ancona is said to have been founded by syracusans who had fled from the tyranny of dionysius. the town originally was built upon a hill, but the houses have been gradually extended down the face of the eminence, towards the sea. the cathedral stands on the highest part; from whence there is a most advantageous view of the town, the country, and the sea. this church is supposed to be placed on the spot where a temple, dedicated to venus, formerly stood; the same mentioned by juvenal, when he speaks of a large turbot caught on this coast, and presented to the emperor domitian.
incidit adriaci spatium admirabile rhombi,
ante domum veneris, quam dorica sustinet ancon.
[324]
the ascents and descents, and great inequality of the ground, will prevent this from being a beautiful town, but it has much the appearance of becoming a rich one. some of the nobility have the firmness and good sense to despise an ancient prejudice, and avowedly prosecute commerce. new houses are daily building, and the streets are animated with the bustle of trade. i met with several english traders on the change, which seemed crowded with sea-faring men, and merchants, from dalmatia, greece, and many parts of europe. there are great numbers of jews established in this city. i know not whether this race of men contribute greatly to the prosperity of a country; but it is generally remarked, that those places are in a thriving condition to which they resort. they have a synagogue here, and although all religions are tolerated, theirs is the only foreign worship allowed to be publicly exercised. the commerce of ancona has increased very rapidly of late years; and[325] it is evident, that the popes who first thought of making it a free port, of encouraging manufactures, and of building a mole, to render the harbour more safe, have injured venice in a more sensible manner, than those who thundered bulls against that republic; but it is much to be questioned, whether the former, by their encouragements to commerce, have augmented their own spiritual importance in the same proportion they have the temporal riches of their subjects.
men who have received a liberal education, and have adopted liberal sentiments previous to their engaging in any particular profession, will carry these sentiments along with them through life: and, perhaps, there is no profession in which they can be exercised with more advantage and utility, than in that of a merchant. in this profession, a man of the character above described, while he is augmenting his own private fortune, will enjoy the[326] agreeable reflection, that he is likewise increasing the riches and power of his country, and giving bread to thousands of his industrious countrymen. of all professions, his is in its nature the most independent: the merchant does not, like the soldier, receive wages from his sovereign; nor, like the lawyer and physician, from his fellow-subjects. his wealth often flows from foreign sources, and he is under no obligation to those from whom it is derived. the habit which he is in, of circulating millions, makes him lay less stress on a few guineas, than the proprietors of the largest estates; and we daily see, particularly in countries where this profession is not considered as degrading, the commercial part of the inhabitants giving the most exalted proofs of generosity and public spirit. but in countries where nobody, who has the smallest claim to the title of a gentleman, can engage in commerce without being thought to have demeaned himself, fewer examples of this nature will be found: and in every country, it must be acknowledged, that[327] those who have not had the advantage of a liberal education; who have been bred from their infancy to trade; who have been taught to consider money as the most valuable of all things, and to value themselves, and others, in proportion to the quantity they possess; who are continually revolving in their minds, to the exclusion of all other ideas, the various means of increasing their stock; to such people, money becomes a more immediate and direct object of attention, than to any other class of men; it swells in their imagination, is rated beyond its real worth, and, at length, by an inversion of the christian precept, it is considered as the one thing needful, to be sought with the most unremitting ardour, that all other things may be added thereunto.
in commercial towns, where every body finds employment, and is agitated by the bustle of business, the minds of the inhabitants are apt to be so much engrossed[328] with the affairs of this world, as almost to forget that there is another; and neither the true religion nor false ones, have such hold of their minds, as in places where there is more poverty, and less worldly occupation. in the first, they consider the remonstrances of priests and confessors as interruptions to business; and, without daring to despise the ceremonies of religion, like the speculative sceptic or infidel, the hurried trader huddles them over as fast as possible, that he may return to occupations more congenial with the habit of his mind. the preachers may cry aloud, and spare not; they may lift up their voices like trumpets, proclaiming the nothingness of this world, and all which it contains; it is in vain. men who have been trained to the pursuit of money from their childhood, who have bestowed infinite pains to acquire it, and who derive all their importance from it, must naturally have a partiality for this world, where riches procure so many flattering distinctions; and a prejudice[329] against that in which they procure none: but in towns where there is little trade, and great numbers of poor people, where they have much spare time, and small comfort in this world, the clergy have an easier task, if they are tolerably assiduous, in turning the attention of the inhabitants to the other. in roman catholic towns of this description, we see the people continually pacing up and down the streets, with wax tapers in their hands. they listen, with fond attention, to all the priest relates concerning that invisible country, that land of promise, where their hopes are placed; they ruminate, with complacency, on the happy period when they also shall have their good things; they bear their present rags with patience, in expectation of the white raiment and crowns of gold, which, they are told, await them; they languish for the happiness of being promoted to that lofty situation, from whence they may look down, with scorn, on those to whom they now look up with[330] envy, and where they shall retaliate on their wealthy neighbours, whose riches, at present, they imagine, insult their own poverty.
this town being exposed, by the nature of its commerce with turkey, to the contagious diseases which prevail in that country, clement xii., as soon as he determined to make it a free port, erected a lazzaretto. it advances a little way into the sea, is in the form of a pentagon, and is a very noble, as well as useful, edifice. he afterwards began a work, as necessary, and still more expensive; i mean the mole built in the sea, to screen the vessels in the harbour from the winds, which frequently blow from the opposite shore of the adriatic with great violence. this was carried on with redoubled spirit by benedict xiv. after his quarrel with venice, has been continued by the succeeding popes, and is now almost finished. this building was founded in the ruins of the ancient mole,[331] raised by the emperor trajan. the stone of istria was used at first, till the exportation of it was prohibited by the republic of venice, who had no reason to wish well to this work. but a quarry of excellent stone was afterwards found near ancona, as fit for the purpose; and a kind of sand, which, when mixed with lime, forms a composition as hard as any stone, is brought from the neighbourhood of rome; and no other is used for this building, which is above two thousand feet in length, one hundred in breadth, and about sixty in depth, from the surface of the sea. a stupendous work, more analogous to the power and revenues of ancient, than of modern, rome.
near to this stands the triumphal arch, as it is called, of trajan. this is an honorary monument, erected in gratitude to that emperor, for the improvements he made in this harbour at his own expence. next to the maison quarrée at n?mes, it is[332] the most beautiful and the most entire monument of roman taste and magnificence i have yet seen. the fluted corinthian pillars on the two sides are of the finest proportions; and the parian marble of which they are composed, instead of having acquired a black colour, like the ducal palace of venice, and other buildings of marble, is preserved, by the sea vapour, as white and shining as if it were fresh polished from the rock. i viewed this charming piece of antiquity with sentiments of pleasure and admiration, which sprang from a recollection of the elegant taste of the artist who planned this work, the humane amiable virtues of the great man to whose honour it was raised, and the grandeur and policy of the people who, by such rewards, prompted their princes to wise and beneficent undertakings.
