The Leaning Tower of Pisa
By CHARLES DICKENS
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LEANING TOWER OF PISA. by CHARLES DICKENS. F rom the summit of a lofty hill beyond Carrara, the first view of the fertile plain in which the town of Pisa lies - with Leghorn a purple spot in the flat distance - is enchanting. Nor is it only distance that lends enchantment to the view; for the fruitful country!, and rich woods of olive-trees through which the road subsequently passes, render it delightful. The moon was shining when we approached Pisa, and for a long time we could see, behind the wall, the Leaning Tower, all awry in the uncertain light; the shadowy original of the old pictures in |
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school-books, setting forth "The Wonders of the World." Like most things connected in their first associations with school-books and school-times, it was too small. I felt it keenly. It was nothing like so high above the wall as I had hoped. It was another of the many deceptions practised by Mr. Harris, Bookseller, at the corner of St. Paul's Church-yard, Lon- don. His Tower was a fiction, but this was reality - and, by comparison, a short reality. Still, it looked very well, and very strange, and was quite as much out of the perpendicular as Harris had represented it to be. The quiet air of Pisa, too; the big guard-house at the gate, with only two little soldiers in it; the streets, with scarcely any show of people in. them; and the Arno, flowing quaintly through the centre of the town; were excellent. So, I bore no malice in my heart against Mr. Harris (remembering his good intentions), but forgave him before dinner, and went out, full of confidence, to see the Tower next morning. I might have known better; but, somehow, I had expected to see it casting its long shadow on a public street where people came and went all day. It was a surprise to me to find it in a grave, retired place, apart from the general resort, and carpeted with smooth green turf. But, the group "of buildings clustered on and about this verdant carpet; comprising the Tower, the Baptistery, the Cathedral, and the Church of the Campo Santo; is perhaps the most remarkable and beautiful in the whole world; and, from being clustered there together away from the ordinary transactions and details of the town, they have a singularly venerable and impressive character. It is the architectural essence of a rich old city, with all its common life and common habitations pressed out, and filtered away. SIMOND compares the Tower to the usual pictorial representations in children's books of the Tower of Babel. It is a happy simile, and conveys a better idea of the building than chapters of laboured description. Nothing can exceed the grace and lightness of the structure; nothing can be more remarkable than its general appearance. In the course of the ascent to the top (which is by an easy staircase), the inclination is not very apparent; but, at the summit, it becomes so, and gives one the sensation of being in a ship that has heeled over, through the action of an ebb tide. The effect upon the low side, so to speak - looking over from the gallery , and seeing the shaft recede to its base - is very startling; and I saw a, nervous traveller hold on to the Tower involuntarily, after glancing down, as if he had some idea of propping it up. The view within, from the ground - looking up, as through a slanted tube - is also very curious. It certainly inclines as much as the most sanguine tourist could desire. The natural impulse of ninety-nine people out of a hundred, who were about to recline upon the grass below it to rest, and contemplate the adjacent buildings, would probably be, not to take up their posItion under the leaning side; it is so very much aslant. Pictures from Italy (London, 1845). The above is a chapter from Turrets Towers and Temples, Great Buildings of the World as Seen and Described by Famous Writers, published in 1901 by Dodd, Mead and Company, New York. Edited and translated by Esther Singleton. Apparently the article was written by Dickens for the publication Pictures from Italy during or before 1845. |