Italy Tramp: Day By Day

November 1, 1878 Friday

–  Sam’s notebook:

“Great festa-day—shops all closed. Attended High Mass in a  chapel of St. Peters. Heaps of people of all ages sexes & professions  kissing (& scrubbing) St Peter Jupiter’s toe. He looks like a black negro  & has short crisp hair” [MTNJ 2: 239].

November 10, 1878 Sunday

– Livy wrote from Rome to her mother (see Nov. 9 entry).

November 11, 1878 Monday

 – The Clemens family left Rome at 10:50 AM, and returned to  Florence, Italy at 6:50 PM, where they spent the night at the Hotel de  New York [MTLE 3: 97; MTNJ 2: 248].  They were headed north to spend the winter in Munich, a 600 mile  trip with 36 hours on slow trains, and four overnight hotel stops to make the journey more bearable for Livy [Rodney 115].  Sam’s notebook:

“… saw splendid torchlight processions crossing the 2 Arno  bridges to see the King, at the Pitti palace.

November 12, 1878 Tuesday

– The Clemens family  stayed a day and another night in Florence [MTLE 3: 97].

November 13, 1878 Wednesday

  – The Clemens family left Florence at 10:45 AM and reached Bologna, Italy at 4:15 PM [MTLE 3:  97; MTNJ 2: 249].  Sam made a notebook entry that he stopped here to see Guiseppe Mezzofanti (d.1849), “because  he knew 111 languages, but he was dead” [MTNJ 2: 266].

November 14, 1878 Thursday

– The Clemens family left Bologna at noon and traveled until 10:30 PM to reach Trent in the  Austrian Tyrol, by way of “Modena, Mantua, & Verona.” Sam was acting as the  courier for the group and thought himself “a shining success…so far” [MTNJ 2: 249; MTLE 3:97].

November 15, 1878 Friday

– The Clemens family was up at 6 AM and traveled all day. After twelve hours they arrived in Munich, Germany. At 7 PM they arrived, in “drizzle & fog at  the domicil which had been engaged for us ten months before” [MTLE 3: 94].

November 3, 1878 Sunday

– Sam wrote from Rome, Italy to Joe  Twichell. After discussing the  matter of a clock Sam had purchased, sending it home through Will Sage, which caused all sorts  of red tape, Sam sent compliments on Joe’s letters.

November 5, 1878 Tuesday

– Sam’s notebook:

“…spent all day in Vedder’s lofty studio & the evening  with him & another artist spinning yarns & drinking beer in a quiet  saloon. Big row in the street but no bloodshed.” 

 Elihu Vedder was an American artist who kept a studio in  Rome. Sam visited the studio several times [MTNJ 2:  242]. (See Nov. 9 entry.)

November 6, 1878 Wednesday

– Sam’s notebook:

“Visited  the Catacombs. One mummy (shapeless) & one slender young girl’s long hair  & decaying bones— both in stone coffins & both between 15 & 1600  years old.”

November 7, 1878 Thursday

– U.S. Consulate sent Venetian Bills of Lading for things purchased [MTP].

November 8, 1878 Friday

– Sam viewed the painting “Bambino” at Ara  Coeli.

It is  always safe to say a thing was mentioned by Pliny. He was the father of  reporters—he mentioned everything.

Suit of  clothes in Heidelberg, $18; in Milan (slop-shop) $9; in  Rome (fancy tailor, $25  & $38—both very fine—the latter half dress. At home, $65 to 90 [MTNJ 2: 246].

November 9, 1878 Saturday

– “Cooks agent gone off junketing—for a few days—can’t get any tickets” [MTNJ 2: 245].
 
In  a letter dated Nov. 10, Livy wrote to her mother:

We  have enjoyed Rome immensely & wish so very much that we were  going to spend three months here.  

November, 1878

November – In Sam’s  notebook there’s an entry “Little Pedlington” which refers to John Poole’s   1839 book, Little Pedlington and the Pedlingtonians. Gribben quotes E.  Cobham Brewer, calling this “an imaginary place, the village of quackery and  can’t, egotism and humbug, affectation and flatter” [553].

Sam noted “Turganieff’s Visions”  and “Visions, a Phantasy, by Tourganieff—in the Galaxy”  in his notebook [MTNJ 2: 244, 247].

October 1, 1878 Tuesday

In his letter of Nov. 20 to Twichell,  Sam wrote that he had “discharged George [Burk]  at Venice—the worthless idiot—& have developed into a pretty fair sort of  courier myself since then” [MTLE 3:  101]. Sam fired Burk on Oct. 1 [MTNJ 2: 197] Note: George Burk had been the portier at the Schloss Hotel in Heidelberg   when Sam hired him. Sam gave Burk 100 franks extra and let him go.

October 10, 1878 Thursday

From Sam’s notebook:
Today received an  impudent letter from George Burk asking for 175 francs more—but it furnishes me  with his address, which I want.

Afternoon—3 of the very  worst & most dismal solo singers in the world have been on the masonry platform ½ hour apart—never heard anything worse in the opera [MTNJ 2:  208].
 

October 12, 1878 Saturday

D. & C. Mac Iver wrote from Liverpool to advise “by  the request of Mr. George C. Wild we write to say that we shall be glad to  receive any articles, personal effects or otherwise & store & ship them  as you may instruct us” [MTP].
 

October 13, 1878 Sunday

From Sam’s notebook:

October 14, 1878 Monday

Sam wrote from Venice,  Italy to Chatto & Windus,  asking them to send copies of Innocents Abroad and The Adventures of  Tom Sawyer to William Mayer,  care of G.K. Mayer, Vienna Austria [MTLE 3: 94]. Following the establishment of a Linotype factory in 1890 in England,  the publisher William Mayer and his son Jacques traveled to Germany in 1894 to  find business partners there. 

October 15, 1878 Tuesday

The Clemenses visited Padre  Giacomo Issaverdenz, a friend of Howells,  on the island of San Lazzaro,  two miles southeast of Venice.  At the Armenian monastery the Padre gave them preserved rose-leaves to eat,  showed them photographs and talked about the Howellses [MTHL 1: 241].

Sam’s notebook:

“Very magnificent sunset & lamp effects (Piazza) coming  from San Lazzaro… Dittura—Boom! (finger to temple.) –Morte—Signor  Bismark—to-day–(laying head in palm of hand)” [MTNJ 2: 222-3]. (See Oct.  16 entry for explanation.)
 

October 16, 1878 Wednesday

Sam’s notebook:

For two days we have been doubting Dittura’s reliability as a  news gatherer—but to-night I heard a news- man crying a paper—understood “Count  Bismark” & bought a copy—spelled out the fact that 2 days ago, Carlo Conti  di Bismark, a citizen of Venice, committed suicide by shooting himself through  the head with a revolver. So D.[ittura] was 2 days ahead of the newspaper [MTNJ  2: 223].

Stabilimento  Salviati, Venice, sent a statement for items purchased/shipped [MTP].
 

October 17, 1878 Thursday

Sam’s notebook:

Belli Arti—It is not possible that anybody could take more  solid comfort in martydom that St. Sebastian did….The Old Master’s horses  always rear after the fashion of the kangaroo….500 Last Suppers—they all have  new table cloths with the fold wrinkles sharply defined.

The fig leaf & private members of statues are handled so  much that they are black & polished while the rest of the figure is white  & unpolished. Which sex does this handling?

Left for Florence. Good by, Dittura Agostino! [MTNJ 2: 223-5].

October 1878

October – A  notation in Sam’s notebook listed The Bible for Young People, translated by Wicksteed  in six volumes [MTNJ  2: 209]. Evidently  this was a reminder to send these books to Orion upon returning home, as Orion was writing a  biblical refutation. Orion had recently been excommunicated from the First Westminster Presbyterian Church of Keokuk [209n95].

Sam read William Wetmore Story’s  (1819-1895) 2  volume Roba di Roma (1863) and entered in his notebook:

October 21, 1878 Monday

Livy wrote from Florence to her mother:

This evening Mr & Mrs Chamberlain were in for an hour  & we sat about a wood fire & chatted—then Mr Clemens read to us—then to  bed—where I am now—Florence is much more restful than Venice, because we have  no social demands—and one ought to know no one when they are visiting picture  galleries—The Chamberlains are a perfect delight, they never tax us in the  least they are helpful to us and are bright beyond expression [MTNJ 2:  226n19].

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