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Loving Lyly: talk on 25 Feb

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We may have gone a little quiet about our annual Special Collections & Archives and Cathedral Library lecture series, but rest assured, we have been thinking on it!

The second lecture of the series will be given by UoK’s very own Dr. Andy Kesson, who is also a guest lecturer at Shakespeare’s Globe. Andy’s research focusses upon literature, performance and cultural theory, particularly in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. He will be talking about one of Canterbury’s early modern playwrights, in a lecture entitled:

Loving Lyly; or, why does Canterbury not celebrate its most successful writer, John Lyly?

The talk will take place on Monday 25 February in the AV Suite at the Cathedral Lodge, within Canterbury Cathedral precincts. Refreshments will be available from 6pm, and the talk will start at 6.30. All are very welcome to join us, from within the University or as a member of the public.

The first lecture in our 2012/2013 season was given in November by Dr James Baker, who spoke about his research into the literary creation of Dr Syntax by Thomas Rowlandson and George Coombe. The British Cartoon Archive has recently acquired a major collection relating to this nineteenth century cultural icon. If you haven’t been able to see our Dr. Syntax exhibition yet, do come up to the Templeman Library Gallery before the 18 March to take a look.

The third and final lecture in this season will be delivered by Dr. Helen Brooks, who will be using the University’s extensive theatre collections to investigate Theatres of War, prior to the start of major research coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the First World War.

We do hope to see you there.

Caption Competition!

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Well this year has certainly started with a bang (and not just the merry sound of workmen on the roof!) So far, among other things, 2013 has brought us theatre historians, plans for the new layout of the collections in the Templeman Extension and a closer relationship with the British Cartoon Archive. With all that going on, I’m very sorry to say that I’ve not had a chance to look at William Harris in 2013, but I will be getting back to him shortly.

In the meantime, a bit of a plug for a related blog: the Melodrama Research Group, with which Special Collections is closely involved. We have very strong collections relating to melodrama in the Victorian and Edwardian era, notably the Boucicault and Melville collections. We’re taking part in the research group with an eye to supporting new research and encouraging work on our own collections, here at Kent.

So, if you’re feeling inspired, have a go at the (melodramatic) caption competition!

Going on a Summer Holiday 7: Christmas in Rome

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It seems like the summer was so long ago – and the discovery of William Harris’ letters from his trip around Europe. Even so, I’m still finding these letters intriguing – I hope that you are too!

By December 1821, William and his four friends – all architects – had reached Rome. Two of  them had set out from Dover in June; they had acquired new friends as they journeyed through France, to Geneva, then south through Italy before arriving in Rome for the winter. Although William and his architect friends had hoped to go on to Greece to sample architecture of the classical style, the Greek War of Independence (from the Ottoman Empire) meant that travel there was too dangerous to contemplate. Instead, William, Mr Brooks and Mr Angell had decided to remain in Rome for three months, when they would journey on to Sicily.

William's second letter to Rome

William’s second letter to Rome

While we may think that the winter can be bleak in Britain, Rome in a nineteenth-century December, according to William, was not exactly exotic. He wrote again to his father on 10 January, ‘very much disappointed in not having received a single letter from London’ since the beginning of November. Whether it was homesickness, the distance from his family or simply the discomfort of the winter, William’s tone is unusually dismal – but still full of intriguing snippets. Since we’re coming up to Christmas, I thought William’s experience of the Roman festivities might be of interest.

A tiara bearer

A papal tiara bearer, from ‘Rome’ by F. Wey, 1875

Evidently a staunch Protestant of the Church of England, William conceded that the Catholic ceremonies were ‘very splendid’. He visited the Pope’s chapel on the Quirinale Hill, where the Papal palace was used from the 16 century until around 1870. His first visit was on Christmas Eve, at a Mass which ‘was performed…with much grandeur’. On Christmas morning, William returned to the chapel for Mass, writing ‘I never witnessed a religious ceremony so nearly approaching a piece of acting as this’. Evidently he had been brought up in a rather more plain tradition.

The cardinals wore scarlet robes with white fur capes and a scarlet skull cap and were each attended by a tiara bearer in a purple robe. They rose to receive each other as they arrived and took their seats in a line with their attendant tiara-bearers on a seat below them. The Pope entered soon after, clothed in a long robe of white silk embroidered with gold, the triple crown on his head and followed by a numerous retinue of priests and the senators of Rome. He was immediately seated, the triple crown removed and a silk embroidered mitre substituted. The pontifical robes being changed he was conducted to the throne covered with white silk and gold and a canopy of crimson velvet… On the throne he received the homage of the cardinals – who approached one by one to kiss hands – and also of the senators – who wear a wig and robes something like those of our serjeants at law, excepting the colour, which is scarlet.

Engraving of a cardinal

Engraving of a cardinal, from ‘Rome’ by F. Wey, 1875

The Pope himself, Pius VII, seems to have impressed William; ‘Pius VII is a dignified old man of a very benevolent character’. Having become Pope in 1800, by 1821 Pius VII had reached the grand age of 79; it was hardly surprising that he was ‘too infirm to walk without assistance’. One of the ceremonies, William considered undignified: ‘the degrading ceremony of kissing the Pope’s toe was actually performed (at least on the shoe) by the priest who officiated at the altar.’ Other aspects of the Mass were more familiar, but still left William missing his customary style of worship;

The chaunting was most musical…but it falls far short of our cathedral service in this respect. The singing was fine enough but wanted the solemn organ to give fullness to the anthems.

The Mass was not the only unusual Christmas custom which William encountered in Rome

In the church of Ara-Coeli supposed to be built on the site of the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol – was exhibited an assemblage of wax work called here a ‘Presepio’ representing in size of life the Virgin with the infant – Joseph on his knees – the shepherds etc. etc. In the background was the manger, with real hay and above, groups of angels among the clouds.

The church appears to have been Santa Maria in Aracoeli, on the Capitoline Hill, previously a temple to Juno Moneta.

An engraving of the steps to the Ara-Coeli

The steps leading up to the Ara Coeli from ‘Rome’ by F. Wey, 1875

This ‘presepio’, as you may have guessed, is a nativity scene, apparently largely unknown, at least in this larger incarnation, to William. These displays reached their apogee in the 19 century Kingdom of Naples – just a little earlier than William’s visit. Nowadays, we are used to these scenes – Canterbury Cathedral sets up its life-size model every year – but to William, this apparently Catholic practice was shocking:

This disgraceful puppet show has remained open several days and is visited by crowds who throw money into pewter platters placed to receive it in the centre of the stage.

It’s comments like this that make you realise how much things have changed in the last 200 years – and how Victorian our Christmas celebrations are now! In 1821, these festivities seem not to have impressed our English tourist, but he still had hope:

the gayest ceremonies they say are a fortnight before Lent at the carnival and during Easter week when St Peter’s is illuminated by a single cross suspended under the dome covered with innumerable lamps.

In spite of the season, there were still a number of English people in Rome. At the Mass on Christmas Eve, William met ‘Captain Grover of Norton Street’ – a neighbour back in London, I assume – while a number of English artists mingled at trattorias where William passed his time. At the Christmas Day Mass the congregation was finer still, with Cardinal Consalvi (Gonsalvi, in William’s letter), minister of the Papal States, and the Queen of Etruria, Marie Luisa of Spain who had been overthrown by Napoleon in 1807, in attendance.

Illustration of the Roman Forum, from ‘Le antichita romane’ by Luigi Rossani, 1829

If the celebrities were shimmering, however, the weather certainly was not. Another particularly British trait which William possessed was a fascination with the weather and, while this had been fine when they arrived in Rome, by early January he complained: ‘lately there has been nothing but rain’. He went on:

The streets are…often overflowed near the banks of the Tiber and in some places almost impassable from streams of water pouring down from the roofs of the houses, each almost sufficient enough to drown the unfortunate passengers

All was not lost, however, since they still managed to ‘see a great deal and to sketch and measure a little’.

It may have been the weather, the season or his apparent isolation from his family, but in this letter, William seems to have been preoccupied with the morose. One paragraph begins ‘most of the funerals here are by torch-light’. I thought that the ostentatious fascination with death was a product of Queen Victoria’s reign, but the travellers evidently found the funeral traditions of Rome fascinating.

A very grand one [funeral] passed our lodgings the other night. There must have been a train of upwards of 300 monks and priests who chaunted as they moved along in their slow procession. In the centre was the bier gorgeously adorned, carried on the shoulders of penitents who wear long white dresses and a mask to conceal their countenances. On it lay the body of an Italian Marquis – not in a coffin but wrapped in funeral robes, the face, hands and feet uncovered while the crowd of torches shed a pale yet brilliant light on the ghastly scene.

In spite of his morose moments, William was entranced with the city of Rome. He had been told that that disappointment was the most common feeling on the part of tourists on seeing the city and was ‘agreeably surprised at finding much more scope for admiration’. Even without historical interest, William considered the city superior, designed on its seven hills to improve the aesthetic impact on the viewer. Even its outskirts were ‘graced with magnificent villas and the horizon bounded with fine chains of mountains the most lofty summits capped with snow during winter’. The only problem with the city, he wrote without premonition was ‘that dreadful scourge malaria. Thousands are said to have been laid up during the heats of summer in the last season.’

Urging his father to write soon, William signed off with love to his mother, sister and brother in law – and a request to send a watch and two books to Rome, in a packing case of fashionable clothes which Mr Brooks was having delivered from England. After all, a nineteenth century gentleman could not be seen measuring ancient monuments in last season’s coat.

I hope you’ve enjoyed following the blog and all of our activities this year. It seems like just a few weeks since the first post of the year, when I wrote about the broadcasting of Restoration Man. Our year of Dickens has been eventful, productive and exciting. We look forward to welcoming you to the site, the collections and our events of 2013 – and also following William’s journey to its end, taking in Roman horse racing, Sicilian adventures, Mount Etna and an international scandal.

All the best wishes for the festive season!

 

Going on a summer holiday 6: All roads lead to…

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Exactly 191 years ago, William Harris, a young architect travelling around Europe, reached the city of Rome. Having explored ancient and more modern sites as he travelled from Dover to France, through Geneva and then Northern Italy, William waxed lyrical about the sites he’d seen, but none seem to have compared to his expectations of Rome.

Of course, the journey from Florence southwards was not without its share of excitement – the group of architects were eager to explore all that the country had to offer, from villas to volcanoes. The men employed a mule cart to transport their baggage and moved at a slow pace, allowing the men ‘plenty of excercise’; William added, ‘I think we must have walked a third of the way’. Having been warned about the poor quality of inns along the route, the friends were prepared for the worst, including a complete lack of tea. However, the warnings turned out to be ‘very much exaggerated’, although at one place they took a room ‘without any glass’ in its windows, in December. Being hardy souls, the men braved it: these hardships were of little consequence, William explained, since ‘we only slept there’.

Although there was indeed no tea to be found on the road, the architects discovered some ‘curious’ methods of making tea en route: ‘water boiled in a stewpan taken out with a soup ladle…tea made in a basin and drunk out of glasses without milk’. Travel, as the saying suggests, really does seem to have broadened these young architects’ minds.

The four architects also went to Siena, still scarred from an earthquake 31 years earlier. William noted ‘the ground is so irregular that the Baptistry is actually below the pavement of the chancel…and is approached from a different street’. Of the cathedral, however, William thought its ‘ornament is carried to excess but applied without taste’ – evidently not the clean, simple lines of perfection which the architect admired in classical buildings. The ornamented pavement, ‘in grey and white marble admirably contrasted’, depicting ‘scriptoral subjects’, impressed him. Still, with an abundance of common sense, he complained that although expending so much effort on the decoration of pavements was impressive, he pointed out that ‘it is impossible they can be seen to advantage.’

During his stay in Sienna, William also visited ‘the ‘Baths’ of St Phillippo formerly known to the Romans’. He wrote:

They are picturesquely situated among mountains and the water gushes from the natural soil with so great a heat that the hand cannot be borne in it more than half a minute – the steam rises from it as dense as boiling water strongly impregnated with sulphur and the surface all round is covered with thick calcareous deposate

Having read through several of these letters, I suspect that William discovered the heat of the water by sticking his hand in it. Architects in the nineteenth century were evidently thrill seakers; on hearing about a ‘cave of sulphur’, William decided to go and test its conditions for himself. He described;

a cleft…apparently immense in depth whence issues a strong sulphurous vapour and the heat is so great a few feet from the surface that in the space of one minute a pair of thick boots were insufficient to enable me to remain there.

Forty years after William’s travels, the British public were still fascinated by Italian volcanoes, as this playbill shows

William went on: ‘a continued murmuring noise – no doubt proceeding from subterranean fires – was distinctly heard in this gloomy chasm’. I am beginning to wonder whether sending a lot of architects off to the continent served as a kind of natural selection – to ensure that the market back in ‘Old England’ didn’t get flooded with young professionals!

At Cassia, near Bolsena, the travellers visited a volcanic outcrop of rock similar to the Giant’s Causeway ‘and the cave of the Island of Staffa’. The only difference was that the Italian ‘curiosities…incline in various directions’, rather than being perpendicular: probably, William wrote ‘the result of some convulsion of nature’.

An illustration of the Palazzo Farnese in Caprarola

Of course, the dangers of nature were not the only perils which travellers faced in the nineteenth century. After leaving Bolsena, four of the group – William, Mr Brooks, Mr Angell and Mr Montague – left Mr Butts with the mules and the baggage to branch off and visit the villa of the King Naples. This pentagonal villa at Caprarola is known as the Palazzo Farnese and is less a villa than a small palace. William was, in general, impressed with the building and although ‘the gardens are deserted and neglected’, he noted to his father that they ‘have been laid out in the first style of Italian magnificence’. He also commented on a ‘curious style of decoration’ in some of the palazzo’s apartments: ‘huge maps are painted on them, covering the whole surface of the wall’.

Tired by their exploration of the lavish villa, William and his friends walked down to the village below and sought refreshment in ‘a little osteria’. There, they found themselves ‘in  company with the most ill looking fellows I ever saw.’ He went on:

Some were enwrapped in the large Italian cloak and wore the high pointed Calabrian hat with a feather stuck in the band

Rather alarmed, the tourists discovered that there were bands of robbers operating in the area and, William recalled, ‘we had unthinkingly left our pistols in the carriage’. He worried that they ‘should have joined Mr Butts without our purses’, but these unsavoury men turned out to be two soldiers sent to safeguard travellers along the road. As luck would have it, William and his friends gained an escort back to their baggage: if they had been alone and met robbers, he joked to his father, ‘it would have been only ask and have’.

Without any further mishap, the architects caught their first glimpse of Rome at dawn on 10 December. William was evidently captivated:

From the heights…the distant farms of the city were seen illumed by the orb of day emerging from a fine chain of Appenines the loftiest of which were covered with snow. At every little eminence on the road the city gradually developed itself and the swelling dome of St Peter’s appeared in all its majesty.

Restraining himself from further description of the city so early in his acquaintance with it, William simply told his father ‘I am astounded and delighted with the magnificence of ancient and modern Rome.’ William’s ‘modern’ Rome is, of course, around 200 years earlier than what we would today consider the modern city.

A view of the modern city of Rome

The men quickly settled into the city, Angell, Brooks and William sharing apartments on the Via del Tritone, while Montague and Butts remained at the Hotel d’Allemagne, since they intended to set off for Naples earlier than their friends.William related his concerns about this travel to his father, explaining that:

‘a day or two since…the courier from Rome to Naples had been stopped and two persons carried up into the mountains – a ransom being demanded for their liberation. How long will these wretches be suffered to carry on such horrid practices!’

William’s stay in Rome was intended to last for around 3 months: his intention was to be moving on in the spring ‘probably to Sicily – fearing there is but little hope of getting to Greece just at present’ due to wars in the area. Even so, the architects had prepared well and were not ready to give up on the hope of seeing Greece altogether: in Florence, they had ‘obtained some written directions and prescriptions from Dr. Down…good medical assistance is not easily obtained’. Remarkably, all of William’s party appear to have stayed in good health throughout their journey so far.

Closing his letter with ‘kindest love’ to all, William wrote that he hoped ‘to hear frequently from Old England during my residence’ in Rome. With the year coming to a close and planning to remain in Rome for several months, William was ready to spend Christmas in the city and looked forward to discovering all kinds of the weird and wonderful Italian customs before setting off for Sicily.

With a slight spoiler: William’s next letter is timely, describing Christmas in nineteenth century Rome…keep checking the blog for updates!

 

Going on a Summer Holiday? 5: Mosquitos and marble

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It may no longer be summer (in fact, if anyone can remember a summer this year, I’ll be impressed), but that doesn’t have to stop us thinking about exotic locations and long, sunny holidays. Having said that, the latest stage of William Harris’ journey saw him reach Florence in November 1821 – where the temperatures were far from the heights he had enjoyed travelling across France since July.

Sketch of a felucca by J. W. M. Turner (1828) (original held by the Tate)

In William’s previous letters to his father, he wrote about Dover, Calais, Paris and Mont Blanc. Having passed through Chamonix, climbed Mont Blanc and visited Geneva and Milan he then set sail on 25 October from Genoa. William and his friends sailed in a ‘felucca’, a traditional Mediterranean boat which could usually take around 10 passengers. On board, William and his three friends (Messrs. Brooks, Angell and Butts) met a Mr Edward Montagu, who was apparently educated at Cambridge and had spent the previous 8 months ‘cruising about the Mediterranean in a brig of war for his amusement’ – perhaps the nineteenth century gentleman’s equivalent of a late gap year.

As you may remember, William enjoyed his journey across the English Channel, although several other passengers were violently ill. His cruise from Genoa proved to be ‘a very pleasant little voyage’, despite the lack of comfort on the boat and some delays on the way. In the gulf of Spezia, the wind had been high and the sailors had taken on ballast – but by noon the sea was calm; the felucca ‘lay as a log on the surface of the ocean in sight of the celebrated marble quarries of Carrara’. ‘The sea agrees with me very well’, William wrote cheerfully.

The architects entered entered the port of Leghorn at 9 in the evening, where, since the Health Office was closed, the group had to sleep a second night on the deck of the small boat. William explained,

“…no vessels are permitted to land their passengers until the bill of health has been examined and the officer has been on board”

Health Office quoteThe spread of diseases such as plague and yellow fever led to increasingly strict regulation by the British government during the eighteenth century; in 1752 the Levantine trade regulation act introduced a severe quarentine clause to traders in the area. These regulations became firmer in the ensuing decades, with a new act in 1805 and an enquiry in 1823-1824. Perhaps the all of these acts and regulations gave men like William, who was ‘compelled to pass a second night upon deck’, the feeling that the law makers were imposing unneccesary bars on their travel and trade. After the influx of cholera to Britain was not prevented by quarentine in the early nineteenth century, the practice largely disappeared from the British Isles.

Once he was able to enter the port, William found that he like Livorno, in the main. He approved of the “fine square and streets paved with longe [sic] flag stones laid diagonally and roughly tooled to prevent horses from slipping” and the considerable trade carried out in the town – “upward of 50 sail of British merchantmen were there”. The architects also discovered an English cemetery in the town, which William praised as being the neatest he had ever seen, apart from Pere-la-Chaise in Paris. “Tis planted with cypress trees casting a mournful shade,” he wrote poetically, adding that “many of the alabaster vases and chimney ornaments so numerous in London” were made in Leghorn.

The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker

‘The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker’ was Smollett’s last novel.

The production of these ornaments was not the town’s final claim to fame for these travellers: in the English cemetery, they found a tomb to the memory of Tobias Smollett who had died in Leghorn in 1771 after retiring to Italy from his native Scotland. Smollett was a popular writer in the eighteenth century, who later alledgedly influenced Charles Dickens. The fact that William noted the tomb, along with his references in other letters to Byron and The Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne show that, like many other well educated gentleman of the day, he had studied British literature.

From Livorno, William and his friends then journeyed on to Pisa, where he was enraptured by the ‘Gotico-Tedesco’ (German Gothic) style of its architecture. He also noted

the most singular feature…is the celebrated leaning tower which actually overhands its foundation upwards of 13 feet and is almsot 180 high

Postcard showing 12th century doors to Pisa Cathedral (PC396)

In fact, the architects enjoyed Pisa so much that they prolonged their stay, ‘sketching and taking dimensions’. I hadn’t been aware of it before, but apparently nineteenth century architects spent a lot of time measuring things – from the number of young architects there appear to have been around the Mediterranean at William’s time, I think it’s impressive they all had the space to carry out their own measuring! There was, however, and important reason for Williams journey: improving his acuaintance with works of art.

After 6 days in Pisa, the group went on to Florence, arriving on 6 November. After Pisa’s hot sun, it was hard to adapt to the ‘very sharp’ wind and the frosty mornings. The onset of cold weather did, however, put an end to the annoyance of mosquitos, which William describes as ‘a very small kind of gnat’. The fact that he needed to describe the insects to his father suggests that they weren’t very prevelant in England – at least not in the fashionable part of London. Of course, we now know that mosquitos carry strains of malaria, which jeapordised the lives of many travellers…. But more on that later.

At the time when William and his friends were travelling, the modern nation of Italy didn’t exist. Instead, they travelled through various kingdoms on their way to Florence. In the terriroy of Lucca, William described

“Huge quantities of Indian corn are grown…may of the cottages were covered with large yellow ears suspended against the fronts to be dried by the sun”

Crossing the seperate territories involved passing numerous customs houses but to pass these swiftly, William advised, “the word ‘Inglese’ is really sufficient”. I doubt that such a self assured border crossing would be so easy now!

Unfortunately, not everything has such an easy journey. As he travelled, William sent home the address of his bank at the next intended stop for any letters. At Florence, William blamed ‘the stupid banker’ for forwarding on a letter to his next intended stop, in Rome. The abashed banker ‘promise[d] to write immediately and rectify the mistake’. After William’s apparently straightforward experience of travel, and the talk of sending parcels and books across Europe, in an age before motorisation, it seems impressive that things didn’t go astray more often!

In Florence, William and his friends settled “at a ‘pension’ or boarding house at the Piazza Santa Maria Novella”, assuring his father that it only cost 45 shillings per head per week.

We sat down 13 [to the pension’s dinner tables] yesterday but that did not take away my appetite.

With all of the measuring he had still to do, it was probably a good thing that William was in such resolutely good health.

He closed his letter with an enquiry after Dick, the horse, and a summary of his expenditure to convince his father ‘not [to] imagine my dispursements have been more heavy than they actually are’. Concluding with ‘congratulations to the young married couple’ – another mystery to be solved – William set off to enjoy his weeks in Florence.

There, we leave him for the rest of November, until the small group of architects travelled south to spend the festive season in Rome, and discover all of the strange traditions which the ancient city could provide.