Pisa (edited from B.L.Add.Mss. 56546, ff. 105v-114r.)

This section forms an appendix to the forthcoming book Lord Byron’s Life in Italy by Teresa Guiccioli, translated by Michael Rees, which Delaware University Press will be publishing next year.

On July 13th 1822 Hobhouse embarks on a European tour with his half-brother Isaac and his half-sisters Amelia and Matilda. They visit the field of Waterloo on August 1st, then go down the Rhine to Zurich. They enter Italy via the St. Gothard Pass on August 22nd, and come to Milan, where they hear, not only that Castlereagh has committed suicide, but also that Wellington has been killed in a duel with the son of Marshal Ney! They leave Milan on September 5th, and, via Genoa and Lucca, approach Byron at Pisa. Byron and Hobhouse have not met since Hobhouse left Byron in Venice in January 1818, carrying the manuscript of Childe Harold IV. Since then Byron has published the opening Cantos of Don Juan, Hobhouse has been elected M.P. for Westminster, and their friendship has nearly been destroyed by Byron’s My Boy Hobbie, O.

Pisa is in Tuscany, in theory an independent state, free from both Austria and the Papacy, both of which are persecuting Teresa Guiccioli’s family with a view to forcing Byron to leave Italy. But life is being made hard for Byron and his Italian friends there, too.

Sunday September 15th 1822

After breakfast we took leave of Lucca, and after driving two posts in two hours came to Pisa and put up at the Three Damsels in the Lung’Arno. I went to enquire after Lord Byron and at first heard he was going, if not gone, to Genoa: but I found him at his Palazzo Lanfranchi with his Signora Countess Guiccioli 1 – a tolerably good-looking young woman. We were soon joined by Leigh Hunt of the Examiner,2 to whom and to his wife and six children Lord Byron has given apartments in his house. Leigh Hunt was brought out here by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mr Shelley was lately drowned in going from Leghorn to La Spezzia,3 and Lord Byron considered Leigh Hunt as a legacy left to him. Leigh Hunt induced Lord Byron to agree to set up a journal with him, but I endeavoured to persuade Lord Byron that he had better not engage in any such partnership; and it appears Lord Byron has managed to give up the scheme.4

Lord Byron was going to ride – I left him. He is much changed, his face fatter and the expression of it injured. For the rest I saw little difference. We were both a little formal.

After dinner to him again, and sat with him all the evening – he told me something about his proceedings in the Romagna. He had regularly joined the Carbonari 5 – was initiated – was to have been one of their deputies – and at the dispersion of them after the defeat of the Piedmontese and Neapolitans he received, and has got, their archives. Upwards of a thousand persons have been exiled from the Papal dominions; some are in Tuscany – others elsewhere – and every now and then their abode is changed by the government of Italy. Count Gamba,6 Madame Guiccioli’s brother, has been sent away from Pisa for the share he had in the row between the Serjeant-Major of dragoons and the party of Lord Byron.7 It appears the Serjeant was struck by a pitchfork by Lord Byron’s groom – but he was not found out, so the Tuscan government punished others.

Lord Byron told me that the Pisans disliked him because he would not associate with them and the Professors of the University – and because he would not go to a ball given last Xmas. He is now going to Genoa, where Hill 8 has promised to protect him and the Gamba family.

It seems Madame Guiccioli and her father and brother lived together in a house apart, until the Gambas went to prepare Lord Byron’s house at Genoa. This is Italian morality – Madame Guiccioli is separated from her husband, who shocked the Italians by endeavouring to prove himself a cuckold, and this unheard-of degradation induced the camera of Rome to condemn him to maintain his wife handsomely after her separation by an allowance of about £1,200 a year.9 Guiccioli has had two wives before, the first of which he is said to have poisoned – he is sixty years old, but Madame Guiccioli married him, though a celebrated beauty out of a convent, in order to marry, which, she tells Byron, is the great object of all Italian girls – those who do not marry remain in convents all their lives.

The brother of Madame Guiccioli, Gamba, is a great friend of Lord Byron’s and here in Italy the brother of the lady with whom a man lives is called his cognato – i.e., brother in-law. One of the professed objects of the Carbonari is, however, to moralize the marriage state. Byron tells me that the ceremonies of the Carbonari are absurd, but that their objects are pure, and that they have 800,000 associates in Italy at lodges in every town.

The Pisans do not seem to have liked the Gamba family. After the row with the dragoon, they said that Borgia was come down upon them with his Romagnuoles. The Romagnuoles are indeed somewhat testy and shabby people, and Byron told me many things of their violences and bloodshed. Yet he confessed they were not fond of regular fighting, and expressed doubts whether they would ever make good soldiers. At Ravenna everyone thought Italy would be revolutionized – the children sang “Viva la libertà!” in the streets. Even the Secretary of the Government 10 wrote to Byron, saying that he too was an Italian – and the Cardinal Governor 11 called on St Apollonia for succour. Yet there was a strong party of Papalines against the Americani or liberals, and Lord Byron amongst others got placarded as one destined to be put to death. Byron tells me that there are 30,000 exiles from all parts of Italy since the Piedmontese affair. A fine of 3,000 pauls, or scudi, or franks, is awarded against any one having Lady Morgan’s Italy12 in these Piedmontese States. Lord Byron kept a regular journal of the time which he spent in Ravenna 13 whilst the projected revolution was brewing. He gave it to Tom Moore.

The house in which he lives here belonged to the Lanfranchi who conquered Ugolino,14 and there are dungeons at the bottom of the palace.

Monday September 16th 1822

Went in to Lord Byron’s carriage with my sisters to see the Pisa sights – the Leaning Tower – the Baptistery – the Campo Santo – beset with beggars. Rode with Lord Byron – caught in a storm of thunder and lightning and took shelter in a vineyard cottage where an adventure occurred 15 which gave me no high notion of the morals of the contadine.16 I was asked if I knew the lingua Pisania? Learnt that a peasant girl’s dowry is about ten pounds sterling and that the vignuoles and farmers will seldom suffer their daughters to marry without some such portion. Dined. Passed evening with Lord Byron.

Tuesday September 17th 1822

Rode out with my sisters in Byron’s carriage to the Grand Duke’s cascine, or dairy park. Here saw some of his camels, of which he keeps about twenty, to perform the carriage work of his farm.17 The place looks like an English flat park – white cattle here. Rode with Byron – dined – passed the evening at the Palazzo Lanfranchi. It seemed to us that we had not been separated for more than a week. We talked over old times and present times in the same strain as usual. Byron told me he had been against me at my election at first because he knew nothing about the matter: now he was anti-Whig.18 He was much hurt at the late article against him in the Edinburgh Review.19 He also told me that my letter to him against Cain20 had made him nearly mad. Madame Guiccioli confirmed this. But Byron confessed I was right. He read to me something against Wellington in some new cantos of Don Juan21 and he told me he has written against Castlereagh.22 I recommended him to be cautious how he touched on his death. He did not quite agree with me. Carvella 23 called this day.

Wednesday September 18th 1822

Went in Byron’s carriage to the aqueduct towards the Baths of Pisa – walked – rode out with Byron – dined. Passed evening with Byron who declared against Shakespeare and Dante and Milton and said Voltaire was worth a thousand such.24 Carvella yesterday told me that the Austrians at Hermanstad 25 had given up fourteen Greeks to the Turks to be beheaded – he told me that Maitland 26 behaved worse in the Ionian islands than the Turks. Carvella’s father and brother were arrested in the middle of the night, confined in prison two months, and their effects seized – they were then dismissed and no cause assigned for their detention. Of Maitland Carvella said, “C’est un ivrogne!!”27

Thursday September 19th 1822

Read a speech of Canning’s in Galignani’s Messenger – he cried at taking leave of his Liverpool friends.28 We shall see if he has taken leave. Wrote journal – went out riding with Byron – he told me several things relative to the state of society in Italy, particularly Romagna; also of the conduct of the Papal government in Romagna – one man was taken up merely because his mistress was the chère amie of a priest who wanted to get rid in this compendious manner of his rival. Byron told me that Gamba the son and a friend 29 went out shooting for several days at the very time they expected to rise and revolutionize Italy. It was represented to them that they should not be absent at such a conjuncture, but they resolved to go, and did go where no letters could reach them. These are patriots – and Italy is to depend on them.

Byron told me that at Modena the Duke’s presence at the theatre drives the audience away. We both sometimes said that the Italians could do nothing and at other times that they would.30 It appears that the Bolognese had promised to come forward, but they afterwards kept back, and broke up the conspiracy.31 They had been deceived by the Neapolitans before – this made them hesitate as to the present effort. We had some talk about his liaison, which it appears he does not wish to continue. It induced him, however, to be one of the Carbonari, and he was actually deputed to Faenza to enquire into the state of the liberals. Fifteen thousand men, well armed, could have been raised. He had 150 muskets which those to whom he gave them wanted to bring back to his house after the defeat of the Neapolitans. This was very shabby, and he refused. He would have been tried and perhaps assassinated had not the priests stood his friends. He had been particularly friendly with the priests, and as he said always hung out his tapestry when their processions passed.

He told me some extraordinary instances of the profligacy of the Venetian women, particularly of Madame Benzoni,32 in their language.

I dined at home, as usual. Passed the evening with Byron.

Today went to a bookseller’s shop. Found the Liaisons Dangereuses and the Nouvelle Héloïse33 with indecent pictures, which the man had licence to sell, although almost every good book I asked for was prohibited. Machiavelli is prohibited. I tried to get a list of the prohibited books, but could not. A licence is given to particular individuals to sell these books by name – occasionally.

Friday September 20th

Thunder and lightning and rain prevented our riding, so I sat at home with my friend Byron. He told me that the Duke of Saxe —34 had been anxious to form his acquaintance at Pisa, but he had declined. The Duke wrote a sort of memoir 35 of his tour and headed each chapter with a stanza from Childe Harold – the task proposed at one of the German universities is to translate the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold into German verse.

Byron told me that Walter Scott in his correspondence showed himself anything but bigoted – amongst other scherzi he said that Cain was right to kill Abel that he might not have the bore of passing two hundred years with him.36 I dined at home and then went to Byron, with whom I stayed till between one and two in the morning. He talks of coming to England in the spring. He told me he wished I had not come to go so soon.37 We parted on most friendly terms, but during my whole visit I could see that we were not as before quite. We had two or three mutual accusations, half in joke, and I tried to break to him that he should write less and not think the world loved so very much about his writing or himself. I remarked he had observed the only time in which the House of Commons had shown a disinclination to hear me.38 He mentioned this twice. He told me he had less feeling than usual in his younger days. He mentioned that Tom Moore had told him in a letter, “Hobhouse is praised by everybody, but he is a rough companion, and I would sooner praise him than live with him.”39 Now this rose entirely from my telling him my mind as to the memoirs of Lord Byron.40

Madame Guiccioli told me that Madame Albany has been highly irritated at my saying something about the Ephesian matron in my account of her liaison with Alfieri.41 Now I declare I meant a compliment, and did not know that the Countess intrigued with a French painter even before Alfieri died. Lady Morgan asked Madame Albany in full divan whether she had ever read my book. Madame Albany gave no answer, and never asked Lady Morgan to come again – the contretemps made a tale at Florence.

Saturday September 21st 1822

At half-past nine set out from Pisa. Arrived at Florence (six posts) at a little before six. The Arno full. Put up at the Nouvelle York, kept by an Englishwoman, where I was in 1816 and 1817. Walked to post office and found it shut. Did not go out the remainder of the evening.

Teresa Guiccioli’s letter to Hobhouse

Immediately after Hobhouse’s departure, Teresa Guiccioli sent him the following letter, which is formal, and which perhaps indicates how keenly she intuited his disapproval of her:

[cover: To The Honorable / J.C.Hobhouse / Florence]

Pisa 23 7bre 1822

Stim[atissim]^o Signore

Troverete qui acclusa una Lettera commendalizia di mio Padre, alla Marchesa Sacrati n[ost]ra [last word may be erased] Cugina – di cui la conoscenza spero potrà giovarvi in Roma – e la società non esservi sgradevole. Colgo intanto con un vero piacere questa occasione per esprimervi i sentimenti della mia stima – e per assicurarvi dell’alto pregio in cui tengo la sua conoscenza. Milord dopo avere sofferto assai p[er] due giorni de’suoi dolori reumatici – ora si trova sollevato mediante un metodo di cura propostagli da Vaccà – a cui si è assoggettato con una docilità così strana a lui in simili casi – che non saprei ad altro attribuirla senonchè all’influenza de’ v[ost]ri saggi consigli. E questo effetto è per me di tanta consolazione – che non potrò a meno d’invocare la v[ost]ra presenza per mantenerlo in si buone disposizioni – come quella d’un genio benefico – quand’anche a desiderarla non mi movessero principalm[ent]e le rare v[ost]re qualità – ed il piacere di vedere p[er] essa più lieto Byron. Io spero che avrete fatto – e farete un felice viaggio p[er] quanto lo permette l’incostante stagione – la quale mi pure rende incerta pel giorno della v[ost]ra partenza – ma che forse accaderà Mercoledi venturo. Mi sono presa la libertà di scrivervi in Italiano conoscendo voi così bene la nostra Lingua e però mi perdonerete. Milord manda a voi cordiali saluti – ed i più rispettosi alle due Dame v[ost]re Sorelle. Gradite che vi rinuovi le proteste della mia stima – e riconoscenza – dicendomi

Vra Devotma Affma Serva

Teresa Guiccoli Gamba 42

[TRANSLATION: To The Honourable / J.C.Hobhouse / Florence / Pisa, September 23rd 1822. / Most esteemed Sir / You will find here enclosed a letter of recommendation from my father to the Marchesa Sacrati, our cousin. I hope her acquaintance will be useful to you in Rome – and her society not displeasing. Meanwhile I take with real pleasure this occasion of expressing my esteem – and to make clear the high regard I have for you. My lord, after having suffered from his rheumatic pains for two days, is now much relieved by a cure suggested by Vaccà, to whom he has subjected himself with a docility so unlike him on similar occasions, that I do not know to what to attribute it, except to your wise advice. And this effect is so great a comfort to me, that I shall not be able to help wishing for your presence, to keep him in such a good frame of mind, like a good genius – even if I were not already moved to wish it by your unusual qualities as a result, and by the pleasure of seeing Byron happier. I hope that you above all have had it – and that you will have a good journey in so far as the inclement season permits – which makes me uncertain too on this day of your departure, but which will perhaps become clear by Wednesday next. I take the liberty to write to you in Italian, knowing your excellent acquaintance with our language, and asking your pardon nevertheless. My lord sends you his cordial salutations – and the most respectful greetings to the two ladies, your sisters. Allow me to renew the protestations of my esteem and gratitude. / I remain / Your most devoted and affectionate servant / Teresa Guiccioli Gamba.43

1	Teresa Guiccioli (1798-1873); B.’s last female love.
2	James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859); poet, editor and parasite.
3	This is only the second reference to Shelley that I have been able to find in the diary so far. He had drowned on 8 July 1822.
4	“I met Mr. Hobhouse soon after in the Casa Lanfranchi. He was very polite and complimentary; and then, if his noble friend was to be believed, did all he could to destroy the connexion between us” – Leigh Hunt, Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries (1828), 48.
5	Quasi-Masonic secret society dedicated to expelling the Austrians and to cleaning up Italian morals.
6	Pietro Gamba (1801-27) Teresa’s younger brother and B.’s friend, who goes to Greece with him.
7	The Pisan Affray had occurred on 24 Mar 1822.
8	William Noel Hill, English Consul at Genoa.
9	Teresa’s husband, Alessandro Guiccioli, was in bad odour at Rome, and Pope Pius VII was a friend of the Gamba family. This was the only separation granted during his pontificate.
10	Count Giuseppe Alborghetti was Head of Government in Lower Romagna.
11	Cardinal Rusconi was the Papal Legate at Ravenna.
12	Travel book by the Irish novelist Lady Morgan (Sydney Owenson: 1783?-1859); published 1821; see BLJ VII 165 and 170. Banned in Sardinian, Austrian and Papal territories: reviewed in the Quarterly for July 1821 by Croker and/or Gifford, who described it as “a series of offences against good morals, good politics, good sense, and good taste” (29). It was indiscreetly written, and to be named in it was often dangerous for Italians.
13	BLJ VIII 11-51.
14	Ugolino features at Inferno Canto XXXIII. B.’s house was not really that old. But it has been established recently that from its back windows one can see the house in which Galileo was born.
15	H. draws a discreet veil over what the adventure was. We hope Amelia and Matilda weren’t present when it occurred.
16	“Country women”.
17	The camels of the Grand Duke of Tuscany survived until World War II, when they were slaughtered for meat.
18	B. is apologising for My Boy Hobbie, O.
19	In the Edinburgh Review for February 1822 (413-51) Francis Jeffrey reviews Sardanapalus, The Two Foscari, and Cain, of which last he writes (437), “… we regret very much that it should ever have been published.” He later (449) writes that B. “has exerted all the powers of his powerful mind to convince his readers … that all ennobling pursuits, and disinterested virtues, are mere deceits and illusions”.
20	H.’s letters critical of Cain (sent on November 6 and 17, 1821: see Recollections II 172-3) are lost; for B.’s reaction, see BLJ IX 101 and 103.
21	The “Wellington Stanzas” had in fact been written on March 19, 1819, and sent to Moore on July 10: they form stanzas 1-8 of Don Juan Canto IX.
22	Perhaps B. refers to the Preface to Don Juan Cantos VI, VII and VIII.
23	Nikolas and Francis Karvellas were Ionian patriots whom B. and H. had met in Geneva and Milan.
24	The addition here of “(Scherzo.)” at Recollections III 6 has no Ms. authority.
25	Hermanstad is now Sibiu in Romania. In June 1821 the Greek general Alexander Ipsilantis and half a dozen companions surrendered to the Austrians after their defeat by the Turks at the battle of Dragasani, and were imprisoned. A few survivors of the “Sacred Battalion” (composed of young Greeks) also surrendered there. Ipsilantis and his companions were eventually released in 1826 or 1827; so, if Carvella is right, some or all of the Sacred Battalion were handed over to the Turks and beheaded. I am grateful to David Brewer for the information here.
26	Sir Thomas Maitland was Governor of the Ionians. Carvella and his brother often complained of his brutality.
27	“He’s a drunkard!” Maitland’s vulgarities were legion and legendary.
28	George Canning had become Foreign Secretary on Castlereagh’s suicide. He left his Liverpool constituency for that of Harwich in 1822. H. had spoken strongly against Canning in Parliament on 17 Apr 1821.
29	The absence of punctuation in the Ms. here makes it impossible to work out whether Ruggero and Pietro are both implicated in the charge, or whether it refers only to Pietro.
30	That is, that they were sometimes unable to act and at others disinclined to act.
31	That such an insurrection was planned by B. and his Carbonari associates in Ravenna and Bologna seems confirmed by the following, from the State Archives of Ferrara, 2 Sep 1820: “Pretendesi dunque, che in Ravenna sianvi dei mal’intenzionati, che appogiati vengono da quel Lord Inglese, da qualche tempo colà stabilito in casa del Cavaliere Guiccioli, i quali, dicesi, abbiamo delle segrete relazioni colla la Romagnola, e con Bologna: Che la fiera di Lugo formi per essi un segnale per una combinata rivolta, e che in tal epoca vagliarsi in Ravenna tentare un colpo di mano sulle casse pubbliche, e private, e che frà questi mal’intenzionati esser possino compresi dei militari di Linea, non escluso quel Comandante di piazza, e suo aiutante maggiore.” [“It is thus claimed, that there are in Ravenna some ill-disposed persons, who are supported by the English lord, who has for some time been settled here in the house of the Cavaliere Guiccioli, and who, it is said, have secret relations with Romagnola and with Bologna: that the Fair at Lugo will be for them a signal for a combined revolt, and that there will at that time occur in Ravenna an attempt to seize the public and private banks, and that it is possible that these ill-disposed persons include some soldiers from Linea, not excluding the commander of that place, and his second-in-command.”] (Keats-Shelley House Rome, Gay Papers Box 36A.)
32	Contessa Maria Querini Benzoni, Venetian hostess. She ran a “better” salon than did the Contessa Albrizzi (BLJ VI 37) and it was at one of her conversazioni that B. and Teresa Guiccioli fell in love.
33	Neither Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Laclos nor La Nouvelle Héloïse by Rousseau are normally considered pornographic; these editions have illustrations making them so.
34	Duke of Saxe-[????] unidentified.
35	Memoir unidentified. Anyone got any ideas?
36	No extant letter from Scott to B. contains this comment.
37	At Recollections (III 8) H. reports B.’s words as “Hobhouse, you should never have come, – or you should never go”. Compare B. to H., August 23, 1810: “After all I do love thee, Hobby, thou hast so many good qualities and so many bad ones it is impossible to live with or without thee” (BLJ II 14).
38	It is not clear to which Commons sessions B. refers.
39	Moore reports B. as writing at this time, “H[obhouse] has been here, and is gone to Florence – do you remember your saying that you would rather praise him than live with him? For my part I say nothing.…” (BLJ XI 197). “For my part I say nothing” is from Joseph Andrews, II, 3; they are also the words of Sir Fretful Plagiary in The Critic, I i: see also Beppo, 96, 5, and Don Juan I, 52, 1.
40	B. had given his Memoirs to Moore. H. wrote to B. that he thought he was “buying a biographer … under the pretext of doing a generous action” (BB 321).
41	H. refers to his account of the relationship between the Countess of Albany (estranged wife of the Young Pretender) and the dramatist Vittorio Alfieri, at Historical Illustrations (1818) 395-6.
42	Keats-Shelley House Rome, Gay Papers Box 40/1.
43	Translation in part from Iris Origo, The Last Attachment, 324.

Hobby-O