29. The next point of interest is the window. The modern Italian is
completely owl-like in his habits. All the daytime he lies idle and
inert; but during the night he is all activity, but it is mere activity
of inoccupation. Idleness, partly induced by the temperature of the
climate, and partly consequent on the decaying prosperity of the nation,
leaves indications of its influence on all his undertakings. He prefers
patching up a ruin to building a house; he raises shops and hovels, the
abodes of inactive, vegetating, brutish poverty, under the protection of
aged and ruined, yet stalwart, arches of the Roman amphitheater; and the
habitations of the lower orders frequently present traces of ornament
and stability of material evidently belonging to the remains of a
prouder edifice. This is the case sometimes to such a degree as, in
another country, would be disagreeable from its impropriety; but, in
Italy, it corresponds with the general prominence of the features of a
past age, and is always beautiful. Thus, the eye rests with delight on
the broken moldings of the windows, and the sculptured capitals of the
corner columns, contrasted, as they are, the one with the glassless
blackness within, the other with the ragged and dirty confusion of
drapery around. The Italian window, in general, is a mere hole in the
thick wall, always well proportioned; occasionally arched at the top,
sometimes with the addition of a little rich ornament: seldom, if ever,
having any casement or glass, but filled up with any bit of striped or
colored cloth, which may have the slightest chance of deceiving the
distant observer into the belief that it is a legitimate blind. This
keeps off the sun, and allows a free circulation of air, which is the
great object. When it is absent, the window becomes a mere black hole,
having much the same relation to a glazed window that the hollow of a
skull has to a bright eye; not unexpressive, but frowning and ghastly,
and giving a disagreeable impression of utter emptiness and desolation