EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CARRIAGES
hardly credible. Such great cities in France have not the hundredth part of connection and communication with each other that much inferior places enjoy with us."[1]
Obviously, with but such a happy-go-lucky system on a main road between France and Italy, nothing better could be expected on the less traveled roads of Italy itself. The ordinary accommodations are briefly outlined by Nugent in the "Grand Tour."[2] and these we may supplement with more detail: "There are several ways of travelling in Italy, such as with post-horses; with a vettura or hired coach or calash in which they do not change horses; and, finally, with a procaccio or stage-coach that undertakes to furnish passengers with provisions and necessary accommodations on the road. Travelling post you pay five julios a horse at each post (a julio is about sixpence) and two julios to the postilion. The price of the vetturas is fixed differently according to the difference of province or road; and the same may be said of the procaccios, which is much the worst way of travelling."[3]
The posting-system had the convenience of permitting the traveler to pay his way to the place he wished to visit,[4] without placing upon him further responsibility for the carriage or the driver. Well organized as the system was, it did not, however, prevent occasional annoyance that stirred the wrath of irritable tourists. "Of all the people I have ever seen," said Smollett, "the hostlers, postilions and other fellows, hanging about the post-houses in Italy, are the most greedy, impertinent, and provoking."[5]
Some of the petty regulations, moreover, were unquestionably very exasperating; and to avoid them De La Lande advises the traveler going from France to take a carriage straight through from Lyons to Turin.[6] He remarks: "It is a rule at Chambéry, as in the rest of Italy, that when one arrives by post one must continue in the same fashion or spend three nights in the place where one arrives, if one wishes to take drivers."[7] In the reverse direction, "Post-masters at Turin are not to furnish travellers with horses without a licence from the secretary of
63
- ↑ Ibid., p. 266.
- ↑ Vol. iii, p. 39.
- ↑
With this it is interesting to compare the suggestions offered to travelers nearly a century later, in Coghlan's Handbook for Italy (p. xiv):—
"In the Italian states there are three modes of conveyance: posting, by diligence, and by veitturini; travellers by the first mode should always provide a bolletone at the police-office, without which no post-horses can be obtained.
"In Italy, as in France, the number of horses put to a carriage is regulated by the number of persons; thus a post-chaise with two persons requires two horses, three persons three horses, and four persons four horses; but in those parts of Northern Italy where the roads are level, a calash, or open carriage, with three persons and one trunk, is allowed to travel with two horses.
"In Tuscany, an English post-chaise with a pole, conveying three persons and without an imperial, if the road is not mountainous, is allowed to travel with two horses, but if there is an imperial it must have three horses; and English carriages, with four persons, imperial and trunks, must have four horses.
"In the papal dominions, a two- wheeled carriage, with three persons and one trunk, is allowed to travel with two horses, but with more than one trunk three horses are indispensable; a four-wheeled carriage, with six persons and one trunk, is allowed to travel with four horses, but with six persons and two large trunks, or with seven persons, it must have six horses; a four-wheeled half-open carriage, much in use all over Italy, with two persons and one trunk, is allowed to travel with two horses.
"In the Neapolitan territories, a two-wheeled carriage, with two persons and one large trunk, is allowed to travel with two horses, with three persons and two large trunks, three horses; with four persons and two large trunks, four horses; but with six persons and two large trunks, six horses are indispensable."
- ↑ The distance between posting-stations all over Italy ranged from eight to ten miles. Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 307.
- ↑ Travels, ii, 76.
- ↑ Voyage en Italie, i, 6.
- ↑ Ibid., i, 5.
