Great Cities Through Travelers' Eyes Read online

  1842 PRINCE ADALBERT OF PRUSSIA

  Prince Adalbert (1811–1873), grandson of King Frederick William III, helped establish the Prussian navy in the 1830s and 1840s. In 1842 he enjoyed an extended trip to Brazil, which he described in his Travels in the South of Europe and in Brazil (1849).

  September All gazed with astonishment at the strange forms of the mountainous coast, which lay stretched out before us in wide extent from west to east. On the extreme left rose a small cone out of the sea, like an island, with which was connected on the right several small islands that looked like points. Then followed the wonderful mountain chain, the outlines of which resemble a giant lying on his back – a sure landmark to sailors at the entrance to the harbour of Rio – that king of harbours!…

  I landed not far from the imperial castle at Rua Fresca, close to the Largo do Paço and opposite the Hotel Pharoux; the tall, obelisk fountain of Chafariz do Largo do Paço was on my right hand. A number of people had collected out of curiosity; the carriage was standing ready, and we quickly rolled off. Wherever I looked, negroes and mulattos were seen on all sides; they seem to constitute the greater part of the population; and although the features of the negroes were familiar to me from my Eastern travels, I had never before seen such a multitude of blacks collected; these, together with the mixed races, gave a peculiar appearance to the whole scene.…

  Scarcely had we taken luncheon, when the Minister of Foreign Affairs…waited on me with an invitation from his Majesty to an audience at ten o’clock the next morning, and also to attend the anniversary of the independence of Brazil, which was to take place the same day. When these gentlemen left me, I could no longer resist my impatience to go out into the open air and survey the wonderful objects in the vicinity: the little hill behind the house was ascended in quick time; I remarked that the mica in the granite rock which forms this acclivity appeared to be remarkably large-leaved.

  The view from the top is even finer than that from the villa: on the terrace I could see every ship entering or leaving the bay, but at this point the eye follows the vessels further inland and observes their entrance still more distinctly.

  1876 ANNIE ALLNUTT BRASSEY

  Anna ‘Annie’ Allnutt Brassey (1839–1887) was a wealthy Englishwoman married to a Member of Parliament. In 1876–77 they toured the world on their yacht Sunbeam. Her vivid account of the voyage was an international bestseller. She was also a prolific photographer.

  Monday, 21 August After an early breakfast, we started off to have a look at the market. The greatest bustle and animation prevailed, and there were people and things to see and observe in endless variety. The fish market was full of finny monsters of the deep, all new and strange to us, whose odd Brazilian names would convey to a stranger but little idea of the fish themselves. There was an enormous rockfish, weighing about 300 pounds, with hideous face and shiny back and fins; there were large ray, and skate, and cuttle-fish…besides baskets full of the large prawns for which the coast is famous, eight or ten inches long, and with antennae of twelve or fourteen inches in length. They make up in size for want of quality, for they are insipid and tasteless, though, being tender, they make excellent curry. The oysters, on the other hand, are particularly small, but of the most delicious flavour. They are brought from a park, higher up the bay, where, as I have said, they grow on posts and the branches of the mangrove tree, which hang down into the water. We also saw a large quantity of fine mackerel, a good many turtle and porpoises, and a few hammer-headed sharks. The latter are very curious creatures, not unlike an ordinary shark, but with a remarkable hammer-shaped projection on either side of their noses for which it is difficult to imagine a use.

  In the fruit market were many familiar bright-coloured fruits; for it is now the depth of winter at Rio, and the various kinds that we saw were all such as would bear transport to England. Fat, jet-black negresses, wearing turbans on their heads, strings of coloured beads on their necks and arms, and single long white garments, which appeared to be continually slipping off their shoulders, here presided over brilliant-looking heaps of oranges, bananas, pineapples, passion fruit, tomatoes, apples, pears, capsicums and peppers, sugar-cane, cabbage-palms, cherimoyas and breadfruit.

  In another part of the market all sorts of live birds were for sale, with a few live beasts, such as deer, monkeys, pigs, guinea-pigs in profusion, rats, cats, dogs, marmosets and a dear little lion-monkey, very small and rather red, with a beautiful head and mane, who roared exactly like a real lion in miniature. We saw also cages full of small flamingoes, snipe of various kinds and a great many birds of smaller size, with feathers of all shades of blue, red and green, and metallic hues of brilliant lustre, besides parrots, macaws, cockatoos innumerable, and torchas, on stands. The torcha is a bright-coloured black and yellow bird, about as big as a starling, which puts its little head on one side and takes flies from one’s fingers in the prettiest and most enticing manner. Unfortunately, it is impossible to introduce it into England, as it cannot stand the change of climate. The other birds included guinea fowls, ducks, cocks and hens, pigeons, doves, quails, &c., and many other varieties less familiar or quite unknown to us. Altogether the visit was an extremely interesting one, and well repaid us for our early rising.

  1933 PETER FLEMING

  Peter Fleming (1907–1971), the elder brother of Ian, creator of the 007 novels (see page 135), was a prolific travel writer, whose volume Brazilian Adventure described a hare-brained scheme that began with an advertisement in The Times to form an expedition to find the lost explorer Percy Fawcett.

  Looking back, I cannot remember very clearly what I expected from Rio, or why I was disappointed. It is, as they say, a fine city. Make no mistake about that. It is one of the places (for all I know, one of the several places) where Brazil’s national motto, order and Progress, has not that rich flavour of irony which is too often, alas, the chief recommendation of public watchwords. Its streets are clean and wide and (when possible) straight. Its taxicabs purr majestically and go like the wind. Its tram service is indefatigable. Its cinemas are numerous, its gardens a delight, and all the male inhabitants wear collars. Its buildings boast – and in Brazil this is something to boast about – the usual offices. But above all I should like to praise its statuary.

  I know nothing of sculpture. But there are plinths in some of Rio’s public places before which even the Philistine must bow; he may even go back to his hotel and lie down for a bit. There really is something alarming about these turgid and pullulating groups. A great gout – a three-dimensional and lapidary gout – of legend, history, symbolism, religion and political history soars upwards and outwards from a base no bigger than your dining-table.…

  When you look down on Peking from the chipped and flaking terraces of the Winter Palace, you see as many treetops as roofs.… Rio has not this charm; in the tropics such a gentleman’s agreement with nature is rarely possible. Looking down on the city from the Sugar Loaf, you are aware of conflict. Rio has edged in between the hills and the sea, and on that boldly chosen strip of land has met and trounced the jungle. She gleams up at you complacently, a successful opportunist.

  But the jungle is still there. You can reach it easily by tram, or through suburban backdoors. It has been driven back into impregnable positions on the steep hillsides, and there it waits, conceding no more ground than it must. Somehow you feel that there ought to be a no-man’s-land between the houses and trees, that there must be something embarrassing in having so old an enemy for so close a neighbour. But Rio is not embarrassed. I suspect her of relishing the stark and inescapable flavour of contrast, of flaunting her civic amenities rather provocatively at those glum and climbing walls of green.… On Rio’s outskirts no bowler-hatted contractors carve Paradise into Desirable Building Sites; her inhabitants can enjoy a green thought in a green shade on the shores of that harbour which must surely have been described before now as God’s gift to the picture-postcard industry.

  ROME

 
The Eternal City has been the destination of innumerable visitors over the centuries. Founded, according to tradition, in 753 BC, it was at the heart of a hugely wealthy empire that covered the Mediterranean and much of the Middle East as well as Europe by the 1st century AD. When in the 4th century Christianity became the official religion of that empire, Rome became its head and has remained ever since as a site of pilgrimage and the dominant city of the Italian peninsula, the capital of Italy since unification in 1861.

  By the late Middle Ages the grand remains of classical Rome were proving more attractive to visitors than the down-at-heel Christian city. In the following centuries, future popes were to vie with one another to beautify it and it became an unmissable destination for all those making cultural tours of Europe.

  Under Fascist rule in the early 20th century, more improvements were made to the cityscape. Rome was bombed by the Allies in the Second World War before being liberated in 1944. It remains one of the world’s most visited cities.

  1143 ANON

  The Marvels of Rome was a guide for 12th-century pilgrims to the Holy City, setting out the sights. It was in common use to the 14th century, and placed as much emphasis on the sites of classical and pagan Rome as those with a Christian bent. The Egyptian obelisk now in St Peter’s Square was thought, in medieval times, to contain the ashes of Julius Caesar.

  In the days of Pope Silvester, Constantine Augustus made the Lateran Basilica, the which he comely adorned. And he put there the Ark of the Covenant that Titus had carried away from Jerusalem with many thousands of Jews; and the golden candlestick having seven lamps with vessels for oil. In the which ark be these things, the golden emerods, the mice of gold, the Tables of the Covenant, the rod of Aaron, manna, the barley loaves, the golden urn, the coat without seam, the reed and garment of St John the Baptist, and the tongs that St John the Evangelist was shorn withal. Moreover he did put in the same basilica a civory [baldachin or canopy over the altar] with pillars of porphyry. And he set there four pillars of gilded brass which the consuls of old had brought into the Capitol from the Mars Field and set in the temple of Jupiter.

  He made also, in the time of the said pope and after his prayer, a basilica for the Apostle Peter before Apollo’s temple in the Vatican. Whereof the said emperor did himself first dig the foundation, and in reverence of the twelve Apostles did carry out twelve baskets full of earth. The said Apostle’s body is thus bestowed. He made a chest closed on all sides with brass and copper, the which may not be moved, five feet of length at the head, five at the foot, on the right side five feet, on the left side five feet, five feet above and five feet below; and so he enclosed the body of the blessed Peter, and the altar above in the fashion of an arch he did adorn with bright gold. And he made a civory with pillars of porphyry and purest gold. And he set there before the altar twelve pillars of glass that he had brought out of Grecia and which were of Apollo’s temple at Troy. Moreover he did set above the blessed Apostle Peter’s body a cross of pure gold, having an hundred and fifty pounds of weight.

  He also made a basilica for the blessed apostle Paul in the Ostian Way, and did bestow his body in brass and copper in the like fashion as the body of the blessed Peter.

  The same emperor, after he was become a Christian and had made his churches, did also give to the blessed Silvester a Phrygium [marble statue] and white horses and all the imperialia that pertained to the dignity of the Roman Empire; and he went away to Byzantium; with whom the pope, decked in the same, did go so far forth as the Roman Arch, where they embraced and kissed the one the other, and so departed.

  Within the palace of Nero is the temple of Apollo that is called St Parnel; before which is the basilica that is called the Vatican, adorned with marvellous mosaic and ceiled with gold and glass. It is therefore called the Vatican because in that place the vates, that is to say the priests, sang their offices before Apollo’s temple, and therefore all that part of St Peter’s church is called the Vatican. There is also another temple that was Nero’s Wardrobe, which is now called St Andrew; nigh whereunto is the memorial of Caesar, that is the Needle, where his ashes nobly rest in his sarcophagus, to the intent that as in his lifetime the whole world lay subdued before him, even so in his death the same may lie beneath him for ever. The memorial was adorned in the lower part with tables of gilded brass, and fairly limned with Latin letters, and above at the ball, where he rests, it is decked with gold and precious stones, and there is it written:

  Caesar who once was great as is the world

  Now in how small a cavern art thou closed.

  And this memorial was consecrated after their fashion, as still appears, and may be read thereon:

  If one, tell how this stone was set on high

  If many stones, show where their joints do lie.

  1436 PERO TAFUR

  Spaniard Pero Tafur (see page 141) visited Rome in the spring of 1436, finding it impressive but relatively inhospitable and with much damage done to the antiquities by visiting armies.

  I stayed at Rome during the whole of Lent, visiting the sanctuaries and ancient buildings, which appeared to me to be very wonderfully made, but not only am I unable to describe them, but I doubt whether I could appreciate them as they deserved. Therefore I may be pardoned, such is the grandeur and magnificence of Rome, if I fall short in my account, for I am not equal to so great an undertaking in view of the extent to which these ancient buildings have been destroyed and changed, and are decayed. Nevertheless, to all who behold them it is clear that they were once very magnificent…. Pope St Gregory, seeing how the faithful flocked to Rome for the salvation of their souls, but that they were so astounded at the magnificence of the ancient buildings that they spent much time in admiring them, and neglected the sacred object of their visit, the Pope, I say, sent orders to destroy all or the majority of the antiquities which had survived from ancient times.…

  The church of St Peter is a notable church, the entrance is very magnificent, and one ascends to it by very high steps. The roof is richly worked in mosaic. Inside, the church is large, but very poor and in bad condition and dirty, and in many places in ruins. On the right hand is a pillar as high as a small tower, and in it is the holy Veronica [a veil with the image of Christ’s face]. When it is to be exhibited an opening is made in the roof of the church and a wooden chest or cradle is let down, in which are two clerics, and when they have descended, the chest or cradle is drawn up, and they, with the greatest reverence, take out the Veronica and show it to the people. It happens often that the worshippers are in danger of their lives, so many are they and so great is the press.…

  The city is very sparsely populated considering its size. It is the opinion of many that now that it is thrown down and depopulated, there issues from the ruins of the great buildings, and from the cellars and cisterns and houses, and from the deep vaults, now uninhabited, such poisonous air that it affects human bodies, and therefore it is said that Rome is unhealthy. But when it was well populated it was the contrary. Even now it seems that in the places where it is most closely inhabited the people find better health, as in Campo dei Fiori, which is a large district, and Campidoglio, another large district, and in the Ghetto, which is like a great village. But all the rest of the city is but thinly scattered houses.…

  Close by is the Colosseum which was, so they say, unmatched in the whole world for size and magnificence, and although most of it is in ruins the greatness and the marvel of its building may well be seen. It would take long to tell how the Romans kept this Colosseum, and with what reverence, and of the statue they had there, which was so great that its feet stood on the ground and its head reached to the highest point of the roof.… They say that this statue was once surrounded by figures of all the kings and princes in the world, each having a chain round the neck fastened to the feet of that great statue, and when it was known that any king or prince was rising against Rome, they threw down his image and issued decrees commanding war to be made upon him. However this may be,
the Colosseum shows that it was once a very magnificent and sumptuous building.

  1580 MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

  French aristocrat and philosopher Michel de Montaigne (see page 108) visited Rome both in search of relief for his bladder stones and to visit the Vatican, where he was advised to make various changes to his Essais to avoid heretical references.

  We set forth three hours before daybreak, so keenly was M. de Montaigne set on seeing the Roman plain by day. He found the cold air of morning as hurtful to his stomach as that of the evening, and was ill at ease till sunrise, though the night was fine. After the fifteenth milestone we caught sight of the city of Rome: then we lost it for some long time.…