroundings are excellent. When I come into the room early in the morning and the sun is shining so brightly on my breakfast things you see I am throwing myself away on poetry an amazing cheerfulness takes possession of me, and then I think it is really late in the autumn, and who could make sure of warmth, bright skies or grapes and flowers at home? After breakfast my work goes forward, and I play, sing, and compose till about noon.
Then all the measureless delight of Rome lies as a free gift before me; I proceed with it very leisurely, and every day pick out afresh some great historic object; one day a ramble about the ruins of the ancient city, another day the Borghese Gallery or the Capitol, or else St. Peter’s or the Vatican, so each day is one never to be forgotten, and this sort of dallying leaves each impression firmer and stronger. Sometimes working in the morning, I should like not to leave off but to write steadily on, but I say to myself, “Now there is the Vatican to see,” and once there I only leave it in turn with reluctance, so each occupation becomes a pure delight, and one pleasure is a foil to another. If Venice seemed like the gravestone of its own past, its ruinous, modern palaces and the enduring remembrance of a bygone supremacy giving it a disquieting, mournful impression, the past of Rome strikes one as history itself; its monuments ennoble, and make one at the same moment serious and joyful, for there is joy in feeling how human creations may survive a thousand years and yet possess their quickening restoring influence. Each day some new image of that past imprints itself on my mind, and then comes the twilight, and the day is at an end. Then I seek out my acquaintances and friends; we exchange news of what each has done, or, what is the same thing here, enjoyed, and these meetings are very pleasurable. The evenings I spend mostly at Bendemann’s and Hübner’s, who get together a number of German artists; every now and then I go to Schadow’s as well. One valuable acquaintance I have made is that of the Abbé Santini, who has a very complete collection of old Italian music, and gladly lends or gives me anything I want. He is the embodiment of kindness. At night, however, he is obliged to have Ahlborn or myself to accompany him home, for to be alone in the streets at a late hour would bring an abbé into ill repute. For fellows like Ahlborn and myself to be serving an ecclesiastic aged 60 in the capacity of duenna is piquant enough. Countess had given me a list of pieces of old music that she wished to have copies of if possible; Santini had all the originals, and I owe him my best thanks for giving me copies of them, so that I can go through them together and thus come to know them. I beg you will send the six cantatas of Sebastian Bach which Marx has had published by Simrock, or else some of the organ pieces, to serve as tokens of my gratitude. I should much prefer the cantatas; he has already the Magnificat, the Motets, and so forth.
He has adapted “Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied,” and is going to produce it at Naples; we owe him something for that. I am writing at length to Zelter about the papal choir which I have heard three times, twice at the Quirinal on the Monte Cavallo, and once at San Carlo. One person I delight in is Bunsen. We shall have a great deal of talking to do together; sometimes it even strikes me that this will be the starting-point of some of my future work; and I am sure that anything I can try at with a good conscience shall be done joyfully, and with all the power I have. It helps me beside to feel at home and read Goethe’s Italian Journey for the first time, and I must confess it was a great joy to discover that he arrived in Rome precisely the same day that I did. Further, that he also went first to the Quirinal and heard a requiem there; he says too that at Florence and Bologna a sort of impatience took possession of him, and on arrival here he felt calm again, and, as he calls it, well-knit together in mind; so I have experienced all he describes, a reflection which pleases me. But he writes at length about a great picture by Titian in the Vatican, thinking it impossible to see any meaning in it, and leads one to suppose that the figures are only arranged elegantly side by side. I flatter myself, however, that I have found a deep significance in this picture, and maintain that he is right who sees most in a Titian, for the man was simply divine. He, indeed, found no opportunity to display the whole breadth of his inspiration, as Raphael did here in the Vatican; yet one can never forget his three pictures at Venice, and this of the Vatican, which I first saw this morning, stands in line with them. If a child could enter the world with perceptions fully developed, things would everywhere break on him with the same joyful, vivid effect as the pictures here do on oneself. The school of Athens, the Disputa, and the St. Peter one feels to be the exact realisation of what the artist’s mind conceived.
How delightful is the entrance past the luminous open arches when one sees the unbroken view into the place of St. Peter’s, and over Rome to the blue Alban mountains, while above one are the figures from the Old Testament, and a thousand bright, little angels amid arabesques of fruits and garlanded flowers. It is thus one enters the gallery for the first time!
But, dear Hensel, all hail to you, for your copy of the Transfiguration is wonderful. It was not to-day that I first felt the delightful shudder which seizes one on first looking at an eternal work of art, and feeling its significance or its peculiar impressiveness, not to-day, but before your picture. My first look at the original only gave me what I had already got through you, and it was only after studying it long and minutely that I discovered things which were new to me. On the other hand, the Madonna of Foligno struck me with all the glow of its loveliness. I had a happy morning among all those splendours. As yet I have not seen the statues, and keep a first impression of them for another day.
The 9th.—So every morning brings me new expectations, and every day fulfills them. The sun has just been shining on my breakfast again, and now I am setting to work. At the first opportunity I will send you, my dear Fanny, the Viennese things, and what else is ready, and you, Rebecca, my sketch-book. But this does not satisfy me very well at present, and I want to see a number of sketches by the landscape painters here, and if it may be, get hold of a new manner. I thought of originating one for myself, but no! To-day I am for the Lateran and the ruins of ancient Rome. This evening I am going to a very friendly English family whose acquaintance I have made here. Please send me many letters of introduction. I want to know an endless number of people, especially Italians. So I go on my way gladly and think of you in every moment of enjoyment. Be happy and share with me in the pleasant days that seem to be opening up here.