Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 20, August 1877 — John Shaqi
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 20, August 1877Various
History
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 20, August 1877
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
Verona is rich in tombs. From our windows in the Due Torri we looked
across to the monument of Guglielmo del Castelbarco, a friend of the Delle
Scale, whose massive sarcophagus stands beneath a high Gothic canopy over
the gateway of a building which once formed part of the convent of Sta.
Anastasia. As we gazed down into the square, with its fountain and groups
of old women drawing water, and sometimes setting down their ewers to go
and say a short prayer in the beautiful old church of Sta. Anastasia, we
used to think that if this outlook were included in the charge for our
rooms, we were not paying too much. Another fine monument, by the
architect Sanmicheli, to two brothers who rejoiced in the surname of
Verita encrusts the front of the church of Sta. Eufemia; and in the
cemetery of San Zenone are a tomb and sepulchral urn which claim that they
contain the mortal remains of Pepin, king of Italy, the son of
Charlemagne. Besides these, altar-tombs, pillared and canopied monuments
and mortuary chapels meet the eye everywhere inside and outside of the
churches. That which attracts most attention now-a-days is decidedly the
least ornamental--the doubly-doubtful tomb of Juliet. It is so
acknowledged a lion that the street-boys of the quarter beset you with
offers to show you the way. This is no new celebrity: Murray assures us
that in the last century, before readers of Shakespeare, native or
foreign, were common in Italy, a sarcophagus was regularly exhibited as
this sentimental relic. That no longer exists: the present one, which was
formerly used as a washing-trough, looks so much like that or a
horse-trough of the commonest sort that, even without knowing its claims
to be apocryphal, the most credulous sentimental tourist would suspect
that it had come up rather than gone down in the world. No matter: we were
not dupes, but perhaps the full sweetness and sadness of the story never
came home to us with such enfolding charm as on the gray autumn afternoon
when we stood beside the pseudo relic in the forlorn little garden of the
orphan asylum on the bank of the turbid Adige. The house which is pointed
out as Juliet's is less palatial than we expected, though it is a lofty
old brick edifice with rounded windows, a stone balcony and a large
courtyard: on the keystone of the arched entrance, on the inner side of
the court, is the cap (_cappello_) which gives its name to the street, and
is supposed to be the heraldic badge of the family, _armoiries parlantes_,
or punning devices, being a favorite fashion in old times all over Europe.
If the balcony which remains was Juliet's, Romeo must have had a long
ladder and a cooler head than he showed under other circumstances. There
is a stone projection at the window of a lower story which once may have
supported a small balcony. The Casa de' Cappelletti is now a livery-stable
and inn, the Osteria del Cappello.
[Illustration: PIAZZA DELLE ERBE.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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