Written Camposanto

Dupaty’s travel account is one of the later sources gathered in this blog. It was written in the form of letters, a common style used by many writers, such as Charles de Brosses and John Boyle; it therefore includes more personal remarks. Dupaty’s observations and experiences from several major cities (including Genoa, Florence, Rome and Naples) form the narrative, but his principal interest lies in art and architecture. The description of the Camposanto reveals that Dupaty quite liked the cemetery for its atmosphere, the architecture, and for its sarcophagi. Even the legend of the holy earth and its effect (the earth decomposes bodies in one hour, he says), which seems to have been forgotten around the late eighteenth century, is given mention. Wall paintings at the Camposanto, however, are not discussed at all; his silence is all the more striking when compared to the group of letters written from Florence: the statues and paintings Dupaty saw in the Uffizi gallery are described at length and with much excitement. / DJ

Dupaty, Lettres d'Italie (excerpt)

Source: Charles-Marguerite-Jean-Baptiste Mercier Dupaty, Lettres sur l’Italie en 1785, 2 vols. (Paris: De Senne, 1788), 1:109-110.

Translation: Travels Through Italy: In a Series of Letters Written in the Year 1785, translated from the French by an English Gentleman (Dublin: M. Mills, 1789), 68-69.

Transcription

Lettre 24. A Pise

“Mais on est saisi, on est frappé, en entrant dans le campo santo, autrefois le cimetière des Pisans; superbe et immense cloître, rempli des tombes et de mausolées de marbre, dont plusieurs sont admirables. Un de ces mausolées a été érigé à Algarotti, par le roi de Prusse. Ovidii aemulo, Newtonii Discipulo, Fredericus Magnus. Les noms d’Ovide, d’Algarotti, de Newton, de Frédéric, sur un tombeau!

Le milieu de ce cloître est un jardin, dont le sol est de la terre sainte, que les Pisans apportèrent, du temps des croisades, pour y enterrer leurs morts. Cette terre a, dit-on, une propriété remarquable: elle dévore un cadavre en une heure. Mon imagination retournera plus d’une fois au campo santo. Tous ces marbres, toutes ces épitaphes, ce long cloître, ce silence, cette solitude, cette terre, ces grands noms, ces siècles; que le cœur est ému et pressé parmi tout cela!”

Translation

Letter 24. To Pisa

But nothing can surpass the astonishment and admiration with which you must be struck on entering the Campo Santo, the ancient burying-ground of the Pisans; a superb and immense cloister, filled with marble tombs and mausolea, many of which are admirable. One of these mausolea was erected by the king of Prussia to the memory of Algarotti. Ovidii aemulo, Newtonii Discipulo, Fredericus Magnus. The names of Ovid, Algarotti, Newton and Frederic on one tomb!

The middle of the cloister is a garden, the ground of which consists of earth brought from the Holy Land by the Pisans, at the time of the crusades, to inter their dead in. This earth, they pretend, has a remarkable property: it destroys the body in an hour. My imagination will return more than once to the Campo Santo. All those marbles, those epitaphs, that length of cloister, that silence, that solitude, that ground, those great names, those ages past: how is the heart moved and agitated amidst all these!

The French astronomer Joseph-Jerôme de Lalande visited Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Italy, and England during his lifetime. He kept a journal in which he noted down his impressions and observations most likely with the intention of eventually publishing them. His notes from his trip to Italy, made between 1765 and 1766, were published in eight volumes along with an atlas. Voyage d’un Français en Italie is a collection of everything that can be found in Italy, ranging from works of art and architectural monuments, to discussion of distances, the state of the roads, and the price of goods. His personal opinions are found rarely. / DJ

Lalande_S.465 (excerpt)

Source: Joseph-Jerôme de Lalande, Voyage d’un Français en Italie, fait dans les années 1765 & 1766, 8 vols. (Paris: Chez Desaint, 1769) 2: 465, 478.

Transcription

“L’Empereur Frederic Barberousse fut secouru par les Pisans, dans ses guerres contre les Milanois et ils lui envoyerent leur Archevêque Lanfranc avec 50 galeres lorsqu’il voulut passer dans la Terre-Sainte; ce fut alors qu’ils ramenerent leurs vaisseux chargés de la terre de Jérusalem et formerent le Campo Santo, dont nous parlerons bientôt. […]

Le Cimetiere de Pise, ou les charniers qu’on appelle Campo Santo, est une des choses singulieres de cette Ville; c’est un cour de 450 pieds de longeur, environnée d’un vaste portique, bâti en 1278, sur les desseins de Jean Pisan: il a 60 croissées […]”

Translation

Emperor Frederick Barbarossa was rescued by the Pisans in his wars against the Milanese and they sent their Archbishop Lanfranc [Ubaldo Lanfranco] to him with 50 galleys when he wanted to cross to the Holy Land; it was then that they brought back their laden vessels from the land of Jerusalem and formed the Campo Santo, which we will discuss shortly. […]

The Pisa cemetery, or the mass-grave called the Campo Santo, is one of the most singular things of this city; it is a courtyard that is 450 feet long, surrounded by a vast portico built in 1278, based on the designs of Jean Pisan [Giovanni Pisano]: it has 60 crosses […]

An English historian, renowned for The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, also made a Grand Tour in his young adulthood. Between 1763 and 1764, he set off to Italy via France. He visited Rome during this trip, which inspired him to write The Decline and Fall. His account of the Camposanto is brief, but it is long enough for readers to learn about his taste in art. The Camposanto was most likely not his favorite spot in Pisa as the frescoes were not to his liking. He states outright that “They are bad,” and the sarcophagi were “obscene.” According to Gibbon, the most skillful painter appears to be Raphael. Gibbon must have read other literature on the Camposanto as he mentions that the wall paintings are by the “first Restorers of painting.” There is no discussion of the effect of the earth brought from Palestine. /DJ

Gibbon excerpt

Source: Edward Gibbon, Gibbon’s Journey from Geneva to Rome. His Journal from 20 April to 2 October 1764, ed. Georges A. Bonnard (London: T. Nelson, 1961), 228-229.

Transcription

“Le Campo Santo est reelment un monument unique et curieux. C’est un grand Cloitre Gothique dont les murs sont peints par les prèmiers Restaurateurs de la peinture, un Giotto &c. Elles sont mauvaises, mais il faut se transporter aux tems où elles etoient rares et precieuses. Le gout et la grandeur d’un Etat ne consiste qu’à encourager les meilleurs artistes de leur tems. Ils ne sauroient toujours former des Raphaels. L’interieur du Cloitre est le Cimetiere du peuple Pisan, rempli de la terre sainte que leurs Vaisseux ont apportè de la Palestine. Parmi ces vestiges de Devotion on appercoit les Sarcophages payens et souvent obscenes dont le Cloitre est repli. Comme il y en a très peu qui porte[nt] des inscriptions, on ignore s’ils sont Pisans ou Etrangèrs. Je les crois des bas Siecles de Paganisme. J’en juge ainsi sur le travail qui est fort mauvais, sur les Visages qui sont la plupart en plein, et sur la forme des lettres qui diviennent minces, pointures et Gothiques. Ces sarcophages sont extremement gatés […]”

Translation

The Campo Santo is truly a unique and curious monument. It is a large gothic cloister of which the walls are painted by the first Restorers of painting, by Giotto and others. They are bad, but one must transfer oneself to the times when they were rare and precious. The taste and greatness of a state is only to encourage the best artists of their time. They couldn’t always train Raphaels. Inside the cloister is the graveyard of the Pisan people, filled with the holy land that their vessels brought from Palestine. Among these vestiges of devotion, we can see the pagan and often obscene sarcophagi with which the cloister is filled. As very few of them bear inscriptions, it is not known whether they are Pisan or foreign. I believe they are from the low centuries of paganism. I make this judgement based on the work, which is very bad, on the faces, which are mostly full, and on the shape of the letters, which are thin, pointed and Gothic. These sarcophagi are extremely spoiled […]

Transcription

«Cette magnificence se mêloit aux pratiques religieuses qui en paroissent le moins susceptibles. De ce genre, est le fameux cimetière, aussi construit en marbre, sur le plan de celui que j’ai vu depuis en France à Orléans. Le sol de ce cimetière, dans sa partie découverte, est entiérement formé de terres qu’en 1224, les Pisans rapportèrent de la vallée de Josaphat, près Jérusalem, sur la flotte qu’ils avoient fournie par l’expédition de Frédéric Barberousse. Cette terre conserve encore la vertu de consommer entiérement les corps humains, dans l’espace de 24 heures. Le Fossoyer m’assura en avoir fait des épreuves réitérées sur une soule d’Allemands qui vinrent mourir à Pise dans la guerre de 1733: La terra, me disoit-il, logoravagli con le loro grosse pancie, in termine di duoi giorni.»

Translation

“This magnificence influenced even such religious observances, which seemed the most alien from it. Such is the famous burial-place, likewise built of marble, on the plan of that which I since saw in France at Orléans. The ground in the open part of this church-yard, is entirely of earth brought by the Pisans, in 1224, from the valley of Jehoshaphat, near Jerusalem, in the fleet which they had fitted out for Frederic Barbarossa’s expedition. This earth still retains the virtue of totally consuming a corpse in the span of twenty-four hours. The grave-digger affirmed, that this he very well knew from repeated instances on multitudes of Germans, who died at Pisa in the war in 1733. La terra, said he to me, logoravagli con le loro grosse pancie, in termine di duoi giorni (“The ground within two days made an end of them and their tun [large] bellies”).”