Giovanna Cermelli
Italian travellers in the Rhineland in the first half of the nineteenth century Introduction
In the first half of the nineteenth century, with the river becoming a depository of memory and a symbol of national identity, the Rhine myth was born and strengthened. Some Italian travellers to Germany note this aspect of their journey, however, amongst the multitude of travel accounts, published in various places, and not always meant for a large audience, few take such an interest.1 Most trips were taken for scientific (engineering, medicinal, architectural) purposes or for the benefit of religious and philanthropic societies. Travel experiences and accounts of meetings with German intellectuals, academic or not, are also mentioned in correspondence between various renowned figures. In these contexts, the Rhineland is generally ignored, or is merely traversed during journeys that have their focus on other places and regions.2 German science is sought in Gottingen and Hannover, as well as in Munich; art in Munich and Berlin. The universities visited in the Rhineland, at Heidelberg and Bonn, as well as the Academy of Art in Düsseldorf, are rightly considered extra-regional entities, in which the intellectual compass extends beyond German boundaries. Numerous observations about the German national temperament have their origins in other regions, especially in Prussia, Hessen or Saxony. The Rhineland, in fact, is more likely to be used as a foil to better define the genuine nature of the German. In other words, when they are mentioned, the characteristics of the Rhineland’s inhabitants are linked to a culture of French origin.
It seems that the legacy of the French administration and the lifestyle of the former occupants not only affected the nineteenth-century Rhineland but also highlighted its belonging to the “Latin” world. This is the more interesting aspect of the accounts, even from a sociopolitical point of view. However, as we will see, there are also plenty of notes on the Prussian administration, which is of great interest to the Italian travellers, since it represents a model of efficient modernization (especially with regard to public education). Thus, Prussian governance seems to fit perfectly into the French secular tradition, with the result being that the Rhineland is seen as a unique model, with no equivalent in other German states. The only issue, according to a very successful publication of the 1830s, Peregrinazioni d’un artista (Wanderings of an Artist), a translation by Giuseppe Bertolio of an anonymous French text of 1834, is whether the German or French spirit predominates, in this case, in Strasbourg.
It should also be added that, should he not want to take a political side (a frequent habit among the travelling scientists), the Italian traveller very often did not make a distinction between the Habsburg Empire and the German states. In fact, the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia belonged to the Habsburg Empire, and the Austrian hegemony over the other Italian states meant a typical cultural trip would lead first to Vienna and finally to Prague, with an itinerary that might touch German states and towns but that left aside the Rhineland.
In some scientific and naturalistic journeys the Rhineland is lightly touched upon (although the Rhine is
1 According to Heitmann 2008, 598-618, in the first half of the century, Italian travellers abroad were very rare, particularly in Germany. The scholar attributes this fact to the substantial provincialism of the Italian Risorgimento. 2 In the first half of the nineteenth century, the typical itineraries of Italian travellers abroad were substantially along
two axes: Berlin/Netherlands/England and Vienna/Prague. Switzerland still represented an autonomous
mentioned), but as an appendix of Switzerland, with the collection of basalt, for example, and observations concerning distinctive features of the landscape, prevailing over other considerations. There are also some reports referring to the half-hearted emotions of those living on the threshold of Alsace, where three peoples meet along the Rhine: the Swiss, the French and the German.1
These preliminary facts should not mislead us: the apparent lack of interest in the Rhine is actually the result of a cautious, often hesitant approach to issues of great topical interest to the Italian elite of the time (to which the travellers who published such accounts belonged). It must be acknowledged that, in fact, all of the travel accounts considered here were written by people from central-northern Italy or published by firms operating there; in other words, regions under Austrian administration (or in the sphere of influence of the Austrian Empire) or the Piedmontese.
Without doubt, the atmosphere of the Italian Risorgimento did not promote any straightforward focus on the issue of German nationality; on the contrary, it helps bring to light – explicitly or implicitly – the problem of the attitude that the German states (and Prussia in particular) had to the issue of Italian nationhood. Moreover, in the 1850s, the fragile relationship between Piedmont and France meant statements by the travellers on the issue of the Rhineland were even more cautious.2
Thus, we can now better situate the Italian discovery of the Rhine as a symbol of German national identity. While some accounts appear at the beginning of the 1840s, noteworthy consequences were only drawn after the Italian unification in the 1860s – after which an independent relationship with the states of Germany began at both the political and institutional levels. It is not by chance that the Rhine myth was recognized and presented as an enduring reality from this time onward, prompting, for example, literary exchanges and even critical sociopolitical observations. In other words, it is from the 1860s that Italian literature and journalism actually explicitly discusses the issue of German nationality.3
A significant example is represented by a story with an autobiographical background by Giovanni Ruffini, Un angolo tranquillo nel Giura. First published in English in 1867 under the title A Quiet Nook in the Jura (and in Italian in 1871 and 1874), the book recalls some episodes and characters encountered by Ruffini during his Swiss exile in the mid-1830s. A prominent place in his memoirs is taken by a certain Herr Konrad, a German exile. Patriot and pedagogue, after 1848 he would become Minister for Education in an unmentioned German state. Konrad “had an absolute faith, almost close to fatalism, in the future unity of his country”, and as such he was the only German among those met by the Italian traveller who logically and unconditionally recognized the Italian right to independence.
It is worth mentioning, in order to explain this connection, a short dialogue between Konrad, the exiled traveller, and an eleven-year-old boy who he met at the entrance to a village.
“Do you know where the sun rises?
“There” – promptly, said the boy, “in the east.” “Where is the west?”
“There.”
“France is in the east or in the west?” “I don’t know.”
“And Germany?” “I don’t know.”
1 E.g. Orti 1819, 112.
2 At the beginning of the 1840s, in contrast, La Farina was free to express his inflammatory anti-French invective with regard to the Rhineland crisis of 1840 (La Farina, 1842, 40 ff.). According to him, the reaction of the French intellectuals was ridiculous or even grotesque. How could French nationalists defend a culture that was completely indebted to the Germans?
“Have you ever heard of the Rhine?” “No.”
“And about ancient Greece and Rome?” “No.”
[…]
“How do you write Helvetia?”1
With a strategy of interrogation that reveals the complete ignorance of the young peasant, the geographical coordinates aim to build the geopolitical context (France and Germany), whose centre is the Rhine, understood as the cultural heritage of all humanity (as well as ancient Rome and Greece) and, at the same time, the heart of the German nation. In this sense, the passage to the final question seems coherent, concerning the homeland of the boy; not surprisingly, it is in free Helvetia that the exiles find refuge. Among the occasional displays of interest preceding the unification of Italy, particularly interesting are Viaggi d’oltremonte (Travels beyond the Mountains) by Cesare Campori (published in Modena in 1842) and Cenni di una peregrinazione da Torino a Copenhagen attraverso la Svizzera, lungo il Reno, l’Olanda, la Danimarca e ritorno per la Germania (Elements of a Pilgrimage from Turin to Copenhagen, through Switzerland, along the Rhine, to the Netherlands, Denmark and back through Germany) by Giuseppe Baruffi,2 for the freshness and the concreteness of the anecdotes. Two further texts dedicated to the Rhine (not belonging to travel literature in the proper sense) must be added to the above-mentioned reports: a monograph by Giuseppe La Farina, La Germania renana coi suoi monumenti e le sue leggende (Germany of the Rhine with its Monuments and Legends; Florence 1842), and an imaginary travel account in verse written by Carlo Layolo, Due giorni sul Reno. Decasillabi divisi in cinque canti seguiti da note storiche e geografiche (Two Days on the Rhine. Decasyllables Divided into Five Poems followed by Historical and Geographical Notes; Asti 1834).
Of the four authors, only Campori and La Farina explicitly take a position with regard to the Rhine as a sometimes problematic symbol of national identity, although the other two express some stance. Sometimes equally as telling – perhaps even more so – are the remarks of travellers who only indirectly or lightly touch on that subject, perhaps due to their prudence or even a lack of interest. Thus, while specific observations from these other accounts will be considered where appropriate – despite the lack of a clear stance by the authors of these texts – in this chapter I will concentrate on the four authors mentioned above, attempting to follow their argumentative strategy, at least in outline. Given the unsystematic character of the travel reports, it seems appropriate to begin by identifying some prevailing themes, illustrated using the most relevant remarks by the Italian travellers.
France and the Rhineland
From the Italian point of view, the period of major interest in the Rhineland and the events occurring there is the Napoleonic Era. In a sense, this interest was quite natural, since all of Europe anxiously looked on with terror and indignation, sometimes enthusiasm, at the achievements of the French army and Napoleon’s politics of conquest, first as consul and then as emperor. For the Francophile Italians, the Rhineland represented an example of emancipation from ecclesiastical rule and a paradigm of good administration. In contrast, the anti-French side saw it as an example of a dishonourable about-face.
In this regard, it is interesting to observe that, in the years of the Bourbon Restoration, the hostility diminished and positive judgements concerning the French administrative legacy prevail. In any case, for all observers, the Rhine is set up as a scene of heroic and chivalrous deeds: first of all, the heroism of the French army between 1796 and 1797, and then the Austro-Prussian campaigns of 1813, in particular,
1 Ruffini 1920, 41 ff.
Blücher’s military operations. With regard to the political-administrative aspect, the axis in this first stage is constituted by the political, administrative and cultural contrast between the two hegemonic powers in Italy during this period of transition: on the one side France and on the other, Austria. In this context, the Rhineland is the laboratory in which we may better observe the consequences of this opposition.
Particularly interesting in this regard is La storia dell’anno 1797 divisa in 14 libri (The History of the Year 1797. Divided into 14 Books), edited in Venice by the Austrophile Giuseppe Rossi. The work (in particular part IV) provides a very accurate account of events in the above-mentioned year, published shortly afterwards, in which the author makes a genuine anthropological and psychological distinction between the “true” and “false” people of the Rhine. The latter, inhabitants of the left bank of the river, are said to have been overwhelmed by the negative influence of French culture for too long to be capable of showing any opposition to revolutionary seduction. After absorbing the arid essence of the Enlightenment, the author claims, they now allow themselves to be blinded by the promises of political emancipation: “they swallowed the poisoned cup of the people’s sovereignty as willingly as, at the beginning, they tasted its rim dipped in sweet honey […]” (p. 48). Thus, the inhabitants of the left bank of the Rhine, and above all those living along the Moselle, having lost their Teutonic tenacity, face the consequence of becoming credulous, rather gullible and readily seducible types.
The opposite is said to be the case for those on the right bank of the river: being paternally protected by the weapons of Archduke Charles, they continue to observe the values of the past, in which lies the most genuine German soul, the same values that, to tell the truth, belong to all peoples, the author claims. According to Rossi, “they taste the true freedom of conscience that consists in peacefully practising the real religion” (p 48 ff.).
In the following decades, these elements will persist as the substratum to a discourse that gradually adjusts its assumptions and its general evaluation. In other words, in this appraisal, the basic elements of the representation of the Rhine peoples are already fully recognizable in an image that will endure throughout the following years. The Rhineland’s people are characterized by a certain meek superficiality, due both to their instinctive acceptance of novelty and their unruly disorder; in other words, they do not share the qualities of the “real” Germans met by travellers in other regions of Germany and Austria: the serious, sometimes weighty gravity; the introspection, the steadfastness and the compliance with secular and religious authority.
Thus, the Rhine’s peoples in general, on both banks of the river, exhibit very different characteristics from those of other Germans. On 9 October 1835, Baruffi writes from Dresden: “I close with the comforting news that the external appearance of the city seemed very moral to me, if compared with that, so voluptuous, of the Rhine’s cities… perhaps, as Manzoni says, because crammed full of many lazy soldiers who teach modesty to the girls!” (p. 31). Surely, in 1835, the lazy soldiers were not French but Austro-Prussian.
The voluptuous lassitude, so different from the German sobriety experienced (but not always admired, as in the case of Baruffi) in other regions, not only infuses the everyday life of the Rhine’s cities, but also the atmosphere which the voyagers imbibe while travelling on the river’s renowned barges. As far as the heritage of French administration is concerned, this topic is treated in numerous travel accounts – in some cases in a lukewarm fashion, in others more ardently, but essentially and unanimously positively. Once the true religion was re-established and the memory of the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars faded, the peoples of the Rhine encountered by our travellers willingly acknowledge the advantages of French administration: “speaking to me about the French government with gratitude, since under Napoleon the town rose from its many misfortunes, some citizens led me to observe that Mainz is currently flourishing and clearly improving” (Baruffi, p. 23). Moreover, again with their own eyes, the learned travellers witness the modernization of the Rhineland – which, in the absence of conflict, is associated with the economic and political development that began in the region after 1815. These developments were found to be even more necessary, when considering the poverty of some of the Rhine regions – the heritage of which, after
the Bourbon Restoration, included a high rate of emigration, as well as, apparently, a much higher rate of mental illness than elsewhere. B. Bertini, for example, discussing the Heidelberg psychiatric hospital in his Viaggio medico in Germania (Medical Travels in Germany), observed that “the majority of the imbeciles come from the nations of the ancient Palatinate of the Rhine, now part of the Grand Duchy”.1 This statement also has religious motives: according to statistics gathered in a survey carried out by Bertini himself, the majority of the madmen in Heidelberg were Catholic (155 out of 797,638 inhabitants, compared to 77 Protestants out of 384,799 inhabitants). Even if the variance is small, in the eyes of the learned observer it was remarkable.
The Army of the Rhine
The explicit and enthusiastic interest in military deeds throughout the Rhineland during the Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary periods led, even among contemporaries of this period, to the creation of a sort of myth, the undisputed heroes of which were the French Generals Hoche, Marceau and Moreau. They became famous for their chivalrous spirit, as well as for their courageous and heroic deeds. Only many years later, at the end of the Napoleonic Era, would the Prussian General, Blücher, be added to the list, due to his famous crossing of the Rhine in pursuit of the French.
At the time of the Bourbon Restoration, the deeds of the Rhine’s army would give rise to a kind of chivalrous epic, absolutely free from any political or contemporary concerns. This ensured that during the Bourbon Restoration, in an apparently paradoxical way, both the French soldiers and the battlefields were included in the symbols of German national identity – without animosity or nostalgia. Military actions around Kehl, for example, became epic deeds whose heroes were the brave and chivalrous soldiers,2 placed above and beyond politics, and – as we will see further below – gave rise to a timeless image of nobility and dignity. Particular interest is dedicated to the numerous episodes of magnanimity towards the enemy and the gallant mutual acknowledgment of each other’s bravery.
The monuments to Hoche, Marceau and Moreau, as well as their settings, will become memorials to a chivalrous and heroic period; places of sentimental mourning for sensitive souls. On this basis, they will become an essential part of the romantic character attributed to the Rhine, an element to which the Italian travellers and chroniclers will be particularly responsive. In fact, in all of the Italian travel accounts before the mid-nineteenth century, the recollection of these deeds and a visit to the places consecrated to them will become obligatory, as will the mourning of the prematurely fallen heroes (primarily Hoche, but also Desaix). This was a determined form of travel connected to an epigonal nostalgia, which was rarely tied to memories of the real Napoleonic Era. In fact, the memories surrounding the deeds of the Rhine’s army allow the channelling of attention to an age when Napoleon was still one of numerous generals, and was committed elsewhere.
A woodblock print of the writer in tears before the memorial to Hoche constitutes the frontispiece of a curious little volume by Carlo Layolo with the title, Due giorni sul Reno.3 The recollection of Hoche (who may well be identified with the premature death of a friend, to whom the short poem is dedicated) is here combined with the recollection of the heroes of 1813 in a sort of sentimental short circuit:
here the Prussian brave hero, here Bluecher crossed the shore with his valiant men in order to break the hateful wicked yoke that exasperated Europe, here Nassavia, mistress of the place, had to write about eternity.4
1 Bertini 1838, 32 ff.
2 Cf., e.g. Baruffi 1837, Long Letter I, 20.
3 Published in Asti in 1834; I could not find any information about this author. 4 Layolo 1834, 115.
As already mentioned, this is the modern epic from which a rightful and legitimate national pride is born, as Layolo emphasizes:
It is Lamagna, the classic land of the never defeated Arminios and Bluechers; wise in peace and terrible in war, fair avenger of prejudiced rights, it is the shelter of noble virtues that, miserable and pursued, fled. (p. 88)
This modern epic, centred on heroes of different persuasions, who nevertheless share the same ideals of freedom and liberation, is spontaneously linked to the memory of Arminio, but in very clear opposition to the deeds of the dark centuries of which the Rhineland is rich in ruins. The latter deeds are recalled with indignation, as a barbaric inheritance completely antithetical to the founding a national identity:
This was the fatal place where one of those aggressive warriors, who, imperious and cruel, trampled on divine and human rights with unfair, utterly unjust fervour, to attain immortal glory. O unhappy, thrice unhappy, that brutal, blind age, when you, Discord, shattered your avenging, horrific mane with blinding fury […]. (p. 115)
In a less naive form, Giuseppe La Farina also adheres to the same schema in his La Germania renana (The Germany of the Rhine): proud Germans, indomitable fighters for their land; dark centuries of sectarianism and violence; the revenge of 1813.1 Nonetheless, the revenge mentioned was only possible because it was nourished by a spirit of national dignity that only the French Revolution had been able to awaken (or reawaken) in the Germans.
As an aside, it should be recalled that while the texts by La Farina and Layolo maintain the structure of a travelogue, they are actually reconstructions of imaginary journeys, whose organization is based on the clichés deduced from the literature of the day, mainly French (La Farina declares his debt to Hugo, while in Layolo’s work we recognize echoes of Byron’s Manfred). In contrast, the “real” Italian travellers do not show any interest in the barbaric Middle Ages and its vestiges, which they barely mention. There is a reason for this. The debate between Romantics and Classicists, inflamed in the 1820s by the journal Il Conciliatore, implies, among other things, a widespread mistrust of the medieval, feudal and barbaric Rhine. Thus, it is not by chance that the rediscovery of the medieval Rhine will later take shape in the work of the committed patriot, La Farina, as the proper, though novel interpretation: an example of resistance to the arrogance of the mighty and the flourishing of civic virtues (traces of this new reading of popular legends and fairy tales about the Rhine can also be found in Layolo).
In conclusion, in order to consider the picturesque features of the cultural scenery of the Rhine, as well as to pay particular attention to specific monuments and memories or legends, literary mediation, especially French, proves to be essential (although Hugo is rarely quoted and some accounts mentioned here precede the publication of his work on the Rhine). Moreover, Byron’s Manfred is even more firmly present, though only in the background.
Culture, Education, Society and Politics: the modern Rhineland (Baruffi, Campori)
The Piedmontese Giuseppe Baruffi, who was a cleric and a university professor of “positive philosophy”, was the author of a series of travelogues that were highly appreciated by his contemporaries of Savoy.2 Cenni di una peregrinazione da Torino a Copenhagen (Elements of a Pilgrimage from Turin to Copenhagen) is divided into “long letters”, each one addressed to a renowned personality in Piedmontese culture, especially from
1 It must not be forgotten that an Italian translation of the Schwertlied by Körner was included by La Farina in his monograph. However, according to Heitmann 2008, 612 ff., it is not possible to ascertain whether La Farina knew German. Thus, the author of the translation is unknown.
2 Baruffi’s “Long Letters” are often quoted with admiration by Bertini in his Viaggio Medico (Medical Journey) as an example of accurate and current information.
the sciences. The first long letter, which the author pretends to have written from Cologne, is undoubtedly the most interesting. The traveller, claiming to be both impartial and apolitical in his views, immediately proves to be an enthusiastic admirer of Prussia. According to him, in fact, England and Prussia are perhaps “the two most civilized countries in old Europe”.1 This vision is not only due to a modern and rational administration, but also to the moral consequences of this for the population. It is evident that there is “a huge difference in characteristics, traditions and culture, especially between the north and the south German territory. At the same time, there is a considerable moral and intellectual distance between the two capitals, that is, Berlin and Vienna” (p. 59). When we recall that this zealous admirer of Protestant Prussia is a Catholic priest, the statement becomes even more interesting.
Thus, Baruffi identifies contradictory elements in the Rhineland, these being the result of historical and cultural stratifications that mark the region. These contradictions, however, in turn make the Rhineland a melting pot of particularly remarkable experiments to an observer who is conscious that he comes from a region in need of modernization, that is, Albertine Piedmont. The two most important stops during the journey are Mainz and Cologne. The first, “the voluptuous Mainz”, confirms the non-German character of the Rhine’s people: “The slack and voluptuous life lived there is certainly a necessary consequence of so many indolent and idle people” (p. 22). Hence, the city stands out not merely because of its architectural beauty, but primarily because of the exquisite amusements, above all the “heavenly music” that resounds throughout the public gardens every Friday. However, it must be said that the slightly decadent lassitude of the city is also seen to be the result of the recent ravages: first of all, the sieges of 1793 and 1795, whose witnesses were still alive to recall the “pitiful, horrible and atrocious” events, and secondly, the typhus epidemic of 1814 (pp. 21f.). In actual fact, Baruffi is more interested in technological innovation, in the excellent condition of the roads and “the superb floating bridge on the Rhine, 1,666 Rhenish feet long, that connects the city to Cassel” (p. 22). In other words, in Mainz we read the multistratified and contradictory nature of the Rhineland, without the assimilation of the different components. For this reason, the city is inevitably condemned to an inexorable decay, as already experienced by “Vormazia” (Worms) and Mannheim, now reduced to living museums (p. 21). The image emerging is that of a region unable to take advantage of modernization; a region destined to become increasingly marginal.
The case of Cologne is quite different. While the citizens of this city share the same characteristics as those of Mainz, as primarily and eloquently proved by Carnival, and by “the luxury of the shops, the banality and excessive Baroque of the buildings”, the pretence to originality in their character is actually seen as extravagance (p. 31). The university had already lost its importance well before the arrival of the French, who suppressed it further: “worthy punishment for refusing to walk down the road of progress of the times” (p. 30).
What makes Cologne different from Mainz? It is the successful combination of the legacy of the French administration and the actuality of current Prussian rule. The first step towards the civilization of about 60,000 inhabitants, on the whole Catholics, was the prohibition of begging by the French, who employed the “ex-beggars” in industries, including textile manufacturing, the tobacco industry and the production of Eau de Cologne. This had been augmented, in turn, by progress in the capacity for fluvial navigation. The Prussians, for their part, paid particular attention to education, especially that of the common people, which “is widespread and set up on very large and solid bases […], thus it is quite difficult to find someone who cannot read, write and count with ease, or is not aware, at once, of the history of his homeland and the religion” (p. 30). Baruffi accurately lists all the schools, both public and private, grammar schools, museums, associations of the natural sciences, academies and the botanical gardens. On the basis of a massive literacy campaign, he points out, the neighbouring cities of Bonn and Düsseldorf were also able to flourish and demonstrate their excellence in the academic sciences and fine arts.
The French and Prussians seem to have agreed completely on the significance of social reform (if not
political) to the Rhineland – or at least part of it – which was designed to steer a deeply underdeveloped and docile population towards modernity after so many years of domination by the Church: jobs, education and – on the Prussian side – the suppression of Carnival. The most eloquent evidence of the precise intent of this strategy is represented by Düsseldorf (in the second long letter) and its environs. The industriousness of the inhabitants, their basic education, the boost to transport and communication routes (navigation and an excellent system of stagecoaches) “have made this corner the richest in Germany”.1 With regard to the symbols of national identity, Baruffi consistently exhibits a lack of interest. His pragmatic attitude, wholly projected into modernity (on the basis of the English model), ensures that he only incidentally mentions, and with a certain irony, the places and scenes connected to the past. Thus, we can infer from the “long letters” that Baruffi was not unaware of the issue of German nationhood, but that this was less significant to him than the necessity of the social reorganization of the Rhineland. In particular, he finds that this reorganization would occur with the support of Prussia, but only as long as Prussia continued to invest money, as was already happening, in education and communication routes (especially the railway), rather than in the completion of the Cologne Cathedral! In other words, investing in a coherent policy of emancipation projected into the future rather than care for the supposed symbols of the nation: in addition to the Cologne Cathedral, Baruffi refers to the monument to Gutenberg planned for Mainz – the major supporter of which was Tsar Nicholas!
Another noteworthy account, on the basis of its precise structure and the many supporting anecdotes, is Viaggi d’oltremonte (Travels beyond the Mountains) by Cesare Campori (Modena, 1852), who was an exquisite writer and committed intellectual, historian and polygraph. His work refers to Pacca, Bertola and the anonymous work mentioned above, Peregrinazioni di un artista (Wanderings of an Artist; first published in Paris in 1834; translated by Bertolio in 1836). Along with La Farina and the Italian writers of this time, he explicitly quotes Hugo (even though he devotes a very marginal role to Hugo’s pages on the Rhine). Unlike La Farina, who is primarily interested in the “continuity/discontinuity” of the relationship between past and present, Campori’s concern succinctly focuses on the Rhineland of the day, as Baruffi had also done some years before. In Campori’s view, the region is an example of successful economic federalism. Trade is prosperous, and the boundaries between the different countries are easily crossed. Thus, in the Rhineland, the administrative legacy of the Napoleonic Era seems to be strongly bound to an administration whose key aim is economic progress and the wellbeing of its citizens. From this point of view, a “material unity” seems to be perfectly achieved, particularly on the economic and cultural levels.
On a more specific, political level, Campori is particularly interested in the role played by Prussia in the Rhine provinces. The Rhine, the erudite traveller notes, is both a depository of historical and cultural memories and a lively sociocultural reality, with the latter aspect being, in his view, a direct consequence of the former. A multifarious reality on the religious, political and cultural levels had been created due to historical events. The Rhineland is considered a fertile land for “new spirits”, so much so that even its poets (Heine and Freiligrath are quoted) are restless souls with unrestrained imaginations, while its painters are naturally attracted by landscapes rich in “bizarre contrasts”.2 The nature and character of the people who developed there, we could say, even before the historical events, contributed to the creation of this mosaic, full of contradictory and vibrant impulses. There is no doubt, Campori maintains, that precisely because of this richness and diversity, the Rhineland expresses the liveliest and more authentic aspect of German national heritage.
This national heritage is fully projected into the future and does not look back to a past prior to the French Revolution. In this context, the role played by Prussia appears problematic. The Prussian interest in a region so distant from its traditions and, also, so geographically distant from Berlin, is well explained: the Rhineland is, Campori states, a source of pride for a country which is lacking in any cultural memory of its own (p. 172). Thus, the Rhine is taken and used as a surrogate for an identity-making process that otherwise
1 Baruffi 1837, unnumbered pages.
would not have a solid basis in Prussia. In addition, the prosperity of the Rhine’s regions fosters this kind of cultural annexation and fortifies the political one. Nevertheless, Campori argues, in the long run, Prussian involvement may prove to be unsustainable (pp. 172 ff.). Exactly what makes the Rhineland such a lively, charming place and a symbol of national unity, may also, in more specific political terms, be difficult to address, especially in a state such as Prussia. Two events in which the Prussians were involved are considered to have very strong symbolic value and are mentioned in order to further demonstrate the depth of these perplexities: according to the Italian observer, both were undermined by the “free spirits” of the Rhineland. The two events are very different from each other: on the one hand, the completion of the Cologne Cathedral, and on the other, the Franco-German crisis of 1840, with the tumult caused by Becker’s poem (p. 181).
According to Campori, Cologne Cathedral would most likely be completed, but only thanks to the munificence of the princes, and certainly not with the aid of a faith already fully faded (p. 170). It was thus not only an anachronistic project, but also blatantly artificial, and as such would never fortify German national identity (this judgement is shared by all the Italian travellers that I have consulted and, as we will see, the controversy is also mentioned by La Farina). As for Becker, Campori reads his poem during the journey, observing that less than ten years after its publication it has been completely forgotten, despite the wave of enthusiasm that the poem aroused in 1840 – which the traveller rejects in any case as being purely the result of a scandal (p. 181).
While the diagnosis might be interesting, we know that the prognosis was completely wrong, at least with regard to Prussia. In any case, it is evident that Campori – probably for reasons concerning concrete Italian circumstances at the time – forces the hand of federalism by expressing his open mistrust of a state that aspires to be hegemonic. Perhaps the most interesting thesis rising from Campori’s account is the role played by a multistratified and open culture as a truly distinctive feature of a national identity which is yet to be created. Significantly, France is completely ignored here: the analysis is fully focused on the relationships between each German state in the Rhineland and their peculiar economic and social characteristics. With regard to this, Campori is very close to those schools of thought that, within German intellectual circles, conceived of the development and structuring of a national cultural identity only by means of a valorization of the historical, cultural, economic and social peculiarities of every single region (it would be sufficient to consider the fortunate challenge represented by the series Das Malerische und Romantische Deutschland).1
The Rhine as a Symbol of “Kulturnation”: La Farina
The modernization of Germany, and particularly of the Rhineland, is the presupposition on which the first systematic Italian treatise devoted to the Rhine is based: La Germania renana coi suoi monumenti e le sue leggende (The Germany of the Rhine with its Monuments and Legends) by Giuseppe La Farina (Florence 1842). It is neither a specific travel account nor a tourist guide. The volume is quite opulent, large, richly furnished with engravings of each place with which the book deals: an ambitious popular work similar to those written by La Farina about other European locations.2 The argument of the book is that, as Germany is finally leaving behind the feudal Medieval Age and becoming a modern country, it can at last recognize and reveal to others its actual national temperament, of which the Rhine is the symbol par excellence. While in previous treatises the fundamental incompatibility between the character of the people of the Rhine and the German national character (with its symbols and memories) often emerged from between the lines, now the Rhineland’s openness to novelty, as well as its restlessness, are considered the quintessence of the most noble and memorable aspects of Germany. The review of particular places, according to an itinerary that extends from Cologne to Bingen, is preceded by a long introduction in the second edition (that of 1842, which we consulted) that is updated with further reports of German improvement in general.
1 Cf. Behschnitt 2006.
La Farina’s argument is clearly stated in the introduction: the Rhine is “for the romantic period, what the Tiber was for the classical period”. That is, it is a supranational river which encompasses 11 flags and 114 different towns, and links Switzerland to the Netherlands, two countries that in the past were distinguished for their struggles against tyranny. Therefore, it is mostly understood a means of progress, communication and friendship among peoples, to which railways will be added in the future in order to complete the picture.1
La Farina’s implicit postulate is that friendship among peoples presupposes the achievement of a solid spiritual unity. The writer distinguishes between “moral unity” and “material unity”, by analogy with the Italian Renaissance. The writer and patriot, La Farina, concludes that Germany obtained material unity thanks to Napoleon, first of all by means of the treaty of Lunéville, which actually eliminated 135 states, and then with the Rhine Confederation. In contrast, the French Emperor’s enemies provided the moral unity: he mentions Hofer, Schill, Arndt and the German universities. For La Farina, the Bourbon Restoration undermined the material unity, but made many improvements to moral unity. The Rhine becomes the symbol of this moral unity, and only of this. As is the case later in Campori, there is a certain mistrust of Prussia, whose hegemonic position is recalled.2 In addition, as in all Italian accounts, projects concerned with finishing the Cologne Cathedral, strictly connected with vague Prussian hegemonic desires, are dismissed with arrogance and scorn.
The play of contrapositions and parallelisms through which German moral identity is outlined, in comparison with France on the one hand and Italy on the other, is more interesting. The sharpest contraposition is found to occur with the French spirit, because the French are a geographically and historically contiguous population: while French efforts have always been focused on the attempt to remove God from the world, the entirety of German thought and culture is an investigation of how it is possible to find God. This makes the Germans a people of deep spirituality and strong religious beliefs. In this definition there are still traces of the French treatises of the previous decade, and the author again recalls Madame de Staël. According to La Farina, a distinctive example of German spirit is offered by German women: educated as freely as men and along with them, they are able to combine spontaneous discretion and domestic virtues with a natural freedom and spontaneity in their expressions and actions. Curiously enough, it is literary characters who voice this peculiar German feature; for example, Goethe’s Klärchen and Gretchen, and Kleist’s Käthchen.
Hence, German spirit is feminine – and here the introduction connects with the descriptive section – as is attested to by the numerous legends of the Rhine that are linked to the most famous sites along the river. These legendary events concern constancy in love but also stubborn independence; quiet endurance but also untamed resistance to masculine arrogance. The memory of female figures, turned into legends by popular tradition and poetry, represents the worthiest part of a feudal Medieval Age that the Rhineland has happily left behind. It is this memory that is consecrated by legends that primarily differentiates the German and Italian peoples. According to La Farina, unlike the latter, the Germans have been able to keep their bond with their past alive, not because they had recently decided to maintain and take care of their material culture (as already mentioned, the interest in conservation, epitomized by the unfinished Cologne Cathedral, was not highly regarded), but because they had maintained their legends and poetry. In contrast,
1
La Farina 1842, xi: “Allorché queste innumerevoli arterie d’acqua […] si intrecceranno con un altro sistema di arterie, di ferro, ciò che oggi parrebbe un’utopia allora diverrà una realtà, e gli uomini degli eterni geli anderanno in pochi giorni ad abbracciare gli uomini degli ardenti deserti e congiungersi con essi in nodi di fratellanza e di amore!” (And when these countless arteries of water […] are interwoven with another system of iron arteries, what now seems a utopia will become reality, and men from the eternal ice will be able to embrace men of eternal deserts within days, joining them in a union of brotherhood and love!).2 Similar to Baruffi 1837: “il re di Prussia ha qui la chiave del Reno, come il Gran Turco e gli inglesi la chiave del Mediterraneo” (here the king of Prussia has the key to the Rhine as the Ottoman sultan and the English have the key to the Mediterranean).
the Italian people had foolishly allowed their foreign oppressors to desecrate and systematically destroy places still devoted to national memory, and they had also not bothered to revitalize their inheritance through poetry. It is important to remember that it was only at this time that the first collection of Italian folksongs was brought together and edited; moreover, this collection took Wunderhorn as its model: a decision that the academic world justifies with difficulty. Furthermore, this situation continued until about 1860.
At first glance, there is another difference between the Germans and the Italians. Germany seems to have memories of another Medieval Age; the age of civic freedoms. Thus, once again, the Rhine can become a symbol of “moral unity” because what flourishes on its river banks are examples of resistance to tyranny, suggesting the possibility of middle-class independence. In this respect, La Farina recalls not only Perkeo in Heidelberg, but also Gutenberg in Mainz and Hermann Grein in Cologne, along with many more.
Therefore, in these few pages, the rebellious and supranational vocation of the Rhineland comes to represent the nature of the entire German people at its best: care for the past, linked with an openness to the future and to individual virtues (including those epitomized in the legendary women from the banks of the Rhine), as well as the public virtues of proud and thoughtful citizens.
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